This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
Chunichi Dragons: Only pictures and a report are offered from the Dragons Official home page. If you can't read the Japanese font, then find the link towards the top of the page that has "2005" in it, and towards the end of the link in parenthesis you should see (2/1), (2/2), etc. for the daily reports. Just click on the link, and then click on the day you want to see, by finding the ('05.2.*) (YY/M/D) format at the end of the link.
Hiroshima Carp: Open up this link from the Carp official home page, and click on the first link under the "News-Headline" title. A new window will pop up, with a picture of the current conditions, and below the picture will be the Real Media logo. Click on that to connect and watch the Carp practice. (Must have Real Player installed to view.)
- The server seems to be busy most of the time, either from a small amount of connections available, or popularity. You can see an English message on the current conditions of the connection at the bottom of the window. On the first day of the video offering, the page had close to 50,000 hits. I still haven't been able to get a connection yet.
- Viewing times are from 10:00 - 16:00 Japan Time (17:00 - 23:00 PST US).
- There is also a calender beneath the video window, and if you don't see a number for the day of the month, that means the broadcast won't be running that day.
Softbank Hawks: Softbank has set up a special Spring Training Report, where they upload videos daily* of different training sessions. The videos are available in streaming format for Windows Media Player, at 100k or 300k, towards the bottom of the page.(* When there is no camp session the previous day, there will be no update.)
Nippon Ham Fighters: Nippon Ham is doing daily* updates to the team home page with video footage and pictures. Once you open up the link you should see a different picture daily of the Spring Training camp activities. Beneath the picture should be a little orange camcorder icon with Japanese writing next to it ("camp video can be found here"). Click on this button, and it will take you to the most current report, with video footage below the lead story, and pictures towards the bottom of the page.
(* When there is no camp session the previous day, there will be no update)
Chiba Lotte Marines: Reports and pictures can be found on the Spring Training section from the Official Home Page. The links are indexed by date, in (MM/DD) format.
If anybody else has relevant information on regularly updated pictures or video clips from Spring Training camps, please post the information here.