Watching the Central League battle its Pacific counterpart has long been the main attraction of the Nippon Professional Baseball All-Star Game. While interleague play has diluted the novelty of seeing the league's battle, the story this year revolved around a few likely reluctant teammates.
Hokkaido Nippon Ham's Hichori Morimoto, middle, clowns around Orix's Greg LaRocca and teammate Atsunori
Inaba after putting on a conehead headgear at Friday's pre-game ceremony of the All-Star Series at Tokyo
Dome.
KYODO PHOTOAt this year's Gulliver All-Star Series the Pacific League squad featured members of the Chiba Lotte Marines and Orix Buffaloes sharing the same dugout, four days after the two teams came to blows during a game. Even more interesting was that the principle figures in that fight, Orix's Tuffy Rhodes and Greg LaRocca and Lotte's Tomoya Satozaki were all present.