Ishii versus Ichiro

Since Ishii is from the Central League and Ichiro from the Pacific, they never met in regular season play. I'm sure they've faced each other in pre-season games, but I don't have any record handy of that.

What I do remember is that they met in the 1995 Nihon Series. Looking through my 1996 Record Book, I see that Ishii started Game 2 of the Nihon Series at Green Stadium Kobe. And to lead off the bottom of the first, Ishii hit Ichiro. Not an exciting start, but Ishii did get out of the inning without giving up a run.

After allowing a walk to Motonishi to lead off the third, Ishii got Ichiro to pop out to his back stop Furuta in foul territory. Motonishi made it around to third base on a steal and wild pitch, but he was stranded there.

Ishii, with 6 strike outs through four innings (1 run in the 2nd) ran into control problems in the 5th. Baba led off with a base hit to right. Nakajima laid down a bunt to move him to second. Motonishi followed with a line drive to right which moved Baba to third. On Ishii's second pitch to Ichiro, the ball got through (wild pitch) and Baba scored Orix' second run off of Ishii. Ishii went on to walk Ichiro and Fukui behind him before getting pulled for Miyamoto. Miyamoto struck out Taguchi (now with St. Louis) to retire the side.

That was the only game in the Series that Ishii threw in as Yakult took the Series 4 games to 1.

I'm sure that Ishii has also faced Ichiro in All Star games, but my records (the Record Books) aren't nearly as complete about who faced who. So I can't recreate the scene as well.

Well, hope this brought some interest to somebody. It was nice going back to that year. That was the first full year of Ichiro-mania in Japan. He was the first player to break the 200 hit barrier in 1994, making "Ichiro" a household word. The press reported daily during the off season what he had for lunch (which drove me crazy!) until the big Kansai earthquake in January ripped through Kobe. Orix, and Ichiro, did a great deal to bring that city back together, and their motto from 1995 was "Gambare Kobe."

For those of you new to Pro Yakyu, gambare litterally means "do one's best." Figuratively, it means "good luck."

Ichiro and the Orix BlueWave, with the city of Kobe behind them, beat out the exciting Chiba Lotte Marines being led by Bobby Valentine. They were heavilly favored in the Nihon Series, with the whole country rooting for them. Cheering for Orix was equated to chearing for Kobe's recovery. I recall Yakult losing a bit of business in the Kansai area with their victory. It was almost considered disrepectful of Yakult for winning.

1995 was also the year I started writing about Pro Yakyu on the Internet, greatly expanding my view of the game. And I took a couple of weeks off that year to get married as well, making it a very important year for me indeed.

Ichiro faced Ishii in the first inning of the third All-Star Game in 1999, and with one out, grounded to short with a runner on second. He also batted against Ishii in the seventh inning of the first All-Star game in 2000, and grounded into a double play with a runner on first base and no outs. These were the only times they faced each other in All-Star Games.