Frenetic Baseball

If you don't like it, go home. Nobody is making you go to games.

I think what Japanese baseball needs to improve the atmosphere is a good, thorough coating of Troll-B-Gone.

Baseball is part of the fabric in Latin America, too, but their version is not pastoral either. Theirs is a big party that's different from both the Asian take and the American original.

Japanese baseball is like a California Roll.

It sounds like you've only been watching Giants games. I get tired of some of the constant shouting at what are obviously routine plays as well. Luckily I live in an area where I can catch some games from Chiba, Yokohama, and Saitama as well. Trust me, those commentators aren't nearly as bad as the Giants games.

That is true, and I probably should have specified that my take on the game over here, is either from watching Giants games on the tube, or listening to them over the radio. It's good to learn that in the smaller market stadiums, the game is announced in a more relaxed manner, and maybe the guys in the booth don't have their ties snugged up so tight.

I grew up listening to Vince Sculley, need I say more? It would be interesting to ask the players which atmosphere they prefer to play in.

One thing is for sure, watching the Giants, aside from one or two players, nobody seems to be having much fun. All that yelling and incessant gabbing, and nobody on the home team looks to be much enjoying themselves, even when they are winning. It seems like an odd paradox!

As for the guy who said "go home if you don't like it," after my first post. The fact is that I live too far away from any stadium to attend the games, so I have to rely on the media for my play by play. Baseball is slow building drama, man, starting with the pitcher eyeing the sign, and if you don't know that, your blood pressure is probably a bit high. Salary man? Unfortunately, almost all the games broadcast in my area are Yomiuri ones.

And while I'm on the subject, what kind of professional sports program scheduling allows broadcasts to be cut off, no matter the situation in the late innings when the game is still going? Oh yeah, the broadcaster does apologize - how thoughtful!

Young-san,

Your complaints are very common for the newly inducted Pro Yakyu fan who doesn't have satellite or cable TV. Once you learn more of the history and governance of Pro Yakyu, you'll be even more anti-Kyojin than you're already becoming. You're joining just in time to witness the end of the Old Guard.

You need to get a system (satellite, cable, or ASDL TV package) that carries the various J-Sports channels, GAORA, and SkyA. Or get a SoftBank phone with unlimited packet use and sign up for Pro Yakyu TV (which carries all Pacific League games).

What you need is to immerse yourself in the Pacific League. Other than Orix, the Old Guard has gone from the PL and they're the movers and shakers.

You said you cannot take it anymore at the sixth inning, so please just watch your beloved MLB games then and stop making empty complaints about NPB games and the broadcasters. There is a mute button on your TV remote you know.

The fans in Japan really get into the game, it would be nice if people in the U.S. did that sometimes.

The commentary in the States is much more interesting and relevant? Please, for starters Buck and Carver have to be 2 of the worst baseball announcers I've ever heard call an MLB game. I'll admit that I don't watch many games on TV (as I go to them live for the most part), but when I do watch my BayStars on TV, the commentary is on point and interesting enough.

Seriously, I feel the same way. I usually had the mute button on while watching games in the States, because I couldn't deal with the retarded announcers. I don't mind them here, I like listening to their commentary, although to be honest, I too pretty much only see games when I'm actually at the stadium.

But anyone who says "the fans yell and scream too much" just plain doesn't get it. Well, I mean, he admits he hasn't been to a stadium here, but still. I love being a fan here. I feel so much more connected to the teams and the other fans here than I ever did in the States -- there's really so much more of a feeling of the fans being part of the team than I ever got over there.

Looks as if someone is home sick maybe? I am a bit home sick these days as I am not living in Japan, but YouTube and Yahoo! makes life slightly better, including this web site. Europe is far away from Japan, you know, and they don't even play baseball here. How do you think I feel? Haha.

I grew up in Japan and lived there most of my life, so Japanese baseball is what I am used to. Though I have very much respect for MLB and American baseball, Japanese baseball will always be my first choice. That's just the way it is.

Different countries, different styles. Learn to cherrish the difference. How boring it would be if Japanese baseball was exactly like American. It's the same in football/soccer. Different countries, different styles.

A lot of Japanese complain about the ouen thing, too. It started sometime in the late 1970s or early '80s? And it has just gotten bigger and bigger, proving that more people like it than the other way around.

The commentators are not bad at all. Some of them are quite funny. I do not think the commentators are worse on Giants games than other games either. On NTV the commentators are biased towards Giants, but on the local Hanshin games the commentators are much more biased towards Hanshin.

On Yahoo! what irks me is that terrible music they put on between batters on the Internet on Lotte games. It is not the stadium which puts on the music, but Yahoo! or the people broadcasting the game. It sounds like some muzac of some super market or department store out in the suburbs of Japan.

This TBS commentator [YouTube] is terrible, yet hillarious. Haha.

Quoting out of context:

[W]hat irks me is that terrible music they put on between batters on the Internet [...]

Ouch. I do that on my broadcasts so that there isn't any dead air. My first couple of broadcasts sounded ghostly without anything in the background, especially during long pauses between pitches and innings.

And I'm no better than the TBS announcer when it comes to babbling on about my pet peeves - like going full count so often. Or when Lotte's Kobayashi would come in to close the past couple of years how he always seemed to blow the save while I watched.

Well, at least I'm comparable to a professional.

Westbay,

At least your music is . . .

So when will Hanshin realize it's 2008, not 1978, and put their games on the web?

Dear Mr. Young,

If you do not like the Japanese Baseball TV and radio announcers, just turn it off. It's so easy. Do you have a remote control?

The baseball announcers in the States are much worse. I didn't watch the MLB All-Star Game this year because of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. They are terrible! I watch Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN because I like Jon Miller, but I do not like Joe Morgan. Vince Scully is OK, but he is kind of monotoned and boring. Plus he is getting too old. He should retire and give a young guy a chance.

If I don't like it, "just turn it off."

People who advise that take things too personally, and it doesn't make for debate or discussion. Oh, I forgot, in Japan everyone is taught to think the same or be considered a trouble maker, but I thought it was only nursery school where people hold hands and still sing "Satchan."

Another peeve is the way the camera is always showing the managers, how they are reacting to the game. I mean, once in a while is OK, but who cares about the personalities in the dugout?

In other sports besides baseball in Japan, TV commentary tends to be very biased when it is an international competition. The broadcasters seem oblivious to the fact that the viewing public is greater than only the local homies. I know, "Yankee go home." No, the drinking water is too good in Nagano.

I've given up on hearing any decent commentary for any over the air sport broadcast in Japan.

Horse racing is OK. They don't seem to much discriminate against the foreign ponies.

Being biased towards Japan in an international event is not strictly Japanese. In basically every European country they are biased towards their own country. To my knowledge basically every country in the world. Then again I have never watched international events on American TV so I am not sure how it is done over there. I was recently watching Euro Championships in football/soccer. Italian commentators are biased towards Italy and Spanish towards Spain, Germans towards Germany, and so on. Why should Japanese not want to cheer on their team?

What were the commentators like in WBC on US television? I am just curious. With all the outrageous calls going in favor of US against Japan and Mexico.

Cheering your own team good or not? The discussion refers to the broadcasters, and without getting into the virtues, or otherwise, of nationalism, there can be more people watching or listening to a broadcast than just the host country's patriots. Besides, it's sports, supposed to be the epidemy of fairness (haha), and "May the better individual or team win," as the mostly forgotten slogan goes.

Boxing broadcasts in Japan are particularly one sided, even though the guy from another country may be fighting his heart out. I don't know about Europe, but it's not that way in the U.S. I'll stick my neck out here, but I think it comes down to maturity of understanding, in terms of fairness towards what is taking place.

NBC's Olympic broadcasts are notoriously bad. They totally play up the American athletes complete with tear inducing back-stories (family member died, cat got cancer, etc.) and the target athletes are designed to win, and if they don't, NBC can't complete the storyline they drew out before the event took place. Actually, most NBC broadcasts are tape delays, so they get to edit it like a reality show.

It's so bad that many northern Americans prefer the CBC broadcasts because they have lots of live footage, and Canadian athletes often don't make it into the finals, making the broadcast of the finals of many events very neutral and fair without any rah rahing for Canadian athletes (which is pretty muted compared to bigger countries' broadcasts anyways).

I didn't see the Japan games against USA and Mexico, but I do know that ESPN sent their regular Sunday Night Baseball commentators, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, to do the play-by-play and color, respectively.

Miller is a lot of fun to listen to. He really does know baseball and always seems to have little anecdotes along with the sideline man, Peter Gammons. He also seemed to really try to get the pronunciation for the Japanese player names right. I struggled with Ogasawara (then of the Fighters, now of the Giants), and I actually got it somewhat right because of Miller!

Joe Morgan - well - if there was a contest for worst color commentary between him and Tim McCarver, it would be a virtual dead heat. Morgan is just plain awful. In fact, the day after every Sunday Night Baseball game that features the Red Sox, WEEI's morning show dedicates an entire segment to ragging on him and his idiotic quotes or mistakes. That's how bad Joe Morgan is.