Carp again

I just blogged about the Carp, but hey, I'm no writer, and I know fuck all about baseball and the history of the team. This is a nice article from the Daily Yomiuri. Thanks to GH for pointing me there.

Oh and they beat Manche...Giants tonight.

(and speaking of Manchester, Brighton beat the richest club in the world, Manchester City, last night.....Check it :)....)

Carp dream of landmark finish
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Fish might not dream, but Hiroshima Carp do. With Hiroshima Citizens Stadium staging its final games, outfielder Shigenobu Shima revealed his dream to The Hot Corner on Monday.
Before the Carp are transported to a new pond, a larger ballpark near Hiroshima Station for next season, the team has some unfinished business to attend to.
"There's no next year here," Shima said of the park that's scheduled to host its final regular season game on Sunday.
"If we get to the Climax Series, some fans will make it to our road games, but so many wouldn't be able to see us play. That's why we need to win so that we can come home in the Japan Series and play again for our fans here.
"We want to do this, and the fans share the feeling. It's pretty special."
Hiroshima Shimin is fairly special as well: a downtown, natural-surfaced, open-air facility, where fans walk or arrive on the streetcar that stops 30 meters from the gate. It is noticeably old and cramped, but it is also intimate. The atmosphere is similar to that at Koshien, but the fans in Hiroshima are perched closer to the action. The only stadium where the fans are any closer is the Eagles' remodeled park in Sendai.
It is a shame the club and city decided a new park was the best option, because with some serious renovation, this little gem could be unsurpassed.
When the Carp moved here in July 1957, the team was already seven years into an 18-year spell in the lower reaches of the Central League standings. That streak ended in 1968 with a 68-62-4 campaign, the club's second winning season, but Hiroshima's fans continued to suffer until 1975. That was the year the club emerged as a powerhouse.
With a mass of talent developed under former manager Rikuo Nemoto, the Carp won it all in 1975, 1979, 1980 and 1984 under skipper Takeshi Koba.
The Carp continued to be a force in the CL, but failed to win the Series in 1986 and 1991, with that last year being a turning point in the team's fortunes. The old guard of the 1980s was gone and new stars were emerging. Third baseman Akira Eto, shortstop Kenjiro Nomura and an outfield trio of Koichi Ogata, Tomonori Maeda and Tomoaki Kanemoto should have powered Hiroshima to some pennants, but the decline of the club's pitching and catching proved too big an obstacle.
Shinji Sasaoka had the stuff and heart to be Japan's best pitcher for over a decade, but the abusive management of Koji Yamamoto turned the dominant right-hander into a journeyman by the age of 27. Under Yamamoto and Toshiyuki Mimura, who skippered the Carp from 1994 to 1998, the Carp burned out one promising young pitcher after another.
Free agency, the inability to keep young pitchers healthy and the organization's unwillingness to pay the cost of keeping successful foreign players doomed the Carp to 10 straight lower-division finishes from 1998 to 2007.
The loss of the team's two best players, third baseman Takahiro Arai and pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, to free agency made things look bleak for a turnaround in Shimin Kyujo's final season. For those focusing on players who were either gone or long past their prime, the Carp had no chance.
But fortunately for the Carp and their fans, names do not win games, players do.
By fighting the owner's desire that every Carp lineup look like an old-timers game, Brown has given chances to younger, faster and more ambitious players.
Instead of having the popular, but lead-footed, Maeda in the outfield as ownership wants, the combination of Shima, Soichiro Amaya, Masato Akamatsu and Alex Ochoa provides a healthy supply of speed, offense and defense.
The addition of league strikeout and ERA leader Colby Lewis (14-7) has helped a fairly young pitching staff be even better without Kuroda.
The new-look Carp have played better and better as the season has progressed and seized a slight advantage in the race for the CL's final playoff spot over the past week.
So while the Carp fans are celebrating the old times, the team is giving Hiroshima a chance to see the old park in its best way possible--as the home of a winning team.
(Sep. 25, 2008)