Black Stripe Theater's Production of Pinter's "The Homecoming"

Black Stripe Theater has announced that it will stage Harold Pinter's classic play, The Homecoming, at Atelier Fontaine theater (near Azabu-juban station) July 4th-6th.

Check the BST website for news on the upcoming show.

Black Stripe Theater's Production of Pinter's "The Homecoming"

TPR News

It's been a while since we posted a TPR News over at Trans-Pacific Radio, but here's the latest one that was just published five minutes ago.

TPR News

Office Manners

I'm probably a little late with this, but this is my kind of humor.

Apologies if you've seen it before, but I'm sure you won't mind seeing it again.

Office Manners

Yokohama Baseball Stadium

View from the left field bleachers of Yokohama stadium. This was from a game in early April that we lost (9-6) because Rios was pitching. Three weeks later, actually, he's still in a bit of a slump. He often flirts with the 100-pitch mark by the beginning of the sixth inning, and he seems to have lost that knack for getting guys out that propelled him to the top of the Korean Baseball Organization last season.

Here's hoping that he finds it.

But this post is not meant to be a swipe at Rios. Adjustments take time. He'll find his groove again. The negative tone of my typing, however, is going to endure. For I found that I'm no longer as crazy about Yokohama stadium as I used to be.

On the plus-side, it's a short walk from either Kannai station (JR Negishi/Keihin Tohoku line or Yokohama Subway line) or Nihon Odori station (Minato Mirai subway line). If you're sitting in the outfield, though, there won't be many more pluses.

Yokohama has no control over the weather, so no blame can be assigned for the bitterly frigid wind that was sweeping around the inside of the bowl-shaped stadium. But very little was done to make us feel at home.

Ah! Open seating. There's another plus! Yokohama resembles Jingu in that regard. You can get your ticket and then wander around until you find something that you like. But don't sit too close to the center field scoreboard as the public address speakers are pointed directly at the fans. It's a lot like being crammed in a tiny bar that just got new floor-to-ceiling speakers and the owner insists on taking advantage of their potential. Deafening. Accordingly, sitting in left-center (or right-center, I would imagine) only allows you the privilege of viewing the scoreboard above home plate. It's a great view if your interest in the game starts and ends with ball/strike count.

Another oversight at Yokohama stadium, at least in left field, is the food. I had long ago dismissed all hopes of getting something decent to eat at Jingu stadium (although, admittedly, the selection did improve this year), but somehow I had tricked myself into believing that Yokohama stadium has more or less a similar selection of fare available for ticket-holders. It doesn't. Yokohama stadium makes Jingu look like the food section at Costco.

Alright, it's time to stop pissing and moaning about the stadium. At least the home fans there are friendly, the seating in left field is unassigned for most games, and the stadium has retained its intimacy.

I'll just have to keep packing my own picnic and sit a little further from the center field scoreboard from now on I guess. Or that would be the sensible thing to do anyway--not that I'm particularly prone to doing the sensible thing.

Tokyo plays Yokohama away on May 6th through the 8th.

Yokohama Baseball Stadium

Not Work Safe, But Good

I watched this clip over at The Marmot's Hole this morning.

Don't watch it at work, or if you have an intense aversion to the f-word, but director Uwe Boll has something to say, and you should listen.

Not Work Safe, But Good

Season Opener vs. Yomiuri at Meiji Jingu Stadium

It was kind of a wet weekend, that Friday, Saturday and Sunday when the 2008 season began for the teams of NPB's central league. The Tokyo derby was hosted at Jingu stadium and we were there for all three games.

The rain was particularly bad for the Sunday game after Tokyo had already beat Yomiuri easily in the first two games of the series. I had publicly stated before the series that Yomiuri was the team to beat this season, but they sure didn't look like it during that first series. Tokyo won all three games: 6-2 (Fri); 6-3 (Sat); 10-2 (Sun) leading to a central league table that looked very different from last year's.

Luke and Sally were back in town that weekend, so they were able to make it to the game on Sunday when the clouds emptied. Stephen, Miyoko and Reina were there as well (Stephen and Miyoko only like to come to games when it's raining), and we were able to have a bit of fun once it became obvious that the game was out of reach and the mighty Giants had all but given up.

The Swallows pitching is still a little shaky, but the upshot is that there are a lot of young arms in the rotation, so that can only mean good things for the future. Additionally, it looks like we may finally have a reliable closer in the bullpen. Chang-yong Im (last name sometimes romanized as Lim) throws really hard (94-95 mph) for a sidearm pitcher, and he has been fantastic thus far. I'm guardedly optimistic about him at this point. It's still early, so we'll see what happens when opposing teams have seen him a few times.

Season Opener vs. Yomiuri at Meiji Jingu Stadium

New Translator Needed

I don't know where he snapped this shot, but my good friend, Scott Lawson, sent this one to me.

The kanji on the right can be approximately translated as "don't use", but apparently that wasn't the nuance they were going for.

New Translator Needed

Baseball Season and a Revamped Jingu Stadium

I can't believe that we're more than three weeks into April already and I haven't mentioned baseball yet. Well, I did, but not here.

I've been to seven games so far this season, which is kind of a weak tally for me. There have been a few rained out games so far, and I had planned to be at Jingu stadium for two of them, so mother nature is partly responsible for my slack attendance thus far.

Jingu stadium has been slightly revamped. There's new turf and new hi-tech scoreboards in both center-field and on top of the stands behind home plate. The turf looks gorgeous, but the scoreboards, which are the largest ones in use in Japan at this point, are still not being used to their full potential. The scorers sacrificed two columns of real estate on the left and right sides of the center-field scoreboard to advertising, so it is no longer possible to view the players' batting averages unless they're batting. That needs to change. Another problem with the scoreboards, or the people operating them really, is the fact that they still don't show replays of nice defensive plays. Much like during the former scoreboard's tenure, the only pieces of action worth replaying are home runs.

The corners of the outfield were moved out 10 meters at the foul poles as well. This means that it's now 101 meters to the left and right field poles which is about three feet further than the average professional ballpark in Japan. Straight-away center-field still sits 120 meters from home plate. Several rows of 1,900 yen seats were sacrificed for the expansion of the field, but the home team's pitching staff has breathed a collective sigh of relief that a few extra longballs will stay in the park this season.

As mentioned earlier, the new turf is beautiful, and it seems to absorb the momentum of the baseball a lot like natural grass does. The only thing that the players will have to be wary of is the fact that those artificial blades of grass are pretty slick when it rains. I've seen position players, and umpires, hit the deck on several occasions when making otherwise routine runs on the new surface.

Other than that, most stuff at the park are the same. The food's the same, the fans are the same, the team...is actually quite different, but I'll save that for another post.

Oh! One thing that is different is that there's a new t-shirt stand outside the stadium near where members of the fan club pick up their tickets. Grand Slam Sports Enterprises has begun producing a revolving line of unique t-shirts that are more in line with the thought patterns of the diehard Tokyo Swallows fan than what was previously available through the team's official catalog. I was fortunate enough to be able to chat with one of the main guys at Grand Slam before the game on Sunday, and he seems to have a lot of good ideas about promoting the team through a variety of well-designed and wearable t-shirts.

The t-shirt pictured here is a typical example of what they have to offer, and it cost me 2,500 yen. If it's not obvious, the "We are Tokyo" message is alluding to the fact that there are two teams located within the borders of the metropolis, but the claim to being Tokyo's team has been decided.

It sounds like Grand Slam is going to bring out some new designs every couple of weeks, so be sure to check back every so often and see if they have your favorite player's tee out there. It sounds like they will be offering a lot of limited edition t-shirts this season.

I'm hoping that they make an Iihara t-shirt soon because the team has been so slow to make shirts for some of their young stars (unless they're pitchers). Grand Slam Sports Enterprises is being billed as one of the official t-shirt outlets for the Tokyo Swallows fan club this year.

Baseball Season and a Revamped Jingu Stadium