|
The Ballpark
|
| Fukuoka Dome |
| Address: See above |
| Telephone: 092-847-1006 |
| Fax: |
| Dimensions: LF 328 CF 400 RF 328 |
| Capacity: 48,000 |
| Comments: The dimensions aren't all that
imposing by themselves, but the 18 foot high |
| walls make it a bit tougher to get the ball out
of the park.Lanky righthander Kazumi Saito |
| pitched like an all star, but not an NPB all
star, but a guy who should have been starting |
| the one in MLB. With Daisuke Matsuzaka leaving
Seibu, Saito is now the best pitcher |
| in Japan. Yes, even better than Koji Uehara. And Nagisa Arakaki is
finally coming into |
| his own, though he was hindered by appendicitis in September. But other
than those two |
| men, this was a season of nasty suprises for the Hawks. Toshiya Sugiuchi
left his fastball |
| back in the WBC. D.J. Carrasco pitched like what he was before coming
to Japan, a Kansas |
| City Royal, and that ain't good. Nobuhiko Matsunaka experienced a big
decline in his |
| homer output, though he did just about everything else well, including
playing a |
| suprisingly adequate leftfield. Julio Zuletra played a largely dubious
first base and his |
| swing was long in the first part of the season as teams chose to pitch
around Matsunaka |
| and proved that to be a largely successful strategy. Manager Sadaharu
Oh came down |
| with cancer and had his stomach removed. They faded in the last two
weeks of the |
| schedule and slotted in at third. But things brightened up a bit in
the offseason when they |
| got third baseman Hiroki Kokubo back, thereby filling what had been
a black hole |
| for them. Now if they can just find someone to provide some pop in
one of the corner |
| outfield position and somehow generate something out of the areas
vacated by |
| Kenji Johjima and Tadahito Iguchi they would be set. |
