Baseball and Kendo Golf at Haruna no Mori in Japan
The Samurai Three
The Rising Score went up to Haruna no Mori yesterday and this is what happened…
And miraculously a golf game broke out. Haruna no Mori is a great golf course designed by the one and only Jack Nicklaus.
So come on up to Haruna no Mori.
It is not just the golf it is the experience.
The Ultimate Par 3 with Padraig Harrington
I just had to add this youtube
It reminds me off the time I helied into to Play Showa no mori in Gunma Japan.
Manny was a Hit on April Fools Hoax
After the great response from my April fools Hoax I have decided to dedicate my life to lies and only lies.
Just kidding. Just want to let you all know that The Rising Score is happy that they fooled so many people on April fools.
Laugh a little!
Manny Ramirez Traded to Tokyo Giants
Tokyo! I love Tokyo! I believe my stay with the Tigers will be fun!
Manny Ramirez was involved in a
I will win World Serie for Dodger
shocking trade with The Tokyo Giants early today.
WBC winning Japanese manager has asked to be traded to the Dodgers to manage the 2009 Season. Due to his super managing skills, The Dodgers have agreed to dish Manny off to Tokyo so that they could get the best Manager in the world.
Manny Commented briefly:
I hear the okonomiaki is great in Osaka but better in Hiroshima.
The Giants trying to save face immediately shipped Manny off to Hiroshima in exchange for two unproven players from the Dominican Republic.
Hara manager is scheduled to land in LAX today with a heroes welcome banner attached to his plane reading…
Japanese Golf Lingo Part 2
I had the chance to pick my old friend, Hideaki Suda’s, brain on some Japanese golf lingo. He managed to unload a whole treasure trove of important and amusing terms the Japanese use during a round of golf.
Language warning: Some of the terms are for guys talking with guys.
Curses & Cheers
Mostly curses
Chikusho: Is the common swear word in Japan. Basically like the F… word but it really means the sh.. Word.
Kuyashii: Frustrating- In English you would probably say “ Man! I can’t take this anymore. Nothing is going right for me today.”
Yossshaaaa!:”Yo baby! Did that shot ever feel good. Ye haa!!!All right!”
What a shot!
Shaaaa!: Ya!
Kyo wa dame: I suck today. Literal, Today is bad.
Mada saisho: You usually say this if you hit a bad shot on your first drive. It basically means, it is only the first. Sorry no mulligans in Japan.
Uchi ni kairitai: You would probably say this after a series of OB shots or triple bogeys or multiple shanks. It means I just want to go home. I want to quit. That’s it! I give up.
Club wo kaetai: I want to change my clubs for some better ones. Of course if you buy new clubs you will immediately cut 30 strokes off your game. Not!
Club suteru: Throw away my clubs. Many clubs have ended up in trees and ponds as a convenient replacement for a dumpster.
Playing Golf With a Terrible Player
Te no go ban wo tsukaeyo Haha!! If you are having troubles getting out of a bunker or repetitively fanning on a shot your opponent may say this as a joke or in utter frustration…Use your hand as a five iron. Which means pick it up and throw it.
Jikan ga kakaru: It’s taking too much time. There is nothing more frustrating when you are playing with someone who takes a hundred practice swings before each shot and takes forever to putt.
Types of Golfers
Gomma Kasu: Sandbagger, cheater
Hanatakadaka: Snob – In Japanese hana means nose and takadaka means high
Jiman: Egotistical- A person who is always praising himself.
Urusai ojisan: These guys are the worse to play with. They keep talking when you hit and demand silence when they hit and then they have the audacity to nitpick on every rule in the book. Urasai means noisy and Ogisan means grandfather or golden ager.
Komakai: Is also a stickler for the rules.
Golf Terms
Kikori ga ita: The chainsaw is here. Say this when you hit a tree on your drive.
Another version
Freakn' woodpecker took my ball!
Kitsutsuki ga ita : A woodpecker is here.
Matsui: If you score 55 Say Matsui!
Ichiro: If you score 51 say Ichiro!
Hyaku ju no Oh ni natta: If you score 110 or more.
110 = Hyaku ju = 100 beasts
Ju = beast
Oh = King = lion
Because “The lion is called the king of 100 beasts.”
I have become the king of Beasts many times.
Oh fuku Binta: fuka = both sides – Binta = slap on the face. So this means to be slapped on both sides of the face. Which translates into hitting one bad shot after another. Or going from one side of the fairway to the other. In English it is called Catholic Golf. Across here across there…haha!
One cushion: Is when you hit it off the bank before the green to slow down the ball if you don’t have space to land and roll.
Kimpatsu bijin ga yonderu: Literally means Kimpatsu=bleach blond- Bijin=Beauty- Yonderu = is calling. You say it when you hit it into the bunker. I
I'm blond -22 -and love golf. Want to play in the bunker with me?
guess, the bunker sand is white and it is very attractive. Japanese men have a burning desire to sleep with foreign blond women? Doesn’t every man? You figure it out. I can’t.
Tarako: Tara means Cod and Ko means eggs. Tarako is eaten rare or cooked and often found in Rice balls- onigiri. Get this, tarako means a very thin club, like a hybrid utility wood, because it looks somewhat like tarako. OK?
Things you may see on a Japanese course
Q-Why is there always an ashtray by the tee markers?
Smoking Helps!
A- Because everyone smokes in Japan. Well, yes but not really. The reason there is an ashtray beside the tee markers is to also inform you what green is in play. If the ashtray is on the left you play for the left green and if the ashtray is on the right…
What is this? Why, it is a tee hole maker for when the tee area is frozen. Why haven’t I ever seen one of these in Canada? Who plays golf in the winter in Canada anyways?
What next?
Do golf carts fly?
This says “Please do not do donuts on the green!” Actually it says to drive right up to the line and park. As you know most courses demand that you stop for lunch between nines. So, you pull up into the valet golf cart parking lane and a friendly staff will drive your cart over to the tenth tee while you pig out on curry rice and beer. Is it just me or does that golf cart have wings?
Too Much Information
What next? GPS? Wait a sec! GPS!
#1 Says the green is on the left today.
#2 If by any chance you hit it Out of Bounds please go up to the yellow markers where you will be hitting 4. If you do in fact hit it out of bounds this would be a good time to use the word Chikusho! Remember you don’t want to say this when you are playing with a person you don’t really know. Only with buddies please because it kind of means F$%#k or Sh$%#T
# 3 It tells you how far it is to the flag in the fairway.
Have a great golf season!
Feel free to email me for any information about golfing in Japan.
All the best Willy Badger
Going Golfing in Japan tomorrow. Check out my column with golf in Japan dot com http://ping.fm/mPUEG
You You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting Celebrates Twenty Years of Harmony in Baseball-Not
Robert Whiting is the author of several highly acclaimed books on Japanese baseball and contemporary culture. Whiting has written for The New York Times, The Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, Slate, and US News and World Report.He has also written ten books in Japanese, mostly collections. “You Gotta Have Wa,” published in 1989, is a work on Japanese society as seen through their adopted sport of baseball, was a Book of the Month Club selection and is required reading in the Japanese Studies departments of many American universities. “The Meaning of Ichiro” (2004), a sequel, examines the impact of Japanese players in the United States. “Tokyo Underworld” (2000) is being made in to a feature film by Warner Brothers, directed by Martin Scorsese.Interview with Robert Whiting
Check out the updated 2009 version
The Rising Score: You must be thrilled with getting a chance to update a baseball classic in You Gotta Have Wa? How and why do you think you got the go ahead from your publishers to do this?
Robert Whiting: Random House had a 20 year lease on the rights, which were set to expire this year. The book was dated in some respects, so they asked me to write 12,000 new words describing how things have changed.
The Rising Score: Over the last twenty years baseball has changed dramatically, why is Asia dominating in the international competitions such as the Olympics and the WBC?
Robert Whiting: MLB won’t allow their top players to take time off in mid-season to play in the Olympics. Japan and Korea will. As for the WBC, Japan and Korea take it seriously. Their players start training in January and are really at the top of their game by the time the tourney starts. MLB players (and fans) think the WBC is a meaningless exhibition and they refuse to put in the advance training that is necessary. They seem to view the WBC tourney as just another warm up for the season, and not a matter of national pride and honor, as it is in Japan and Korea. MLB created this tourney to expand the world market for their merchandise. The irony of it is that most MLB Gm’s don’t want their players to participate, for fear of injury. What matters in America is the 162 game season and the playoffs. That’s why you see such low attendance and TV ratings for games involving Team USA in America–as opposed to Japan and Korea where the ratings are off the charts in their respective countries. Also, MLB players put too much emphasis on the big home run and the 100 mph fastball, while ignoring the fundamentals of the game. But, in a short tournament, it’s the little things–advancing the runner, hitting to the opposite field, making the plays, etc–that help a team win. As we saw in this tourney, Japan is superior at that sort of thing.
The Rising Score: The NPB still has the four foreign player rule. Do you think, with their recent success, that they may consider dropping foreign players and try to create a Gaijinless team like the powerhouse Giants in the seventies? Pre Davey Johnson….
Robert Whiting: That’s an interesting idea, but it would be pointless as long as Japan’s top stars keep emigrating to the States.
The Rising Score: From your experience, how has the average NPB clubhouse changed from the heyday of Warren Cromartie and Randy Bass concerning foreign players?
Robert Whiting: Japanese are much more accustomed to foreign players than they were 20 years ago. There is a lot more information available about the American way of thinking thanks to the years of accumulated experience in dealing with the gaijin, the advent of satellite tv and the internet, and the experience of Japanese players playing in America. Accordingly there is a lot more information available to Americans about the Japanese way of doing things. There is more acceptance than there used to be.
The Rising Score: Ichiro selected Samurai Japan’s name. As you know the Samurai died off about a hundred some years ago. What is it going to take for the Americans to beat the Samurais again? And do you think it will be a Phyrrhic victory in doing so?
Robert Whiting: The Japanese game, which dates back to the late 19th century, is based on the philosophy of the martial arts, which was the purvey of the samurai. That philosophy is one of endless training and the development of spirit. So, in that sense, the connection to the samurai is a real one. What it is going to take for the Americans to defeat the Japanese in a WBC, is earlier training and a return to the basics of the game. Having said that, it is still not clear how a Japanese all-star team would do if it had to play 162 games in the MLB. Their players train so hard they tend to run out of gas by August.
Japan Wins! Japan Wins!
Ichiro Wins! Korean Manager Please meet Grady Little.
The Rising Score 
Ukyo Sasahara Wins the KART Racing Junior World Champion
Ukyo said he was going to win and he won
Just in Ukyo Sasahara has won the world Junior KART championship in Egypt. More info coming soon.
Here is some English info on Ukyo who I teach English to by the way.
http://ukyosasahara.weebly.com/
I will write more tomorrow!!!