Japanese Major League Players

I believe a lot of Japanese baseball fans are all excited. The season for Major League is around the corner. Several top Japanese pros have joined the Major League this season. Everyday we watch TV to check how they are doing over there. We expect them to show a good performance and let all the baseball fans in the world know how wonderful the Japanese "yakyu" is.

We love to see the Japnese pros playing among the Major Leagures. Then, are you interested in who uses what brand?

Pitchers
Masumi KUWATA Pirates: World Pegasas
Takashi SAITO Dodgers: SSK
Masanori OHTSUKA Rangers: Zett
Shinji MORI Devil Rays: Zett
Hideki OKAJIMA Red Sox: Rawlings
Tomokazu OHKA Blue Jays: Zett
Kei IGAWA Yankees: Zett
Daisuke MATSUZAKA Red Sox: Nike

Batters
Sou TAGUCHI Cardinals: Mizuno
ICHIRO Mariners: Mizuno (shoes: Asics)
Hideki MATSUI Yankees: Mizuno
IGUCHI White Sox: Rawlings
Kazuo MATSUI Rockies: Nike
Kenji JOJIMA Mariners: Nike
Akinori IWAMURA Devil Rays: Nike

Judo and Judogi

I wrote about the baseball gloves made in Japan, which are more expensive than the gloves sold in the U.S. I was kind of desparate, because every sporting goods made in Japan seems to be selling with higher prices. I have been looking for something that is relatively cheaper with high quality. I found one thing! Judogi made in Japan!

It is well known that Judo is one of Japanese specialities. I think Judo is the king of the Japanese martial arts. However, Judo is less popular than other athletic events, such as baseball, football and tennis among the young Japanese. These days Judo population is getting smaller and smaller in Japan...! I heard more Europian people are attracted to Judo and its population is quite big. Why is that? Here is my opinion. Judo requires hard training and strict formalities and manners. No showy performances. It is awesome to see well trained works in silence. That is THE beauty of Japanese culture! But I guess these things are not as much attractive as other Western sports to the Japanese young boys and girls. It is sad in a way...

Well, go back to Judogi. We make good judogi's. I believe it is the highest quality in the world. And good news is the price is reasonable, compared with those of other foreign countries ( I mean the same products). If you want, you can put your name translated in Chinese characters with embroidery. It must look cool! If you are interested in Mizuno Judogi, please look at the "Yawara" section of my home page.

Homepage: http://homepage2.nifty.com/us-sports/

Descente Best Selection 2007 Quick 100
Making uniforms for your own team is a lot of fun. But it takes time to choose style, colors and marking for the cap, shirt and pants. There are so many different kinds on catalogs. You need to hear your teammates' opinions in order to make everybody happy when they wear the team's new uniform. A lot of thinking.

The Japanese sports wear manufacturer, Descente offers very easy and quick baseball uniform order system called "Descente Best Selection Quick 100". The steps are;
1st step: Quick to decide the design of the uniform based on your team color.
There are 100 different design combinations for a cap, shirt and pants. You choose one of them based on your team color.
2nd step: Quick delivery. When you place the order, you will know the date of delivery.
3rd step: Quick calculation for the cost. The price for a set of the uniform shirt+pants+cap is fixed, 14,490yen including marking.

This order system is very popular among Japanese amature ballplayers. Quick, easy, original and reasonable. Of course high quality of materials. New sweet uniforms would bring good teamwork to your team!

Homepage: http://homepage2.nifty.com/us-sports/

Mizuno Repair Service; Workshop Car

As I wrote before, baseball gear is pretty pricey. That not the kind you buy every three months or six months. Especially once you get the gear which you can use as a part of your body, you want to use it as long as possible. You take care of it for yourself. But sometimes it would need professional hands to fix or repair. Repairing a hole on the glove, changing the web of the glove, replacing spikes of the shoes・・・. Sometimes repairing costs as much as buying a new one.

As some of you may already know, Mizuno provides a repair service, so called "Mizuno Baseball Workshop". In the U.S. the blue Mizuno Workshop car drives around and visits Major League spring camps to repair players' baseball goods. This service keep them in the best condition for the coming season.

The blue car comes to our shop one a year too. The picures show one of the best Mizuno craftmen, Mister Aoki is repairing our customers' gear on 13th January of this year. He fixes any kind of tears, rips, and slits on gloves. One of high-school student brought in his really worn out glove with a big rip and asked for repair. Mister Aoki looked at it and he started fixing it. He took the glove apart, turned it inside out, sewed the torn part with sewing machine, and put it togehter by lacing. That was pretty fast! That was a magic! The glove was reborn by his hands. The student was very happy and thanked Mister Aoki very much.

Well kept gear helps ballplayers' performance. If you need some help to keep your baseball gear in good condition, one of our staff member who is certified as a Mizuno repairman would be willing to be of help.

Can a pair of socks make a difference in your performance?
Ballplayers pay a lot of attention to their gloves, bats, spikes when they play in games and daily practice. How about socks? In Japan not only amature but also professional ballplayers have fell in love with the Japanese style socks with 5 toes.

Why are they so good? Because the five toes of your foot are separated, you can grab the ground firmly with your 5 toes. That prevents your body from losing its balance and power. I believe all serious ballplayers may understand this feeling easily. In addition to this feature, this 5-toe socks keeps your foot very dry. You know how uncomfortable it is to play with your foot sweaty and sticky・・・!

5-toe socks are little more expensive than the regular type of socks. The harder you grab the ground, the easier the tip of toe part will break. But once you try these on, you would think they are reasonable. Major baseball manufacturers sell them. Economy packs are available too. The price is 1050yen for 2 pair-pack (Mizuno), 1575yen for 3 pair-pack (SSK) . If you would like to try them, let me know!

2007 Baseball Catalogs
These are the new 2007 catalogs published by the major Japanese baseball manufacturers.

To start playing baseball, you need to prepare basic goods. A glove to catch a ball. A bat to hit a ball. A cap and a helmet to protect your head. Maybe a pair of spikes to run around the diamond. Baseball needs different kinds of goods and equipment.

That is why ballplayers love to look at the items on catalogs in details. I know one guy who has been playing baseball since he was a little boy. He spends hours and hours to look at page to page of the catalog. He says it is fun to spend time imagining himself playing with a sweet glove and other nice things. As the quality of baseball goods makes a lot of difference in his performance, he should be picky in choosing what he uses.

The above catalogs are all in Japanese. But they carry many pictures of each manufacturer's original products which you would enjoy looking at. They are like a treasure box for ballplayers.

Homepage http://homepage2.nifty.com/us-sports/

Hanshin Tigers!!!!!!!!!!!!
As well known by WBC(World Baseball Classic), there are many baseball ("yakyu" in Japanese) fans in Japan. We love to watch Major League games because of several Japanese Major Leaguers' great performance. Major League baseball is tremendously dynamic and powerful. Actually many Japanese professional baseball players have a dream to play in Major League.・・・But still we love the Japanese baseball "yakyu".

There is one professional baseball team named "Hanshin Tigers" which located in Kobe-Osaka area. (Well, this name is of course came from "Detroit Tigers". It's a copy! Cute, isn't it?!) This team has been supported by great many fans for many years. The team's lucky colors are yellow and black, the color combination of tiger fur. Fans put something black and yellow on when they go to the games. This team is loved by real fans. But one sad thing was ・・・they couldn't win. Even they win one game, they couldn't win two games in a row. They always ended up with the B class every season , which made their fans very sad and miserable.

Several years ago finally the top people of the team did something to make the team strong, "restructuring"! They were tired of being beaten. The changes started appearing little by little. Their performance was getting better and better. They even won 7 games in a row. The fans went crazy. Then the Hanshin Tigers became the Champion of the Central League in 2003 after 18 years of suffering. I think it is very easy to imagine how happy their fans were with this triumph. Here is a commemorative golden glove for the honor. The golden glove! Isn't this something?