Another Summer Koushien in the books

Another Koushien tournameent ended last weekend and all I got to watch was one first round game on a Sunday morning. Ever since my company abandoned the nightshift there is simply no way I am able to get a look at the games from Japan. I might get a chance to watch a NPB game every now and then when I am on the late shift, buut apart from that it is just impossible. Luckily there are some people who always kept me posted on what was going on. So as I congratulate Nichidai-san for their victory here are a few links for your pleasure.

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Koushien kicks off: Narashino vs Shizuoka

So I finally got to watch a game of this year`s Koushien summer tournament and it was a pleasure to discuss the action on the field with the people at the japanesebaseball.com chatroom. because of my work I won`t be able to watch any game at all, I believed, but last night everything fell into place and I was able to enjoy a feirly interesting game, albeit just until the later innings.

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Summer Koshien just around the corner

As Summer gets hotter and August inches closer and closer everybody knows it won’t be long until the high school boys of Japan will play on the sacred dirt of Koshien again. I hope I will be able to catch at least a few games which might be difficult because of my work. But at least there are some articles which are a nice read, especially this series in the New York Times (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). And, by the way, as if you needed to know, but be sure to bookmark the great blog “Koukou Yakyuu” which will provide you with a live blog for almost every game. Edwin’s doing a great job there (and he’s on Twitter, by the way), just as Westbay-san is with japanesebaseball.com, which will hopefully have its chatroom up and running for the tournament again. I’m really looking forward to this tournament, especially because it will be a very emotional event because of what happened on March 11th. Hopefully the kids can bring some joy to the people in the devastated areas. 皆、頑張って下さい！！

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The songs of Koushien

Alright, so I’m a freak for cheering sections and the songs they sing and play. Which is one reason why I really like to watch the Koushien games. The way the brass band is playing there is simply astonishing. Not only do some schools have a song for each and every player on the team (at least it seems that way to me), but they also have a special song they play each time the team gets a hit or scores a run. And they instantly switch from the player’s song to the score or hit song. Pretty disciplined band(s) if you ask me. So while surfing around the youtube-universe I came across some samples from what bands might play ad I thought I’d share them. Some I never heard before, some even I recognized.

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Summer Koushien 2009: Day 17 (final) – A worthy finish

So this is it. Two weeks of high school baseball have finally come to an end again. And what a finish it was to a tournament which saw a lot of upsets and surprises. High favourites PL Gakuen crashed out early, underdogs like Miyakonojyou Shogyou went deep into the final rounds defeating Chiben Wakayama under the bright stadium lights in an unforgettable game, star players like Hanamaki Higashi‘s ace pitcher Yuusei Kikuchi were tragic fugures in their team’s defeats. It had it all.

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Summer Koushien 2009: Day 16 – Two left standing

So after all those games over the past two weeks there’s only two schools left who will decide the champion for this year in tomorrow’s final. The school’s who lost over the course of the competition will support the team’s the lost to and both finalists will carry a heavy load of paper cranes with them, a tradition with the Koushien tournament. They will be sure to try and live up to the expectations of the teams they beat.
And while the kids in Japan were fighting it out another young Japanese pitcher made the headlines across the ocean. Tazawa Junichi was exposed to a national television crowd holding the New York Yankees in check for the Boston Red Sox. He allowed no run over six innings. Tazawa made it to Koushien only once, in his second year of high school (if I read his Wikipedia profile correctly) where he was a relief pitcher. When he became the ace the following year his school was knocked out in the regional tournament in Kanagawa by Yokohama Koukou, a regional powerhouse and the Alma mater of Boston teammate Matsuzaka Daisuke.　

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Summer Koushien 2009: Day 15 – Gifusho and Chuukyou complete the semis meatchups

As NPBTracker tweets that Yu Darvish was taken off the roster by Nippon Ham to skip his start and to work on his pitching form, the summer high school tournament is reaching the final stages. Out of the 49 schools at the start of the competition only four are left now to determine who will win the whole thing this time.

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Summer Koushien 2009: Day 14 – Quarterfinals already

We have already reached the quarterfinal stages of the tournament and things are starting to heat up. It’s funny because I somehow still have the feeling that there are a lot of teams involved in the outcome of the competition, but now there are only eight schools left. Make that six, as two quarterfinals took place last night. Speaking of schoolkids playing baseball there is a nice article about the German “wunderkind” Max Kepler-Rozicky which can be found at a rather unusual place (via MLBtraderumors). I didn’t know the Wall Street Journal had a sports section.

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Summer Koushien 2009: Day 12 and 13 – The biggest upset so far

Today Germany is awaiting what looks like to be the hottest day of the year so far. Weather forecast predicted temeratures of around 37°C which I personally believe is way too much if you have to work in an office. Still it has to be even harder to play a sport under such conditions and considering the humidity in Japan I believe I don’t want to trade places with the boys playing in Osaka.
Meanwhile Deanna put the 2nd part of her trip to Koushien up on her blog. Some nice pictures there again. Don’t expect her to talk about the weather though.
Talking about the games today saw another stellar appearance by Hamanaki Higashi‘s ace 3rd year Yuusei Kikuchi, probably the player who gets most of the attention and who will likely be the star of the tournament.

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Summer Koushien 2009: Day 11 – Wakayama comes through late

I am still a bit under the influence of Sunday’s football match I watched at the stadium in which Fortuna Cologne got a red card in the very first minute of play. Hilarious. Also a fan fell down the terraces at Aachen‘s new stadium while the home team was losing to St. Pauli 0-5.
Somehow I haven’t reverted my usual sleeping rhythm back to normal so I would have been able to watch some of last night’s games. But had I done that I wouldn’t be standing here today. Unfortunately the only way to catch a few glimpses of last night’s action came through the highlights.

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