Caught up in the aftermath
The issuance of extra editions in Tokyo’s Ginza district by Mainichi Shimbun to announce Japan’s victory over Cuba at the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday sparked a mini riot that ended up putting three women in the hospital.
A large crowd of people surged towards employees of the daily as they handed out the extra, causing the three women to be crushed against a concrete flower box, after which they fell to the ground and sustained injuries. The women were taken to a hospital, where it was determined that their injuries were not serious.
Interest in the WBC was intense in Japan, with one TV rating company reporting that viewership of the semifinal between Japan and South Korea averaged 36.2 percent in the Kanto (Tokyo) area. Peak viewership was 50.3 percent at the end of the game.
The ratings were the highest for a live sports broadcast since June 2005, when Japan played North Korea to qualify for the soccer World Cup. That game reached 43.4 percent in the Kanto region.
Japanese figure skater Shizuka Arakawa’s gold medal-winning performance at the Turin Winter Olympics achieved ratings of 31.8 percent.
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That is nuts.
I stayed up to watch the game and was pretty stressed for a while there. When it was pretty clear that Japan would win, my boyfriend started saying things like: “Oh. Look how sad the Cubans are. It’s a pity someone has to lose.” This drove me crazy! Anyway, I was very, very, very excited for Japan, and I hope everyone goes out and celebrates. What a talented bunch of people — they really placed well as a team.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:01 amMarie: Hasn’t your boyfriend played sports? (g)
Some other little items of possible interest:
I was surprised by how excited both Ichiro and Oh were after the game. Both of these guys are cool customers, and Ichiro is stand-offish with the media. Not yesterday. He was as excited as a kid, and I couldn’t believe how charged up both were.
They both said it was the biggest day of their lives in baseball, and I believed them. Ichiro has won a title in Japan, and set big records in the US, and Oh has enough Japan championship rings for the fingers of both hands, both as a player and manager.
After Mexico eliminated the US, ensuring Japan’s spot in the playoffs, Oh told the press that they had been saved by a “kamikaze”. That wasn’t reported overseas, likely because no one would get the ancient historical reference.
Ichiro on the difference between Japan and the US: “The dugouts in America are filthy.”
Also saw the film clip of Ichiro’s controversial quote about pounding the other teams in the Asian round. He certainly wasn’t talking about only Korea.
He also laughed a little sheepishly as he said it, knowing that’s not how people usually don’t talk in Japan.
Harry Truman once said that he felt sorry for the public who reads newspapers and thereby think that they know what’s happening in the world.
I’m beginning to feel doubly sorry for the Korean public…
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:39 amIt was fun to watch it all on TV. They even showed the Korean news reporting the Japanese victory, with carefully neutral expressions on their faces.
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:41 amJust this morning in the Japan Times, a piece by “staff writer” Stephen Ellsessner has the following.
[Ichiro] has been mocked and booed by Korean fans who didn’t like his saying that he “wanted to beat Korea so bad the Koreans wouldn’t want to play Japan for 30 years.”
It’s bad enough that sports writers outside Japan are getting it wrong, but the Japan Times?
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 pmAlso saw a TV news report that said 56% of the Japanese viewing public had the final innings of the WBC game tuned in.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:19 pmMr. Oh, who’s Chinese name is Mr. Wang (king), is from where? China mainland or Taiwan island? He seems to speak Japanese with a slight accent, right? Is he now a Japanese citizen, is that why he changed his name from Wang to Oh?
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:03 pmAnonymous: Oh was born in Japan. His father was Chinese and his mother Japanese. His given name is Sadaharu, which is a Japanese name.
He’s a native speaker of Japanese.
He didn’t change his name from Wang to Oh. The Japanese use Japanese pronunciations for Chinese characters. That’s how they pronounce that character.
For example, Mao Zedong is pronounced Mo Taku-to.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:39 pmHere’s a cartoon of possible interest:
Or maybe this belongs in the thread about the sports shoes with the Asian guy’s face on them. They could start another line of goods and use the Cuban guy’s face.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:50 pmObviously the Japan times staff got misinformation from Korean media. I don’t think he even tried to research the Japanese source and check what Ichiro really said. 捏造歪曲記事を書いた韓国メディアも悪いけど、それを鵜呑みにしてイチローを敵対視している韓国人にうんざりです。
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:49 pmSomeone actually uploaded the Ichiro interview where he made the 30-year statment at YouTube. You can view it here http://youtube.com/watch?v=2STdVWKcz5I
It seems to me he was sort of joking when he said it .. not that it matters since he didn’t say anything wrong IMO.
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:21 amAmpontan,
An article online, November 16, 2003, notes that:
Sadaharu Oh (王貞治) is one of the most admired professional baseball players and coaches in Japan. Oh was born in Japan and grew up there, and he played for and coached the most prestigious professional baseball team in Japan, the Yomiuri Giants. He only speaks Japanese and he acts Japanese, yet he is an ethnic Chinese who carries a Taiwan [ROC] passport.
Oh was born on May 20,1940 in Japan. Oh’s father, Shifuku Oh (王仕福), was originally from Zhejiang Province in China and he managed a noodle shop in Tokyo.
“Oh’s father had a strong love for China and carried a PRC passport. Yet he was worried about the unpredictable fate of the “two Chinas” and therefore got Taiwan passports for his children,” said Li Shu-fang (李淑芳), a Taiwanese baseball commentator specializing in Japanese professional baseball.
“Oh has kept the ROC passport all his life because he thinks it is important to be a dutiful son and guard his father’s ideal of not forgetting one’s roots,” Li said.
Oh cares a lot about Taiwan and its baseball. He would give guidance to the Taiwanese national team and players whenever possible. He also made it possible for the Daiei Hawks to play its regular in-season game against Orix Blue Waves in Taiwan last year as well as exhibition games with Taiwanese teams this year. When the Taiwan national team participated in the 2003 Asian Baseball Championship this month, the team was able to train in Fukuoka Dome, the Hawks’ home base, with Oh’s help.
Because of his influence in both Japan and Taiwan, Oh was appointed as ambassador without portfolio by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2001 to promote sport and exchanges between Japan and Taiwan.
Yet Oh’s identity as a foreigner has disadvantaged him during his career.
Li pointed out that as early as in high school, Oh was prevented from participating in a national sports event because of his nationality.
Then, during Oh’s time with the Yomiuri Giants from 1959 to 1980, he was the teammate of the much respected Japanese player Shigeo Nagashima. According to Li, although Oh often outperformed Nagashima in personal records, on at least two occasions Nagashima was chosen as the most valuable player at the end of the year although he had a poorer record than Oh.
Japanese people still consider Nagashima as Japan’s real “Mr.Baseball,” simply because he is well received as an authentic Japanese, while Oh is seen as somewhat of an outsider.
When Oh retired as a player in 1984, he took over the position of head coach of the Giants. With struggles among internal factions and because the Giants were a team with too glorious a past, Oh’s only winning a league championship once during his five-year reign was heavily criticized, especially by his long-time rival Nagashima.
“Oh never cared about these things since he understood that it would be like this with his nationality, and it was always Nagashima who cared more about the competition between them,” Li said.
March 23rd, 2006 at 1:42 amInteresting comment Article, I did not know that Oh was not Japanese but thinking about it Oh is not a very common Japanese name at all.
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:13 amAmpontan — Yeah, he played rugby. But he’s Scottish, and when was the last time you heard of a Scottish team winning . . . anything? Exactly (though to be fair, they beat England at rugby this year).
Had dinner at our Korean restaurant last night where I was most confused to here Japanese spoken between some of the staff. I knew that one of the Korean staffers spent a lot of time in Japan, so that explained why SHE spoke Japanese, but I was totally mystified by the other people. It drove me crazy. Finally, I got to chatting with one of the Japanese speaking people, and I tried to casually say, “Hey! Did you see the game last night?” The look on his face said it all, and I realized that he was in fact Japanese, and working at the Korean restaurant.
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:52 am