Valentine called a team meeting and urged his players not to become complascent. "If we do the same things over and over, we will regress," he pointed out. "I want to show Australia a team that is the best in the world," he enthused at one point. One wonders if he has gotten a gander at Baseball Prospectus' excellent simulation of a White Sox-Marines faceoff for true world supremacey, with the pale hose prevailing in five games. 

Submariner Shunsuke Watanabe revealed that he his attempting to raise his velocity for the WBC.The problem with that, though, was that the last time he was obsessed with throwing hard, he got hammered real good for free regularly.His fastball normally tops out at around 80-81mph, but thinks if he can occasionally goose it up to 86-87 it will look much faster to the hitters and put them off balance. Usually, though, it isn't good for sinkerball pitchers such as Watanabe to do that, as it often flattens their deliveries out.  

After it was discovered that the bullpen had myriad defects yesterday, including homeplates that were set out of true, grounds crews scrambled to put it right and now the bullpen is at least serviceable. 

Nippon Ham Centerfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo flew into Naha Airport in Okinawa Tuesday separately from the rest of the team and, as soon as he touched down, changed into his home uniform, grabbed an aluminum bat and strode through the airport that way, presumably to give the press something to talk about and he more publicity for himself ( pic ). Neither the Pacific League office or the commissioner's office had been contacted for permission to do this, but when apprised of what Shinjo did, both office's figured that it would be good publicity for the league, so they declined to take any action. 

Manager Trey Hillman said today that the number one priority is to get his hitters to reduce their strikeouts. Last season, the Fighters lead all teams, even the ones in the Central League, which has a longer regular season schedule, by a while. It also appears that Hillman will be playing more small ball, as he will  devote a lot of time to bunting practice. 

Orix With 700 fans waiting at the airport, the Buffaloes ballclub flew into Miyako, Okinawa to head for its spring camp in Miyakojima. 

Third baseman Norihiro Nakamura now has his own official homepage. Just hit the following  link .

Reliever Kazuo Yamaguchi has now signed his 2006 contract. His salary was cut by about $60,000 to a little over $300,000. 

Pitcher Dan Serafini will arrive on the fifth and begin working out with the team the following day. His arrival is delayed due to the death of his grandfather. 

Authorities in Miyakojima may give the Buffaloes a new playing surface starting with spring training 2007, according to Nikkan Sports. The surface at the local ballpark is in need of a facelift and they are afraid that Orix will leave if they don't do a renovation. So local taxpayers will fork over about $1 million if they indeed go through with it. 

Rakuten Manager Katsuya Nomura has a cold and sore throat that he thinks he might have gotten after a visit with the grandkids, but that didn't stop him from lecturing his players for 30 minutes before they set off for their spring camp. But even if 
he was up to talking to his players, he apparenlty didn't have enough energy for a preceding staff meeting and canceled it. 

Seibu Manager Tsutomu Itoh, after he and his charges fell in to their spring training camp site in Nango, Miyazaki Prefecture, told the press Tuesday that he will have ace Daisuke Matuzaka start an intrasquad game on the 12th. When he does, Matsuzaka will be using the MLB ball while the hurlers who succeed him will be running the NPB ball up to the plate. Itoh also indicated that his mound staff is going to see a lot of practice session bullpen work as he attempts to compensate for the loss of relievers Shinji Mori (Tampa Bay) and Kiyoshi Toyoda (Yomiuri), thus requiring his starters to go longer into games than they did last season. It would help immensely if Takashi Ishii would actually do something this season. With the exception of the 2004 Japan Series, where he won two games and garnered the MVP, Ishii hasn't gotten anyone out during the regular schedule the last two years. If Ishii doesn't cut it in 2006, they should make him a civilian. 

Because Yomiuri and Seibu are training in the same prefecture, they were able to have  this  mediagenic moment, as Koji Uehara, left, ran into Matsuzaka, right.   

Softbank With the team losing a lot of pop from the defection of catcher Kenji Johjima to Seattle and the release of Tony Bautista, manager Sadaharu Oh will be incorporating some of Lotte manager Bobby Valentine's methods this season as he goes from being Japan's Earl Weaver (wait for a three run homer) and resorts to a small  ball philosophy. So he will be giving his players more praise this time, a contrast to the usual Japanese style of negative reinforcement, and seek to develop more young players. It would seem that what he REALLY needs to do, though, is browbeat centerfielder Naoyuki Omura into raising his OBP (.312 last season) and help shortstop Munenori Kawasaki get off to a fast start after he came out of the blocks in a slump in 2005. If Oh can get those two rabbits on base often enough, his sluggers, Nobuhiko Matsunaka and Julio Zuleta, are going to see lots of juicy fastballs. 

Oh also said that he isn't going to begin thinking about the WBC again until the 20th as he endeavors to get the Hawks on the proper footing for the season.