Ramirez blast in 8th lifts Yomiuri to Japan Series

Saturday 25th October, 10:51 PM JST

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6 Comments

northlondon at 01:10 AM JST - 26th October

In other baseball leagues around the world, this series would still only be 2-1 to the Giants, with no phantom free game advantage. The tied game the other night would have had to be decided as well. You just cannot take Japanese pro baseball seriously. And only 2 leagues ? There should be 4 divisions of 5 teams each making up 2 leagues. Therefore, there should be 20 pro clubs in Japan. At the moment it is just a money sharing exercise for the big clubs. There are a huge number of baseball players in Japan and there is the potential for the likes of Aomori, Southern Kyushu, Shikoku and Niigata to have pro teams.
northlondon at 01:24 AM JST - 26th October

In fact you could easily have 4 divisions comprising 4 teams each, with extended Interleague play which to be quite honest, is the only interesting time of the year for Japanese baseball. There are already 12 pro clubs, so Hanshin/ Chunichi/ Hiroshima (Central West), Kyojin/ Yakult/ Yokohama (Central East), Softbank/ Buffaloes (Pacific West) and Nippon Ham/ Seibu/ Chiba Lotte/ Rakuten (Pacific East) could head up the 4 divisions, with the Pacific East division already decided. The playoff picture would be between the top 2 in each division and a league decider, making the playoffs longer and more fun. There, that's a little more exciting isn't it ?
kenchan at 04:43 AM JST - 26th October

I never understood why there are different leagues in Japan....You can understand the rationale in the US where distances are huge between cities but whats the point in Japan? There should be 1 league with all teams playing each other, making the league longer and more exciting. They should introduce a FA Cup style competition where clubs outside of the top league can compete and introduce more variety and unknowns.

Just because baseball came from the US doesn't mean they should follow its structure.
ptolemy at 10:09 AM JST - 26th October

There shouldn't have been a game 4. How can playoff games end in a tie? This just shows that NPB is no more than AA ball.
JackDorff at 10:13 AM JST - 26th October

This is a good result. There`s no hate in baseball without the Giants. Now we can look forward to the working class Lions (who, incidentally, have the best yakitori in baseball) flogging the evil Giants.
aintgottimetobl at 12:06 PM JST - 26th October

you guys cannot be serious in wanting the season to go longer and larger..I'm a lover of baseball but was nodding off until Kroon sparked it up by hitting Nakamura and then Chen asked Ogasawara for a dance..sad and funny at the same time..