Y'all ready for this? More Japanese Pro Baseball news. To follow up on my previous post, Valentine and his Marines won the inaugural Asia Series cup against top teams from Korea, Taiwan, and China. After getting into Japanese baseball since my trip to Japan I'm convinced that such international competitions (i.e. the World Baseball Classic) could be really great for the sport. Studying baseball in Japan certainly helped increase my interest of it in the States, at least a little bit. In more Valentine news, he recently re-upped with the Marines for 3 years, which seems like a very smart move for both of them. I'm interested to see if Valentine can repeat the success that he's had this past year. Can he keep it up, or did he just get lucky? We'll find out.
Also, Kenji Jojima (formerly of the Softbank/Daiei Hawks) signed with the Seattle Mariners this week. Big surprise there, as of course the Mariners are owned by former Nintendo Chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi and has had big success with Japanese ballplayers in the past. My impression of Jojima was that he was like a Japanese Mike Piazza- an elite slugging catcher who has a lot of charisma and has been fairly famous outside of sports. Of course, seeing how he is the first "import" catcher, effectively communicating with his English-speaking pitching staff could be a real problem. But definitely keep an eye on this guy- he's got the skills and the look to make as much of a splash as Ichiro if he succeeds.