Both Kyuji Fujikawa and closer Tomoyuki Kubota have rejoined the top team. The latter is a real suprise, but that may reflect the sense of urgency that manager Akinobu Okada, who is taking a lot of heat from fans right now, is probably feeling. 

Special adviser Senichi Hoshino made a wry observation on his homepage, joking that Waseda Jitsugyo High School pitcher Yuki Saito's habit of taking a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his face while on the hill will be imitated by some pitcher in the pros because he thinks it looks cool. Actually, it strikes me as something out of an earlier era, but Hoshino said it would "interesting" to see a pro imitating a high school player. 

Scout and adviser Tom O'Malley is reportedly going to get the boot after this season. Hello Cincinnati, this is the guy you might want to hire to help your international scouting.  . 

Hiroshima First basemanm Kenta Kurihara is gone for the season due to herniated fourth and fifth vertebrae after he was exmined by doctors. He will have surgery on them Wednesday. That's rough. 

Yakult Shortstop Shinya Miyamoto will be out at least 2-3 weeks after being diagnosed with a minor left calf pull. That has caused the press to run headlines that indicate that Miyamoto might be done for the season, but I don't know why they think that way. The Swallows schedule always runs into October due to mid-summer rainouts. 

Team president Yoshikazu Tagiku, after noises were made earlier in the season about retaining all three of its foreign position players and at least Rick Guttormson among the pitchers may have reversed himself on that, as he is quoted in Sankei Sports as saying that he isn't currently thnking about bringing any of them back, though leftfielder Alex Ramirez is on a two year deal and will probably be in a Swallows uni in 2007. First baseman Adam Riggs is about to reach 30 homers and Guttormson has an ERA under 3.00. Second baseman Greg LaRocca's power output was disappointing plus he will undergo a knee procedure soon. Dicky Gonzalez has also not lived up to expectations. 

There is certainly a possibility that some of this could be posturing to maybe get their agents to be less demanding at contract time. Just Guttormson alone would be a nice pickup for somebody. So we'll have to see if this changes. 

Yomiuri Rookie lefthander Takanobu Tsujiuchi is schedueld to start Tuesday in the Eastern League, his first outing since suffering a shoulder inflammation back on June 30th. 

Manager Tatsunori Hara was at a game started by Masumi Kuwata agianst Yakult's minor league affiliate and the righthander hurt his back while fielding a ground ball and had to come out early. Hara made noises about bringing Kuwata up later when he is ready, but this has to another nail in the coffin for Kuwata's career. Kuwata himself has reportedly said that if the Giants let him go he will try to catch on with another team. 

Yomiuri is said to be considering making Kuwata a coach. 

Outfielder Yoshiyuki Kamei also played in that game and homered as part of a three hit, two RBI afternoon. 

Koshien Tournament I couldn't watch the second half of the Waseda Jitsugyo High vs. Komadai Tomakomai High game in all of its entirety because of a server crash at Asahi TV, but Komadai didn't get its threepeat, absorbing a 4-3 loss at the hands of 5'9" 154 pound righthander Yuki Saito and teammates for Waseda's first ever Koshien summer tournament crown. It was their 27th try at it since 1915. 

Waseda went out to a 1-0 lead in the first when starter Shota Kikuchi walked centerfielder Keisuke Kawanishi  on five pitches. He was cut down attempting to steal second. But third baseman Tatsumi Koyanagi grounded behind second for an infield hit. First baseman Kojiro Higaki walked. Shortstop Takashi Goto mishit a 3-1 pitch and grounded to third baseman Tadao Mitani, who could have stepped on third and thrown to first for an easy double play. However, he went to second with it for the force and the inning continued. Leftfielder Osamu Funabashi singled to center to plate Koyanagi. Masahiro Tanaka replaced Kikuchi on the mound to face Saito, who got a heater up in his wheelhouse and lined it to left, but right at leftfielder Naoki Okagawa. 

Waseda grabbed another run in the second, as second baseman Hirotaka Naito walked and was bunted along to second. One out later, Kawanishi sliced a shot down the leftfield line for an RBI double to raise it to 2-0.

Saito was dealing the first four innings, permitting only one hit and 44 pitches. 

But in the fifth, Okagawa singled to left and, two outs later, second baseman Yamaguchi singled to center for Komadai's first threat of the day. Saito, though, struckout catcher Hide Kobayashi to maintain the 2-0 margin.

Saito would falter briefly in the sixth, however, as Mitani took him over the centerfield wall to trim it to 2-1. Saito put the next nine men away, all but one either via the whiff or something on the infield. Again, he is unflappable. 

Waseda grabbed that run back in the bottom half when Naito walked with two outs and catcher Shirakawa laced a double to left that Naito sped around the bases on to the plate to make it 3-1. 

Waseda enlarged that to 4-1 in the seventh, as Tanaka plunked Kawanashi, who was bunted to second. One out later, Goto singled to left to cash Kawanishi in.

Saito had calmly cruised through this outing and now it was winning time in the ninth. But Komadai shortstop Miki singled to left to begin the frame and first baseman Tatsuya Nakazawa absolutely crushed one over the leftcenterfield fence to tighten it to 4-3. No problem. Saito struck centerfielder Atsushi Honma out and l.ured Okagawa into popping up to second. Perhaps fittingly, that brought Tanaka up. The two battled for six pitches before Saito buried him with a 1-2 seventh pitch 90mph fastball on his 948th delivery of the tournament for a swing and a miss. Ballgame. 

Life can sometimes generate metaphorical moments and the confrontation with Tanaka was one of them. Tanaka came in the big name and by the end of it everything in the press and in the public imagination would be Saito, Saito, Saito. Like that at bat,. Tanaka had fanned on both the expectations for him coming in and on his team's quest to become the first school to take three consecutive summer Koshien Tourmaments in 73 years because a guy who wasn't really even on the radar screen when this all got underway had one upped him with dignity and skill uncommon to most schoolboys. Tanaka got leveled in just about every way imaginable and the strikeout was the final testament to that. 

Saito's 78 strikeouts is second most all time in summer Koshien annals and his 104 whiffs is also second all time for same year, of both spring and summer, Koshien meetings. The latter figure surpassed Daisuke Matsuzaka and Yutaka Enatsu, which is incredible company. 

He had reportedly complained that after Sunday's game that his arm "felt like it was going to fall off." But he took a high pressure oxygen treatment and also had some accupuncture and massage done and then had another oxygen treatment Monday morning. 

Saito is reportedly a big fan of Lotte's Tomohiro Kuroki and he also is said to have written in a paper in elementary school that he wanted to pitch for the Yankees. Perhaps to that end he has gone to english language cram schools and one of his teachers claims that he has a good handle on the language. 

Given this it would look like the Chiba Lotte Marines might have the inside track to getting Saito, but I have no idea if they are interested. Moreover, Lotte needs some lefthanded pitching help and some outfield power and Saito doesn't really fulfill any of those requirements. But having said that, his makeup and control are so attractive that I can see them taking him on. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Saito's favorite team is suppposedly Rakuten. He is characterized as being a serious guy and an honor student. 

Tanaka's stuff didn't have the crispness it did Sunday and that is understandable. He experienced some discomfort in his shoulder and had it taped up. He was clocked at a high of 88mph rather than 92mph and left numerous hittable pitches up in the zonr and resorted to more curve balls and changeups in order to try to keep things down, gleaning only four strikeouts as a result. His curve isn't bad, but his changeup is a non-starter as an instrument for the pros. He is better off throwing a split fingered fastball or a forkball instead. Plus he still has that tendency to have his left hip bail toward first base a little when he begins to push off the rubber and that has to be fixed or he will not have much of a career. He went 7.1 innings on four hits and three runs here. 

Total pitch count for the two games was Tanaka 249, Saito 296. Total game time was five hours and 33 minutes. Saito went 69 innings overall in seven starts. 

Oh, and Komadai's head coach had ulcer problems through the whole tournament. 

Monday's television ratings were down a bit compared to Sunday for the deciding game of the tournament because more people had to be at work, leading to Asahi tv's servers not being able to handle all the internet traffic, a lot of which was no doubt gnerated form office computers all over Japan. Nevertheless, the numbers were impressive, with NHK coming in at 23.8% for the Kanto region (Tokyo-Chiba-Yokohama, etc) while in Hokkaido, where Komadai Tomakomai High is, a 33.1% share was generated. Asahi TV drew 5.5% in the Kanto, which means that just under a third of the sets had the game on. 

As a final note, Nakazawa's blast was the 60th of the tourmanet, a new record. Make of that what you will. The old mark was 47. 

Total attendance for the tournament was 852,000, the first time in six years that they cracked the 700,000 barrier. The record is 929,000 in 1990. 

Neither Saito or Tanaka are through playing ball. Both have been selected for a Japanese high school all star team that will travel to the U.S. and play one from the U.S. If you get a chance, catch them. And tell the pro scout nect to you about Japan Baseball Daily and Basebal Guru.com.

The roster of that Japanese all star team is:

Pitchers: Yuki Saito (Waseda Jitsugyo High School), Masahiro Tanaka (Komadai Tomakomai), Ken Komatani (Fukuchiyama Seibi), Nagayasu Kinjo (Yaeyama Shoko), Masahiro Inui (Toyodai Himeji), Yodai Enoshita (Kagoshima Kogyo)

Catchers: Tesshin Samejima (Kagoshima Kogyo), Ryohei Hashimoto (Chiben Wakayama), Takuya Akiba (Nichidai Yamagata).

Infielders: Ryuya Nakazawa (Komadai Tomakomai), Ryosuke Hiroi (Chiben Wakayama), Kenshi Imayoshi (Kagoshima Kogyo), Takashi Goto (Waseda Jitsugyo), Ryo Hayashizaki (Toyodai Himeji), Koji Udaka (Imabari Nishi)

Outfielders: Yu Funabashi (Waseda Jitsugyo), Atsushi Honma (Komadai Tomakomai), Yuta Shiozawa (Teikyo)

Thanks to Deanna Rubin at Seattle Marinerds for helping me on transliterating some of the names. 

Miscellaneous Colorado shortstop Kazuo Matsui will be back in the big leagues beginning Tuesday, as he was elevated from AAA Colorado Springs. On the farm, the PL Gakuen High School product hit .281 with three homers and 16 RBIs in 30 games. 

Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui was examined by doctors again Monday and still hasn't yet received permission to hit using his injured lefthand. Godzilla says that he will wait until he is given the okay for trying to engage in ormal batting practice. 

Cubs farmhand Makoto Suzuki threw a scorelesss inning Monday down in AAA. 

Chicago White Sox second baseman Tadahito Iguchi was 2-4 against Minnesota Monday in a 7-3 defeat. 

The chairman of the Central League called chief of umpires Osamu Ino and seven other arbiters into his office and had a discussion about all the complaints over allegedly bad calls. He made it clear that he wants his on field officials to step it up performancewise. But he also reiterated that all judgements made on the field by the umpiring crew are final. 

Can somebody tell me what the hell was up with Ted Lilly that he showed up his manager like that? If I had given up seven runs in a game I would be grateful to be yanked. Was Lilly so greedy for a win due to incentive targets in his contract that he put himself above the team? I wish that Gibbons had cold cocked him. What a prick and what an approprate Moron of the Day. 

Boy, a five game sweep by the Yankees of the Red Sox. The Prozac consumption in Boston must have skyrocketed in the wake of that. Woof. 

My reaction to the manager slapping the kid for cursing during the Little League World Series? Who cares about the kid's utterance? This isn't something that the Little League babbits should be involved with. That is a matter for the parents to handle. So butt the hell out. 

However,. on the coach, he belongs in jail. He is an abuser. That the Little League authorities won't ban somebody who engages in an assault on a child on national freaking tv shows how screwed up their moral and legal priorities are. For all you youth coaches out there, if you don't like the way your players talk then go to theparents about it. It is not up to you to be their dad, capiche?