Sunday, May 18, 2008

Yu Darvish


Earlier this month, Jim Caple wrote a great article for ESPN about Yu Darvish, a 21 year old Japanese pitching phenom. I highly recommend it. It offers plenty of info on Darvish and insight into the culture of baseball in Japan.

There are definitely some things that we can learn from each other. Kids in the USA could learn something from the kids in Japan, where they are ingrained with a high level of respect for the game and their teammates. Their hard work also makes American kids look lazy.

The MLB equivalent in Japan, the Nippon Professional League (NPL), should take a closer look at how MLB team owners run their franchises. If you think the MLB teams are slaves to the almighty dollar, you haven't seen the NPL team owners. Every team is owned by a major corporation and the team's main focus is to promote the corporation. It's no wonder that many NPL teams finish in the red every year.

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