Comment by DeOrio

November 29, 2007 @ 10:57 am

The poster in the post is last year’s, but it was the closest thing I could find - same match-up anyway.

Comment by Luke

December 1, 2007 @ 8:39 am

Thanks for the baseball update Chris. Any predictions on who might win next year or is it too early to tell at this stage?
Just remember that alcohol and sporting predictions are a sure fire recipe for egg on the face!

Comment by DeOrio

December 1, 2007 @ 10:31 am

Is the egg audible? Chris, that mic is better than we thought!

Alcohol and sporting predictions is also a sure-fire recipe for entertainment. Well, at least if you’re the one drinking at the time.

My prediction for next year: Having been gutted by the loss of two of their best players at pretty much the same time, Tokyo will pull together, add a healthy helping of guts, find what they’ve been missing over the past few years - cynics and materialists would call the mystical intangible “pitching” - and scrap their scrappy underdog way back to the top.

Other predictions for next year: TPR will make us millions and Luke will be elected Scottish premier.

Comment by Real J

December 1, 2007 @ 4:59 pm

I noticed 飛び出せ、ヤクルト　スワローズ！(”Tobidase Yakult Swallows”) as your theme music even for Japan Series between Chunichi and Hokkaido!
Are you so biased?

Comment by John S

December 2, 2007 @ 2:25 am

Real J, they;ve been using that music for every episode! I just think they don’t have anything else.

Guys, I’d love to hear a show with all the teams’ music and some of the stories behind it. Whaddya say?

Comment by Pellegrini

December 2, 2007 @ 3:23 pm

Real J,
Yes.

John S,
That’s a great idea, and we are currently in the planning stages on episodes for each individual team in NPB. The research for some of the teams is going to take a while, but I can assure you that we’re on it!

Thanks for listening, Real J and John S. Your comments are very much appreciated!

Comment by DeOrio

December 2, 2007 @ 5:32 pm

Real J, we are fantastically, completely, unabashedly biased Tokyo Swallows fans.

John S, is it OK if we put those shows together, but refrain from listening to one in particular ourselves. Maybe we can get subs in for that show.

Comment by Pellegrini

December 3, 2007 @ 2:36 am

Luke,
The pitching coach has me enthused, but I don’t know anything about the new manager.

However, that won’t stop me from making a prediction. I mean, after all, the only major predication I made all season that proved to be false was the Japan Series one. Although, admittedly, that was pretty big…

At this point it looks like the Swallows will finish 5th in the Central League. Aside from losing Ramirez and Greisinger, Ishii also went to the Lions. That’s our top two starters and our best offensive threat gone to other teams.

It hurts. It hurts very much.

If the new pitching coach can get the young arms in the bullpen under control, then I will happily revise my prediction upward.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Comment by Luke

December 4, 2007 @ 3:06 am

Wow sounds like there’s been a bit of an exodus at the Swallows, why? Can they not afford the wages demanded by their star players or are they moving onto better things?
Well, I’m going to throw my hat into the prediction ring. Although my predictions are based on hope more than expectation hence all the wildly optimistic football predictions over the years.
Anyway Waseda will beat Keio in so kei sen (gotta have an easy one to start with), I will fail in my bid to be Scottish premier (worst kept secret in Scottish politics) and Ricky Hatton will (hopefully) give Floyd Mayweather a good hiding on Saturday night!

Comment by DeOrio

December 4, 2007 @ 9:21 am

Luke, I think you’re the victim of anti-English discrimination in your political aspirations. I notice every Scottish premier has been Scottish. This will not stand. It’s time for progress.

I’m probably jumping the gun, but what the Swallows need is to be sold. They’re owned by a company run by an avid Yomiuri Giants fan, who sees Swallows championships as a liability because sales of lactic beverages might be hurt. The Swallows are still run in the old style, where the team is an advertisement for the company and not an entity run for its own benefit. If the Tokyo Swallows were a business unto themselves, or maybe owned by a modern, forward-thinking company, baseball would be a higher priority and the institutional changes the team desperately needs could be more easily made.

My fantasy would be to see the team really push the Tokyo idea - make sure they’re referred to as the “Tokyo Yakult Swallows” if they can’t simply be the “Tokyo Swallows” - root them in the city, market them as the city’s team in contrast to the Giants, who could be anywhere and like to call themselves “Japan’s team.”

If they can’t buy the stadium, at least try to strike a deal for improvements, possibly at the team’s expense. Install natural grass, update facilities, and aggressively play up the Jingu’s historical nature and prime location. With moderate changes, it could easily be the best venue for baseball in the country, even without sky boxes and all the extraneous crap pushed everywhere else. Jingu should be the Wrigley Field or Fenway Park of Japan.

The team also needs to make a push to get more coverage. Take the lead in fighting Yomiuri’s destructive stranglehold on Japanese baseball. If it’s impossible to break into the timid, boring mainstream broadcast media, cut a deal with one of the cable or satellite channels to broadcast every single Swallows game throughout Japan and, here’s the key, promote it nationwide. This will be expensive, but is the only way any team is going to rival the Giants, who, with the possible exception of the Hanshin Tigers, are the only team even attempting such a thing.
Why not be the first team to allow fans to sign up to watch every game on the Internet? It’s been done in major American sports leagues for years and, if I’m not mistaken, is becoming standard practice in major European football leagues as well.

Look to the rest of Asia. With baseball increasing both in popularity and in quality in South Korea, Taiwan, and even Australia, market the team in those countries. The NPB is a marquis league, more and more interest is coming from outside of Japan, position the Tokyo Swallows as the team that foreigners know and like.
Dare I say it? Do radio boradcasts of games in Chinese, Korean, and English.

Look into other avenues for marketing the team as well. Why not hire popular manga artists to create a series based on the team or on a fictional player for the team. The sports manga has long been a popular form of entertainment for young men, who would be the logical target market for a baseball team.

When I was a kid, the local drug store/supermarket chain, Jewel-Osco, gave away photos of Cubs and White Sox players, which were then stuck on the door of the room I shared with my brother. While I am by no means a die-hard Cubs fan - I don’t even live in Chicago and don’t catch every game on TV, radio, or Internet, I could not imagine supporting any other team.
Catch kids when they’re young and the team they support, even if they’re not hugely into sports, becomes as much a part of their identity as their home town or nationality.

Finally, be willing to spend money on the team itself to make money. Keeping producing star players can be profitable in its own right. More important, it can lead to success on the field, which makes the team more popular, increases attendance at games (it’s ridiculous that the infield stands are all but empty so often), and boosts merchandise sales.

More and better farm teams would also help the team produce good, solid players that they’d then have for nine years. Spend the money on youth development, too. Why not make Japan’s best baseball camp for kids or take an active role in supporting high school or Japan’s national youth team?

So, there it is, how to save and improve the Swallows. They can take that plan and run with it for free. Or they can be mediocre for a while, play second-fiddle to Yomiuri in Tokyo, maybe advertize some yogurt drink, and continue to disappoint the die-hards, who fondly remember the one decade when the team was any good and are the only people who watch the Swallows anyway, unless they’re playing the Giants, when the stadium sells out, which is embarrassing.

Comment by Luke

December 4, 2007 @ 4:58 pm

The Swallows are still owned by a Giants fan? I read about that in Robert Whiting’s book that you guys recommended (good read by the way) but thought that as the book is about 20 years old it wouldn’t be the case anymore. Wow!

Comment by DeOrio

December 4, 2007 @ 10:22 pm

Actually, I might have been mistaken there. Sumiya Hori is the owner, the CEO of Yakult. It appears he might have stepped into that role in ‘97 or ‘98.

Comment by Pellegrini

December 5, 2007 @ 9:57 am

Hori at the helm. Yomiuri fan or otherwise, he obviously doesn’t give a damn about the team he presides over.

With Greisinger, Ramirez and Kazuhisa Ishii finding new clubs to play for, the front office is probably just going to pocket the cash that they saved from the dissolution of those three contracts.

They should be sinking it straight into their farm team. I’m willing to endure one or two more seasons of misery if the team’s coaches and cash are hard at work recruiting and developing young talent. Long-term success should always be the goal.

“…what the Swallows need is to be sold.”

Yes, I still plan to own this team some day.

Comment by DeOrio

December 5, 2007 @ 10:57 am

I hope you do. I hope you’ll also consider implementing the above plan, or at least borrowing liberally from it.

Oh, and can we get rid of the ads on the uniforms? Embarrassing.