This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > February > 16
Monday, February 16, 2009
Kawakami media mania is culture shock for Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — In other American cities, the phenomenon is old news: A Japanese player signs with a major-league team and the Japanese media congregates. It happened in Los Angeles with Hideo Nomo, in New York with Hideki Irabu, Kazuo Matsui and Hideki Matsui, in Seattle with Ichiro Suzuki, in Boston with Daisuke Matsuzaka. But for those of us in the Atlanta, it’s brand new.
Kenshin Kawakami has taken part in two workouts as a Braves pitcher. The first, on Sunday, was documented by 30 Japanese journalists. Eight still cameras and one minicam captured his brief bullpen session.
On Monday the Kawakami watch dwindled to a still-substantial dozen. To serve the apparently rabid audience back home, he has been holding two daily briefings — one before the workout, one afterward. Intrigued, an American reporter listened in and, through the translation offered by Daichi Takasue, the UC-Santa Barbara student the Braves hired to act as Kawakami’s interpreter, learned this:
The Japanese media is fixated on fitness.
To read the rest of this entry, please visit my new little blog on AJC.com.
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Bradley’s Buzz: Buzzin’ about the 2009 Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pitchers and catchers report; prognostication commences
I saw Jayson Stark of ESPN.com at Lake Buena Vista on Sunday, and I made a request and a promise. “Write something and post it fast, and I’ll link to it Monday,” I said, and here I am, true to my word. Jayson penned — actually, I’m pretty sure he typed — a nice little recap of how weird it feels to be in Braves camp and for John Smoltz to be elsewhere.
Last week the same Mr. Stark — an iron man on the order of Tony Stark — cranked out a winter review/spring training preview, and it he identified the Braves as the National League’s second-most improved club. And, being a nice fellow and a big fan of Jayson’s, I wouldn’t normally pause here to point out that the same Mr. Stark picked the Braves to reach the 2008 World Series. But he happened to bring it up in conversation.
And at least one other outlet has picked the 2009 Braves to play beyond the 162nd game. Baseball Prospectus is, according to Ted Keith of SI.com, forecasting that the Braves and the Phillies will tie for the wild card and will be forced into a one-game playoff. (The Mets, BP says, will win the NL East.) And I wish I could tell you how all this will turn out, but the cold truth is that I don’t know. Baseball Prospectus is one of those pay sites, and I refuse to pay for (or link to) anything that can’t be read for free.
To read the rest of this entry, check out my new little blog.
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