Tigers Tour: Game 5

You know, if you really wanted to post comments of your little tour, then I would suggest you do so at some Tigers' forum. This is a discussion site, not a tour guide.

Actually, I wish I had six correspondents who could type up a game review every night.

For what its worth I appreciate your posts! Don't let mariner get to you! Thanks very much!

With all due respect, Mr. Westbay, you seriously can't possibly expect people here to read a game report that doesn't involve Hanshin or Yomiuri. Those correspondents would just be wasting their times.

- This is a discussion site, not a tour guide.

What would you like to discuss? If it's a topic I know about and, more importantly, have something valid to say on, I'd be happy to join the discussion.

Strangely, unless you're "Mariner Fan" and have recently abbreviated your handle, this Google search doesn't turn up many discussions featuring the name "mariner".

Oh please, if this person wasn't doing this tour guide about your Tigers, you would care even less about what he's doing than I do. The only thing our guide here is doing is appeasing to his fellow Torakichi boys.

I'm not sure what your point is; could you clarify?

If your beef is that there is so much Tigers traffic on these boards, is the answer not for fans of other teams to post more about their teams rather than limiting discussion about the Tigers? Sure, some of us might not care about those posts, but we won't criticise the authors for writing them. (If that's not your beef, then please ignore the foregoing.)

What would you prefer he wrote?

Please continue posting Vir4030, these are interesting comments and actually inspire me to post comments on the next game I go to.

Mariner - if I may offer a bit of advice. It is always wise to think before you post. I take it that you are not a Yomiuri or a Tigers fan. That's not a problem, but others are. In fact a fair portion of this site consists of Yomiuri or Tigers fans and this reflects the reality of Japanese baseball. You may not like this but this is the reality. Now if someone wants to report games on this site that's OK - even if it's nothing to do with the Tigers or Giants. Maybe you could post reports on Carp games?

However, your current contributions offer nothing to the subject. You also have the option of not reading the posts - perhaps this would be better. I might argue with others because I am expressing my view and it might be different, but I never dispute that others have the right to their views or even to introduce a topic. I also accept that I might not want to read about a topic, video games for example, but others do. I just don't read the posts I have no interest in. I suggest you adopt the same approach.

- I take it that you are not a Yomiuri or a Tigers fan. That's not a problem, but others are. In fact a fair portion of this site consists of Yomiuri or Tigers fans and this reflects the reality of Japanese baseball.

I do accept the fact that those two, for better or worse, are the two most popular teams in Japan. I know that. The point I'm trying to make is that I really figured I would see posts about other teams from time to time. So far, that really hasn't been the case.

You cannot tell me that the people in this forum did not give a rat's tail about Oh-kantoku going into surgery for a possible cancer. He was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) players of all time, and he has done an excellent job turning around the Hawks. It took a while for anybody to relay the news to this website, however. I'm afraid to say, the lack of attention on that topic was due to the fact that he managed the Hawks, a provincial team based in Kyushu, not Tokyo or Osaka.

Maybe now our tour guide will get more attention, now that I've advertised it (in a rather poor way, I admit). I should point out that not too many people had come out to support what he was doing before I protested his work.

To put it another way, I'll use a quote from the movie Collateral: "Guy gets on the MTA here in L.A. and dies. Think anybody'll notice?" It would almost be the same thing with me if I really were to write a report on a Carp game, home or away. If a guy goes to a Carp game and decides to write about it on this website, do you really think anybody will notice? Unless there are a few hardcore Carp fans that I don't know about, then the answer would more than likely be no.

I think that there are two points to this problem (or misunderstanding) here:

1. Over 90% of the people in the forums don't express an opinion.


2. An article about the Tigers is no more or less valuable to the site than an article about the Carp.

The first one is obvious with many people reading the Tigers Tour reports, but having little or nothing to say about them. It's only when poked with the prospect of losing such reports that many people speak up.

The second point isn't as obvious. For some reason, many people think that this is a commercial site, and that I somehow get paid. There are no advertisements on this site, so hit count for a popular thread (like Tigers reports) have absolutely no more or less value than an unpopular thread (like a Carp report).

This is an all volunteer effort. People post their observations as per their interests. One good example is Brooks-san who posts links to related news stories in English from all over the Internet so that people don't have to go out and look for them themselves.

I belive that I'd said this before (I don't often repeat myself in a thread), but when someone has the time to write a series of original pieces, I'm very happy to host them. It doesn't matter to me what team or player that person focuses on. It's a slice of history that may (or may not) have some significance someday that isn't obvious now.

Oh-kantoku's situation is important. And arguably more so than some guy's Tiger tour. But to forbid the tour reports completely because Oh-kantoku has been admitted to the hospital (and is expected to be there a month, from my limited - and perhaps incorrect - understanding) just doesn't make any sense to me. That would be like CNN excluding all other news because a huricane hit - unacceptable. Other events continue happening. They also need a written record.

Has anyone else noticed that, after the announcement of Oh-kantoku's hospitalisation, the news media has carried virtually no mention of his progress? The sports news is just the same as always: a round up of the day's baseball, sumo, soccer, and golf.

I think the lack of traffic about Oh-kantoku on this site mirrors that of the media.

I assume our guest Mariner is being forced to read this thread at gunpoint. Otherwise it's hard to understand what he's going on about. Most of us simply ignore something we don't wish to read.

I am not a Giant or Tigers fan, as you might guess, but I am enjoying the Tigers' game summaries, and I enjoy the JBD summaries of each day's games (even the Carp - BayStars games) because - I like the Dragons, and I also like baseball. Liking one team does not preclude interest in others or in players of other teams.

Even better, it is actually possible to more or less keep tabs on the whole league in Japan, or even both leagues. Where I would have 30 teams to keep track of in the majors, here I have 12, so six games at most. Having at most only six summaries to read is a luxury, in this sense.

I don't like the Tigers, and I wouldn't read a Tigers-only (or excessively Tigers-heavy) site, but I don't mind a few paragraphs that are balanced and mention the opposing team.

I like some Tigers players - that's possible too, even as a fan of another team. So I'm interested in knowing what's up with them. Sheets rocks (what'd he do to get tossed?). I would like to see Igawa with another team. I dislike what Kanemoto does to the Drags at times, but I still want to know what he's doing.

And of course there's always an added bonus when the Tigers lose!

I will continue to post them. I'm only here for these nine games, so there are only three more to go.

I have gained much value from reading others' posts on these boards, as well as from the resources linked to from the website. I greatly appreciate Mr. Westbay's efforts, and am happy to help in any way that I can.

I recognize that it is appreciated by some and not by others, but that is the way with everything in life. Even if only one or two people will read and enjoy these game reports, I consider my efforts worth it.