Friday, March 24, 2006

Unique Premier, Unique Baseball, but More Unique Value

Unique Premier, Unique Baseball, but More Unique Value

Japan has a parliamentary cabinet system. Prime minister of Japan is designated by the parliament (called the Diet) which consists of lawmakers individually elected by eligible voters as well as proportional representation lawmakers.

(Japan has no president, for it has emperor.)

Theoretically and constitutionally there is nobody in Japan that can deny or override a decision the prime minister (as a cabinet) has made. Japanese prime minister has the same, supreme power as presidents in many countries, including powers to levy taxes and command self-defense forces.

However, the prime minister is also an elected lawmaker in the Diet. Therefore, if he steps down from the position of prime minister, he can still enjoy privileges of the Diet member.

This may be one of the reasons why the prime minister of Japan is so often replaced by new one.
* * *

Different from U.S. president, Japanese prime minister has to appear before a plenary assembly and various committees of the Diet.

If the president of the U.S., Russia, China, or France is severely attacked and accused by congressmen in committees almost everyday during a session, while being televised and broadcast live nationwide, he must loose face, dignity, and popularity. But, it has been a statutory challenge that a premier in Japan has to take on.

Therefore, it is important that a ruling party, to which prime minister belongs, gets as many seats as possible in a national election.
* * *

In today’s budget committee of the Diet, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi referred to the victory of the Japanese baseball team in World Baseball Classic (WBC). In this context, he said that Japanese economy was picking up as people had stopped looking at the darker side and started working out in a courageous manner like the Japanese baseball team in WBC.

He also gave an account of people’s health issues, revealing that he sometimes uses Oriental medicine such as acupuncture and moxibustion treatment. And, he listened in a good mood to recommendation a member of an opposite party offered on possible cooperation between Japan, Korea, and China for promoting Oriental medicine.
* * *

It is 1890 that the first Imperial Diet was convened. So, Japan has its democracy anyhow over three centuries.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may be the first prime minister, in Japan’s history of politics, that has clearly aimed at adopting American style competition in various sectors of the Japanese society.

Nonetheless, the baseball team built on tradition of the Japanese style of baseball, called Yakyu, has got the supreme mastery in the international matches against foreign teams mostly relying on Major League players.

(Japanese children start to learn how to play Yakyu or baseball using a rubber ball instead of a regulation ball.)

It may be the time for some Japanese, Asians, and mankind to look back at their unique cultural value being left behind in their procession toward the so-called globalization being accompanied by 9/11 Terror Attacks, U.S. corporate scandals, Afghan War, Iraqi War, Madrid/London Terror Bombings, Paris Riots, and tragedies in Rwanda, Sudan, and Balkan States as well as the Livedoor-related incident in Japan.


“THEN THEY WILL FEAR THE LORD, AND GET GOOD GIFTS”

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Miracle Moon on World Baseball Classic

Miracle Moon on World Baseball Classic

Mr. Sadaharu Oh and his disciples have become the first pennant winner of the World Baseball Classic games held in California, the U.S.

The box score was as follows:
400 020 004 = 10

It reads like “For me” To “For the team”; otherwise, it looks like an autograph of an angel that visited the ball park in the evening.
* * *

Believe or not, I found at a certain point of time that God was angry with something related to this event they advertised as true world-championship matches of baseball.

It might be concerned with selfishness some major league players displayed or bigotry the U.S. authorities displayed in its management and regulation, in addition to behavior of stepping on Japan’s achievement and its players being in earnest.

Otherwise, it should be unbearable disparity of wealth and social development among nations despite their common love of baseball.

Therefore, I cannot help but think that God sent an angel to Petco Park in San Diego to deliver a message to baseball fans, including those in Japan where an audience share for the live broadcast of the game between Cuba and Japan climbed up to over 50 percent, incredibly though the day was a national holiday in Japan.
* * *

You may think you need a goddess of victory or Victoria to win the cup in a difficult tournament.

Manager Sadaharu Oh said that the trend had changed when pinch-hitter Fukudome smashed a homer in the match against Korea. The ball was flying high in the dark, rainy night sky, as if being delivered by all-time home-run king Oh.

However, I think I really saw the moon in the night sky over the ball park at Anaheim. It looked like an advent of an angel or a goddess of victory.
* * *

The moon is one of the largest miracles concerned with the earth and human beings on it. First of all, there is no reason that the sun and the moon are observed in the identical size from the earth.

Secondly, the moon could look rotating in space to the earth even in the present era, though a physical theory tells that the moon will come to show only one side of its surface to the earth eventually due to interaction between the two astronomic bodies.

Thirdly, without the moon, the length of a day on the earth is said to be eight hours. In addition, stronger winds should be incessantly blowing over the ground due to the fast rotation of the earth. Accordingly, it would be difficult for any higher forms of life on the earth to evolve and develop its culture sufficiently.

Perhaps all over the universe, there are no other planets accompanied with a moon the earth has now in terms of the size, rotating conditions, and its origin and structure.

Nonetheless, mankind rarely wonders how strange that the earth has such a miracle moon, which makes the earth probably the only planet with unique civilization on it.

Japanese traditionally love the moon unlike Europeans.
* * *

You need something, even the moon, to make yourself humble in victory; otherwise you would pride yourself too much and suffer slights of angels eventually.


“THANK GOD, FOR HIS PRICELESS GIFT”

Monday, March 20, 2006

Classic Players in Earnest

Classic Players in Earnest

The Japanese team won the WBC game against the Korean team with six to nothing.

The box score was as follows:
000 000 510

It should remind many Japanese fans of Ichiro’s number on uniform “51.”
* * *

Korean people got angry when they were informed that Ichiro insulted them, before the first-round matches of WBC this Feburuary in Tokyo, by saying, “I will teach them a lesson so that they cannot make irreverent behavior toward Japan at least for 30 years.”

On the other hand, there is a report that a young Korean in America two years ago asked Ichiro, in a restaurant with his wife, to write his autograph
on a sheet of paper. When Ichiro returned a signed sheet, the Korean youth tore it apart in Ichiro’s face, in order to give Ichiro a lesson for a certain reason according to words of the youth on the Internet.

However, no Japanese would think that Ichiro issued the above expression for his commitment with in mind the incident of two years ago relating to his autograph.

He had to express his determination to do his best in strong words before the games started. And, everybody knew that Korea had built the strong team with best players, while some Japanese major leaguers, including Ichiro’s juniors, such as Hideki Matsui of the Yankees, avoided to join the Japanese team.

Nowadays Japanese baseball fans know that when Korea sends the best team, Japan cannot easily win unless Japanese players do their best in earnest. It is Ichiro’s determination to make his best against the Korean all-star team.

Ichiro did not persuade others to despise or look down upon Koreans by using those words.
* * *

Ichiro is a more proud person as being somebody that became a MVP player, a leading hitter, a stolen base champion, and a principal player who contributed to Mariners’ all-time most victories (116 wins) in one season of the Major League Baseball, all together in 2001.

What’s more, Ichiro once humbly and cautiously refused to accept some honor the Japanese Government tried to officially present to him for his excellent work in 2004 of breaking the single-season hit record of MLB.
* * *

Cuba and Japan are going to meet in the ball park tomorrow for a crowing victory of the World Baseball Classic games.

As it is a public holiday tomorrow in Japan, many fans will enjoy the game to be broadcast live from California.

The Japanese team and the Cuban team seem to have one thing in common. They have not many players with experiences in the Major League. The Japanese team has two, including Ichiro. The Cuban team has none.

Tomorrow, people might come to think why it is so beyond the outcome of the final match.

“WHO THEN IS THE FAITHFUL SERVANT”

Sunday, March 19, 2006

True Master of Home Runs

True Master of Home Runs

According to a letter to editorial of a newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun, this morning, they had a baseball game between elementary-school boys and U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan, on one fine day in 1950’s.

The sixth grade pupils’ team of a certain elementary school had never lost a game. The rumor seemed to have reached a U.S. base. So, one day, a head teacher of the school got a call from the base, and accepted an offer for a match to be held in the base.

The result of the game was even, astonishingly given difference in the physical size of members of the two teams.

However, they had a happy time, and even after the game, they chatted friendly using their own language another team could not understand.

An old ex-teacher sent this letter to editorial which has been made public this morning.
* * *

In another letter to editorial of the newspaper this morning, a Japanese boy living in England wrote that he had got shocked, when he started to live there, to know that no one plays baseball in England. But, now, he can play the game in a school for Americans, while enjoying playing cricket on different occasions.

An elementary school boy living in England sent this letter to editorial which has been made public this morning.
* * *

Most of Japanese love baseball. The bat reminds the people of a Japanese sword.

Mr. Sadaharu Oh, who is leading the Japanese team in World Baseball Classic now being held in California, made a batting practice by using a real sword when he was young. He tried to cut a long and thin paper, arranged from a newspaper sheet, by swinging a Japanese sword horizontally.

When he started this practice, other members of his team came to view it. Even senior players sat square, showing respect, watching the swing, and listening to the sound of air being cut amid tension between a sword and a slip floating in air vertically.

Mr. Sadaharu Oh produced 868 home runs in his playing days between 1959 and 1980. During his last season as a player, he could still smash 30 homers.

But, this all time home-run king, with the nationality of Taiwan, seems to be gradually losing memory on how to deliver a home-run.

Now, he seems to have become an excellent manager of a baseball team and an ardent director of a baseball company.

Only a true master of an art could completely forget how and what he had ever achieved in it, according to tradition in ancient China.

“GO, BUT DO NOT SIN AGAIN”