Latest news with #YakultSwallows
The Mainichi
03-05-2025
- Sport
- The Mainichi
Baseball: Shoki Murakami shuts out Swallows as Tigers snap 4-game skid
NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo (Kyodo) -- Shoki Murakami threw a complete-game shutout as the Hanshin Tigers ended their losing streak at four games with a 4-0 victory over the Yakult Swallows on Friday. Murakami (5-1) picked up his fifth win of the season, the most in Nippon Professional Baseball, after scattering five hits, all singles, at Koshien Stadium. The 2023 Central League MVP and Rookie of the Year struck out seven and walked none in a 122-pitch outing. Teruaki Sato and Yusuke Oyama hit back-to-back RBI singles to give Hanshin a 2-0 lead in a three-run sixth inning. Shota Morishita added a run-scoring infield single in the seventh. Yakult starting pitcher Kojiro Yoshimura (1-2) took the loss. Among Friday's other games, pinch-hitter Hikaru Kawase hit a walk-off two-run double as the struggling SoftBank Hawks rallied to beat the Lotte Marines 4-3.
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Why We Do Unpleasant Things
Haruki Murakami was a mediocre student. Like a lot of people who go on to high achievement later in life, the future novelist had trouble paying attention to what the teachers told him to pay attention to, and could only study what he was interested in. But he made it to college, and a few credits before graduating he opened a small jazz club in Tokyo. After a ton of hard work, he was able to pay the bills, hire a staff and keep the place open. In 1978, Murakami was at Meiji Jingu Stadium in Japan watching a baseball game and drinking a beer. The leadoff batter for his team, the Yakult Swallows, laced the ball down the left field line. As the batter pulled into second base, a thought crossed through Murakami's head: 'You know what? I could try writing a novel.' He started writing after closing time at his jazz club and eventually sent a manuscript off to a literary magazine — so blasé about it that he didn't even make a copy for himself in case the magazine lost what he had sent in. It won a prize and was published the next summer. He decided to sell the bar, which was his only reliable source of income, and pursue writing. 'I'm the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do,' he wrote in his 2008 memoir. No longer doing the physically demanding work of running a bar, he started to put on weight. He decided to take up a sport, and running seemed like a good option: There was a track right by his house, it didn't require fancy equipment and he could do it by himself. He wasn't lying when he talked about his tendency toward total commitment. By the late 2000s, he was running six miles a day, six days a week every week of the year, and had run in 23 marathons, plus many other long-distance races, an ultramarathon and some triathlons. Even when he was young his times were not stellar, and he was miserable a lot of the time. The memoir, 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,' is studded with sentences in which he describes his agony at one race after another: 'As I ran this race, I felt I never, ever wanted to go through that again.' Or: 'At around 23 miles I start to hate everything.' Or: 'I finally reach the end. Strangely, I have no feeling of accomplishment. The only thing I feel is utter relief that I don't have to run anymore.' Or: 'It was draining physically, as you can imagine, and for a while afterward I swore I'd never run again.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
16-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
From Nomo to Ichiro to Ohtani: Japan's baseball rise in MLB hits high point in Dodgers-Cubs series
TOKYO — Ichiro Suzuki was having his typical day on a baseball field in 2000, putting on a power display during batting practice before ripping line drives all over the field for the Orix BlueWave during a preseason doubleheader. American infielder Torey Lovullo — who was in the other dugout playing the final year of his career in Japan with the Yakult Swallows — couldn't believe his eyes.
