Has Japan Become America's Farm Team? (In Baseball, That Is)
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As Matsuzaka signs a huge contract with the Boston Red Sox, some Japanese fans worry about losing all their superstars. Others are just proud
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Maybe they should play the rest of their home games at the ballpark over at Coney Island, because their own place suddenly has become a House of Mirrors. The Yankees lose the World Series here. They get shut out in the Division Series opener here. They squander a 5-3 lead late in Game 2 against the Twins ...
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Pro sports can seem driven by commercialism, as team owners lust after fancy new stadiums, fans jeer losers and true believers seem quaint. Then there's Red Sox Nation, an island that seems almost immune to modern sports marketing. Now the club is cashing in on its World Series championship.
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The Yankees and Mariners have become the first major league teams to sign Chinese players, so could baseball's version of NBA superstar Yao Ming be on deck? Unlikely, for reasons that are varied and complicated.
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FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Hideki Okajima is not the only former reliever for the Yomiuri Giants trying to win a spot in the Red Sox bullpen, although as COD (Countryman of Daisuke), he has a considerably better chance of making the club than does Bryan Corey , whose experience (18 teams in 12 years) has taught him always to keep ...
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They were in Arizona and Oregon, just drafted or soon to be, their memories of the 2004 World Series faint or nonexistent. They were not part of it then, just minor leaguers struggling to make the majors, not yet daring to think of pennants and prizes. Not yet thinking of themselves as Red Sox, a team that made history that ...
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Major League Baseball is moving the Montreal Expos to Washington DC The city has been without a Major League team since the Senators team moved to Texas and became the Rangers in 1971.
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LET&#39;S just suppose the Yankees don&#39;t win the World Series next October. What would George Steinbrenner do then? Would there be any superstars left for him to add to his roster, which is already loaded with them?
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The strange, mystical adventures of Daisuke Matsuzaka continue. Japan's megastar, who was anointed as a favorite son in this foreign town because of his array of mesmerizing pitches, his tantalizing potential, and his role as one of the X factors in negating the surging New York Yankees, remains impossible to predict.
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The Sporting News - Rockies hitters. Daisuke Matsuzaka will run up a high pitch count if the Rockies let him. If they swing early in the count, that means they're pressing. The temptation to do too much will be there since they've been struggling -- and since this will be the first World Series game at Coors Field.
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There will be a strange phenomenon in spring training this year. Camps will be full of players who have been named in the Mitchell Report. They will play among players who weren't caught and maybe never will be caught. They will play alongside players who never used. They will play among players who might still be using HGH because there's ...
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Matsui had made 1,251 consecutive starts with the Yomiuri Giants in his native Japan and has played in all 322 games with the Yankees over the last two seasons...Bush&#39;s previous long outing was an eight-inning stint against Oakland on July 20, in which he
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Japan and the United States reached an agreement this morning that will allow the export of some American beef. The Japanese halted trade after a case of mad cow disease in Washington state last December, but now they have agreed to do business again.
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New York Post - The question on every Yankee fan's tongue is this: Will adding Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright be enough to lead the Bombers to their first World Series title since 2000?
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Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino acknowledges that there is a chance the team could open the 2008 season in Japan, giving Japanese fans a chance to see native son Daisuke Matsuzaka perform in a major league game. Certainly, he said, the club is willing to do so.
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The odds are overwhelmingly against them. For every Abe Alvarez , who made a cameo at Fenway Park in July just 13 months after the Red Sox drafted him out of Long Beach State, there are dozens of top-rate college pitchers who will toil in the farm system and never reach the majors.
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TOKYO, Japan -- Japanese baseball players have gone on strike for the first time in the 70 year history of the game after last minute talks ended without an agreement.