Alpha Asian

Okay, this is very late, but I thought I'd do a write up anyway. Besides, it's snowing here on the east coast and work has been canceled due to the storm so I'm stuck indoors (I've discovered there's a LOT of shit on daytime TV, apart from the news, so I'm better off doing something constructive). Anyway, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series but what caught my eye was the great sports photos of relief pitcher Koji Uehara. Upon clinching the championship, Keiji was front and center---an Asian male the focal point of the championship photos. Interestingly enough, the Boston Red Sox also have Japanese relief pitcher Junichi Tazawa in the bull pen as well. But Uehara has an interesting backstory. Koji Uehara was the American League Championship series MVP, pitching well enough in relief in the 9th inning for scoreleess inning, striking out two Detroit Tigers batters, giving up only an infield single. However, at the start of the 2013 season, Uehara wa...

(photo courtesy of Jonathan Newton/Washington Post)  I've been busy with work so I haven't had a chance to post some stuff that I wanted to. But here's some good stuff on my man Kurt Suzuki, catcher for my home team the Washington Nationals. The Washington Post had an interesting piece on Kurt in their spring training coverage . An excerpt:   VIERA, Fla. — George Horton ran a college baseball powerhouse at Cal State-Fullerton, the kind of program that had no place for someone like Kurt Suzuki. Horton had never seen or heard of Suzuki before a scout pal mentioned the high schooler in Hawaii. “We didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about him,” Horton said. “We heard from our network of friends that this little catcher from Maui wanted to come and walk on at Fullerton.”   On an island with 160,000 permanent residents, Suzuki played against five or six high schools. Few scouts noticed. But Fullerton needed a catcher, and there was no risk, so Horton let Suzuki jo...

Your browser does not support iframes. Kurt, the Washington Nationals catcher came through in the clutch the other evening against the defending champions St. Louis Cardinals. With the game tied, the Cardinals walked Danny Espinosa to get to Kurt. And Kurt made them pay. Nice going Kurt! The Washington Post's story about the game described it as thus:   "And in the 10th inning, when St. Louis Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny elected to walk the struggling Danny Espinosa to face Suzuki, he won the Nationals a game. Suzuki’s low liner of a double to left-center scored the winning runs in the Nationals’ 6-4 victory, and was just the latest bit of his handiwork. Since taking over from the worn-down, beleaguered Jesus Flores as the Nationals’ every-day catcher, Suzuki has added to and served to emphasize the depth in Washington’s lineup. He might hit eighth, but in his 40 games with Washington, he now has 25 RBI....   What he has done is complete what is now a surpris...

Well, my man Kurt Suzuki is getting it done. Since my last post on him, he's been doing remarkably well on defense, having thrown out some players trying to steal a base, and hitting his first two home runs for the Washington Nationals.This weekend, Kurt was able to tag out a runner trying to head home from a good thrown from rookie phenom Bryce Harper out in center field. I mentioned before that he was struggling with his hitting and sure enough, his bat started coming around. The Washington Post has an article on Kurt re-tooling his swing  with the batting coaches. As of the date of that article, Kurt is hitting .421, going 8 for 19. (Photos by Cheryl Nichols and Washington Post) Also, the Little League World Series wrapped up the other week. It was Tennessee and Japan in the championship game. Japan took the championship on the strong pitching of Kotaro Kiyomiya who struck out eight batters in four innings. And he is a BIG kid---6'0" and 200 lbs! Back wh...

My hometown major league baseball team, the Washington Nationals, made a trade and acquired Kurt Suzuki, catcher, from the Oakland A's before the trade deadline this season. I knew the name, but I didn't know much about him. the Nationals GM, it was reported, had always had his eyes on Kurt, having scouted him since Kurt's playing time in college. Kurt was also acquired because of his solid defensive capabilities and to provide depth to the Nationals at that position. Starting catcher Willy Ramos is out for the season with a torn ACL. The minor league call up is capable but may not be as strong defensively and experienced yet. So far, Kurt is making the transition from the American League to the National League. I believe he's had about 10 games under his belt, catching a pretty good stable of Nats pitchers and having to quickly get caught up to speed on his new pitching crew. As of this writing ,the Nats have the best record in baseball. Kurt's batting hasn...

There was a great article in the Washington Post sports section the other week by columnist Norman Chad regarding Ichiro. Basically, Chad writes, Ichiro Suzuki is perhaps the most underappreciated baseball player today. And Chad’s column also brings up a point about all of us old timers (I think I’m older than most of you readers out there) enjoying and appreciating things a lot more as one gets older. And to see Ichiro's high level of talent and consistency is to be appreciated as the baseball player, himself, is getting on in years. Excerpts from the column: “In all 10 of his seasons with the Seattle Mariners since coming to Major League Baseball from Japan at age 27, Ichiro has batted over .300 and accumulated at least 200 hits. As we reach midseason here in 2011, Ichiro, now 37, is batting only .271 and is on pace for a 181-hit season. Ichiro also has won 10 straight Gold Gloves — with never more than five errors in a season — but in 2011 he has been subpar at times defensivel...

The baseball playoffs are here. And last night's National League Division Series playoff game between the San Francisco Giants and the Atlanta Braves was an amazing event for Giants starting pitcher Tim Lincecum, who is half Filipino. The 5'11" pitching ace threw a two hit shut out and struck out fourteen batters! I didn't watch the entire game but saw enough to know that Lincecum had his fastball humming! He threw consistently in the low 90's and had batters off balance with change ups and the occasional curve balls. Additionally, Lincecum broke the Giants franchise record of 10 strikeouts in the post season. At one stretch, he retired 19 of 20 batters. The Freak (as he is sometimes called) just dominated the Braves. The man's a stud on the mound.

Well, I watched most of the game today. The kids from Waipahu, Hawaii lost a hard fought baseball game, 4-1, to the kids from Japan. Team Hawaii had played 5 games in 5 days, all elimination games and they had come back from deficits to win their games. Today, they ran out of gas. I was pulling hard for the kids from Hawaii and I was thinking how funny it was for the kids from both teams to look across the field and see other kids who look just like them or very similar. Obviously, Hawaii has a big Asian population and one that is quite mixed. The team had a lot of Japanese-American kids or Polynesian kids and it was good to see them do well, they had a great tournament, so congratulations to them. I can only hope some of these talented kids can go on and pursue their athletic dreams and reach the highest levels of their potential if they so desire. They will be the next generation of Alpha Asians. I have to admit, though, that ---especially in the '70's---, I always wante...