Running of the Carp Lost in Translation

Jim Allen's weekly Hot Corner at The Daily Yomiuri this week discusses Carp camp under Brown-kantoku for a second spring. Unlike last year when Brown-kantoku was busy evaluating players on the field and not running his team nearly to the extent that they've run in the past, the Carp were on the road from day one. Brown's predecessor, Koji Yamamoto, interpreted that to mean that Brown-kantoku has caught on quickly to the Japanese way of training. But Brown-kantoku's message was a little different:

"The players are in shape. That's not the issue," Brown said. "The message being, 'You all completed this together.' They all went through this conditioning program and...they're still sore. But...everyone was sore. Everybody got through it. But now we move forward, and get into baseball stuff."

The purpose was not lower-body building, but team building. Despite a national mantra of chanting "team play is the essence of success," teams find it a challenge to be together. The need to have pitchers near the bullpen and position players on the field creates a centrifugal force that splits squads apart. In some teams' camps, bullpens are so far from the main ground, you need a car to get there.

Brown-kantoku goes on to illustrate a number of other translation/interpretation misses that occurred last season, so he plans on watching what he says a little more this year.