by Riccardo Schiroli
When I was thinking that we were going through an average Mexico-USA clash (that is to say: when everything goes wrong for the gringos and Mexico in the end wins), Team USA turned the game in their favor and won easily.
Everything that counted in the game happened in the fourth inning.
Trying to put myself in Mexico’s shoes, there’s not much of a regret when you lose against a team that shows better pitching and better hitting.
Mike Brito said it straight during the post game press conference: “We came a long way, as far as nobody expected us”.
And very important words were spoken by catcher Humberto Sosa: “We represented Mexico playing from the very bottom of our heart”.
Of course Mexico is also a good team, that plays hard, has some speed, quality at bat and experienced pitching. Still it’s worth nothing that their attitude on the field was so different from that of Samurai Japan.
In the third place game, very likely to happen in front of a lot of fans (the organizers sold one ticket for 2 games and they almost sold the house out) Mexico could well be intimidated. Or maybe not.
Team USA will play the championship game. They haven’t competed for and international gold (if you don’t count youth competition) since the 2009 IBAF Baseball World Cup in Nettuno, Italy. They beat Cuba in that final. That team was managed by Davey Johnson, a World Series winning skipper, and had Justin Smoak starring on it.
The star on this Team USA happens to be manager Willie Randolph and he knows it. After the semi final against Mexico he told reporters: “Ask more questions to our starting pitcher Spruill, not to me”.
Reporters wanted to talk to him. The former Yankee second baseman and Randolph was actually willing to talk and explain how this team came together. Pointing out that this was a pretty new experience for him. During the press conference he also played the Willie Randolph, and not the manager for 2015 Team USA, charachter: “I have been around winning teams, you know”.
Randolph is positive: “I have a lot of respect for Korea. What they did against Japan, coming from behind to win with only 3 outs to go requires some guts”.
The final will depend on how Korea starting pitcher Kim Hwang Hyun can handle Team USA and their bats. He’s a star back home and attracted some interest from MLB Franchises. Actually the San Diego Padres offered $ 2 millions to the SK Wyverns, that had “posted” Kim. But the club refused the offer and Kim went back the his home KBO for the 2015 season. He has now a pretty good opportunity to show his value against a lineup that may not be Big League kind of stuff, but is definitely not easy to go through.
If you happen to come to Tokyo, the Hall of Fame and Museum of Japanese baseball is worth a visit. Entrance is 600 Yen, that is to say 4.5 euros, and the visit is pretty quick, since most of the displays are written in Japanese.
They will offer you a recap of the origins of baseball (the mainstream version, as it was imported from the USA and not updated to more recent studies) and a proud tale about how the game became so popular in Japan. Thinking of how Japan looked like in 1872, when Professor Horace Wilson introduced baseball to japanese students at the Tokyo University is definitely intriguing.
Baseball became an established professional sport in 1950. It was the years when Japan went back to life after the tragic ending of World War 2. The very first Japan Series were played in 1950 and the very first induction to the Hall of Fame happened in 1959: Matsutaro Shoriki, the founder of the Tokyo Giants.
Photo by Japan Times