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Japan Times
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Sep 11, 2012

Darvish, others have decisions to make ahead of next WBC

The big news last week was that the Japanese Professional Baseball Players Association decided to compete in next year's World Baseball Classic.
EDITORIALS
Aug 19, 2012

Japanese heat wave

This summer has been one of the hottest on record. In Japan, the number of heatstroke victims hit record levels. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported July had the highest number of people taken to hospitals by ambulances for heatstroke ever, more than 21,000 people.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 12, 2012

Close call for Aizawa brings phrase into question

The Japanese translation of HBP, where a batter gets hit by a pitch, is "dead ball." I wish they would change that, eliminate the word "dead" and adopt the English phrase "hit by pitch."
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jul 10, 2012

Milledge coming through for Swallows after being moved to leadoff spot

Lastings Milledge nearly put a ball into orbit against the Chunichi Dragons on a cool night at half-full (at best) Jingu Stadium last Thursday.
BASEBALL
May 27, 2012

Injuries, departed players present challenges for Hawks early in season

The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks had hoped to absorb the loss of three top pitchers and their starting shortstop to free agency and maintain their high standards, but it appears the defending Japan Series champions may be sinking into mediocrity as the 2012 season approaches its one-third mark.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 25, 2012

Play reveals manzai's U.S. roots

Watching the fast-paced, two-person manzai routines that characterize much of Japanese TV comedy these days, it's difficult to imagine that two key influences on that genre's birth were stars of cinema's silent era: Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2012

'Potechi (Chips)'

Yoshihiro Nakamura is an odd man out among contemporary Japanese filmmakers. All of his films as a director, including his 2009 international breakthrough "Fisshu Sutori (Fish Story)," are intended first and foremost as entertainment, not art. At the same time, they are often philosophical investigations...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Apr 16, 2012

No changes to draft, posting system forthcoming says NPB commissioner

In October the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters pulled off a minor shocker by drafting highly-touted Tokai University pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 30, 2012

Cespedes, Colon help A's bounce back

Before Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes arrived in MLB, his highlight video made the rounds, showing the outfielder hitting homers, lifting weights and, oddly enough, standing beside a pig roasting on a spit.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / 2012 BASEBALL PREVIEW
Mar 26, 2012

Players still split about ball's effect on offense

It would be an understatement just to say there was a decline in offense in Japanese baseball last season.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 11, 2012

Young hopes bloom eternal

The first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake is a time to commemorate the victims of that terrible tragedy. But it is also an opportunity to look to the future.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 4, 2012

Stories inspired by Japan's March 11 disasters

Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction (Anthology of Japan Teen Stories), edited by Holly Thompson. Stone Bridge Press, 2012, 384 pp. , $14.95. Holly Thompson, a Kanagawa-based novelist, worked alongside other volunteers in the months after the March 11, 2011, tragedy, shoveling tsunami sludge, clearing away...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 26, 2012

Many NPB veterans hanging on too long

How does a professional baseball player know when it is time to retire?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 5, 2012

Yakushima free-stay takes some fearful turns

"Oh, if you want to pee you can just do it out the front door," my host Yuki says as he gives me an introductory tour of the house and points out the powder room — merely a pit with a long drop and an unconnected toilet pedestal covering the hole.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2012

Axed Giants general manager Kiyotake, Yomiuri face off in court

Both sides stood fast at their first court session Thursday as former Yomiuri Giants general manager Hidetoshi Kiyotake maintained his firing was illegal while the Yomiuri group countered that his public criticism of the team's chairman was defamatory.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan