Thunder Sticks Final

On home soil, USA ousted by Japan

I have to give it up to team Japan. They were able to overcome such obstacles as palms-out-victory-sign-throwing fans and being tens of thousands of kilometers away from their home country (according to Fidel Castro, this would allow managers to make foolish decisions; although Davey Johnson had no problem doing so on his homeland) to earned themselves a date to a orange vs blue thunder stick final.

Despite the beat down they had administered to my team and their stubborn adherence to the metric system, I will be rooting for them to beat the Koreans.

I choose to focus on the beauty and the positives of their culture over my baseball allegiance.

I need to find out where this buffet is

Damn metric system

These guys were pretty awesome back in the day. I had two of their albums.

Update 1: Japan had a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth. Darvish walked 2 in his second relief appearance in two days. After striking out the next two batters, he allowed a game tying single to Bum Ho Lee (ha ha, bum ho). Blown save. We're going to extras. The box score reads Japan with a 12-5 hits advantage, yet the score is tied at 3.

Update 2: Top 10, 2 outs. Runners at the corners, Ichiro at the plate. Runner moved to second, defensive indifference. Holy crap, Ichiro just hit a 2 run double in a 9 pitch battle - he was batting under .100 in the tournament up to tonight. In the championship game, Ichiro goes 4 for 5, with probably the biggest hit in the tournament. Mr. March, Ichiro Suzuki.


Update 3: Darvish just walked the lead off batter again. 2 innings, 2 lead off walks. Okay, Darvish strikes out the next guy. Pop fly, 2 outs! Come on Darvish, I need to go to sleep!

Update 4: Game over! Darvish strikes out Jeong. Team Japan dog piles Ichiro. WBC II championship goes to Japan.

Oh no. Palms in! Palms in!!

This is the sort of muted celebration I expected.