Benny Down Under!

Yes Brian, what an exhibition of hitting by not only Benny, but there was Fukuura, Nabe, big Val, Matt Franco, and all the others. Wow, can these guys hit! We were very privileged and fortunate to see the great Marines train for 18 days, and they are so professional and great ambassadors for their organisation.

We hope they come back next year.

You talk about the big hitting guys from the Chiba Lotte Marines. What about the big hitting Australian team who kicked their butts twice and got 17 hits the 1st game? They should sign Brett Roneberg who lead the Olympics in home runs in 2004 and hit 2 home runs against the Marines in the 2 games.

Australia continues to dominate against Japan.

Why don't the Japanese hire the Australian manager? He looks to have the recipe of beating the Japanese. He did it twice in Athens against an all-star lineup, and he has beaten the Japanese champions on back to back days.

Does anyone know who he is? Someone should hire him.

I'd hardly consider a practice game to be of as much importance as a World Series. Didn't Australia light up guys like Katoh? I know Chiba didn't have many good pitchers, because most were picked by Oh for the WBC.

I shouldn't have even replied to this post, because it's obviously just screaming for attention. Anyway, you can come back when Australia hits 17 off of Watanabe, Shimizu, Koba-Hiro, Koba-Masa, Fujita, and Yabuta IN THE REGULAR SEASON. Until then, you should study up on how pointless practice games are from a competitive standpoint.

Ditto.

Let's not forget that the likes of Ichiro, Iguchi, and Matsui (though he won't be at the WBC either) weren't at the Olympics.

You talk about all the Japanese guys not at the Olympics. Australia had a bunch of big leaguers not there, also. Balfour, Moss Blackley, Snelling, Huber. You are missing the point, Australia beat the Japanese team who had a $100 million payroll with a group of young guys who's minor league payroll was about $100k.

Australia had a group of young kids who beat them up. Noone is talking about the World Series. Their Rookie of the Year got crushed, so did their import Beirne.

- Let's not forget that the likes of Ichiro, Iguchi, and Matsui (though he won't be at the WBC either) weren't at the Olympics.

LOL. Well isn't it lucky they weren't - then the defeats would have been even more humiliating.

It's not Australia's fault Japan couldn't field their best team. The Aussies just beat the team in front of them on the day (twice). Can't ask for any more than that.

And they could have carried off the gold too, if things had gone their way in the final. They gave Cuba a run for their money.

I doubt Chiba's salary is more than $30M, but yeah, more Aussies in various capacities in NPB would be good for baseball in the Asia-Pacific as a whole.

Sometimes I honestly wonder why some of you post on a site called JAPANESEbaseball.com, you know that? I guess some of you have nothing better to do than try and cut down other cultures.

I acknowledge Australia beat Japan fair and square in the Olympics, mostly due to Oxspring and Williams. What I don't acknowledge is that beating Kevin Beirne (4-13 record last year) and inexperienced youngsters in the first practice game of the year is this huge feat. Talk about grabbing for anything to try and cut down yakyu.

Get off your superior gaijin high horse. It's getting old. As a guy who was raised in both Japan and the USA, I get tired of your armchair athlete arrogance.

I can remember the games between Japan and Australia in the Olympics. An abysmal team (Australia) beat an utterly abysmal team (Japan). But too many people are making too much of a practice game against second stringers - it means nothing. Don't get too excited about this.

- An abysmal team (Australia)

Well just missing out on the gold medal hardly qualifies them as "abysmal." The best of the best weren't there, but were the Olympic silver medalists truly abysmal? Given their line up, I think they over-achieved!

BTW I'm not an Ausie. I share your sentiments and most of the others posters about practice games though! Don't read too much into that stuff.

Just the games against Japan. If you didn't see these you were very lucky.

Come on you guys, lighten up will you? As an Aussie, I know we're not the world's biggest baseball power. But it sure is fun reminding everybody that we are the current Olympic silver medal holders. It's all done in a ligthearted manner - at least that's how I hope my posts are coming across. Don't take everything so SERIOUSLY.

I say we break out the pitchforks and torches.

Take that with a laugh - it's a joke.