Shun Yamaguchi
is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). He previously played for the Yokohama BayStars/Yokohama DeNA BayStars of the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), and for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). He is the first Japanese player to make his MLB debut with the Blue Jays, and also the first MLB player who had never played for any baseball teams in the United States. Career Yokohama DeNA BayStars The Yokohama BayStars selected Yamaguchi in the first round in the 2005 Nippon Professional Baseball draft. He began his professional career with the Yokohama BayStars in 2006. In 2007, Yamaguchi recorded a 6.30 ERA in only 6 appearances for the main club. He improved in 2008, registering a stellar 0.76 ERA across 16 appearances. In 2009, he pitched in 51 games, recording a 5–4 record and 3.27 ERA. In 2010, Yamaguchi pitched to a 2.62 ERA with 78 strikeouts in 68.2 innings pitched, earning all-star hono ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games primarily at Rogers Centre in downtown Toronto. The name "Blue Jays" originates from the bird of the same name, and blue is also the traditional colour of Toronto's collegiate and professional sports teams including the Maple Leafs (ice hockey) and the Argonauts (Canadian football). In 1976, out of the over 4,000 suggestions, 154 people selected the name "Blue Jays." In addition, the team was originally owned by the Labatt Brewing Company, makers of the popular beer Labatt Blue. Colloquially nicknamed the "Jays", the team's official colours are royal blue, navy blue, red, and white. An expansion franchise, the club was founded in Toronto in 1977. Originally based at Exhibition Stadium, the team began playing its home games at SkyDome ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. The NL and AL were formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively. Beginning in 1903, the two leagues signed the National Agreement and cooperated but remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball. MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. It is also included as one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. Baseball's first all-professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. Before that, some teams had secretly paid certain players. The first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who often jumped from one te ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Position Player
In baseball, a position player is a player who on defense plays as an infielder, outfielder, or catcher. In Major League Baseball (since 1973 in the American League and since 2022 in the National League), there is also a designated hitter, who bats but does not play any defensive positions (and is therefore not a position player). Position players are eligible to pitch, and a manager will use a position player as a relief pitcher on rare occasions. This typically happens if a game is a blowout, if no other pitchers are available, or if the game has gone well into extra innings. Although a position player may be eligible to pitch, the pitcher is not considered a position player. In other sports In ice hockey, "position player" refers to all non-goaltender players ( forwards and defencemen), although "skater" is the more common term. See also * Baseball positions In the sport of baseball, each of the nine players on a team is assigned a particular fielding position when it is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sportsnet
Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was required to divest its stake in the network following its 2001 acquisition of competing network TSN. Rogers then became the sole owner of Sportsnet in 2004 after it bought the remaining minority stake that was held by Fox. The Sportsnet license comprises four 24-hour programming services; Sportsnet was originally licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as a category A service, operating as a group of regional sports networks offering programming tailored to each feed's region (in contrast to TSN, which was licensed at the time to operate as a national sports service, and could only offer limited regional opt-outs). Since 2011, the service has operated under deregulated category C licensing, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Posting System
The is a baseball player transfer system that operates between Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB). Despite the drafting of the United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement, unveiled in 1967 to regulate NPB players moving to MLB, problems began to arise in the late 1990s. Some NPB teams lost star players without compensation, an issue highlighted when NPB stars Hideo Nomo and Alfonso Soriano left to play in MLB after using loopholes to void their existing contracts. A further problem was that NPB players had very little negotiating power if their teams decided to deal them to MLB, as when pitcher Hideki Irabu was traded to an MLB team for which he had no desire to play. In 1998, the Agreement was rewritten to address both problems; the result was dubbed the "posting system". Under this system, when an NPB player is "posted", his NPB team notifies the MLB Commissioner, with the posting fee based on the type of contract a player signs and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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CBSSports
CBSSports.com (formerly CBS SportsLine.com and SportsLine USA) is an American sports news website operated by Paramount Streaming, itself a division of Paramount Global. It is the website for CBS's CBS Sports division that features news, highlights, analysis, and fantasy sports games. History SportsLine In 1997, the service entered into a content-sharing partnership with Viacom. SportsLine also entered into agreements to operate official websites for the NCAA, NFL, and PGA Tour. The company later launched a co-branded website for CBS Sports (then owned by Viacom), CBSSportsLine CBS purchase In August 2004, already holding a 38% stake in the company, Viacom announced that it would acquire the remainder of SportsLine in a deal valued at $46 million ($1.75 per-share) and re-align it with the CBS Sports division (owing to Viacom's ownership of CBS at the time). The company originally operated as a division of CBS Sports, reporting to its president Sean McManus. Fantasy Sports ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Posting System
The is a baseball player transfer system that operates between Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB). Despite the drafting of the United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement, unveiled in 1967 to regulate NPB players moving to MLB, problems began to arise in the late 1990s. Some NPB teams lost star players without compensation, an issue highlighted when NPB stars Hideo Nomo and Alfonso Soriano left to play in MLB after using loopholes to void their existing contracts. A further problem was that NPB players had very little negotiating power if their teams decided to deal them to MLB, as when pitcher Hideki Irabu was traded to an MLB team for which he had no desire to play. In 1998, the Agreement was rewritten to address both problems; the result was dubbed the "posting system". Under this system, when an NPB player is "posted", his NPB team notifies the MLB Commissioner, with the posting fee based on the type of contract a player signs and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2019 WBSC Premier12
The 2019 WBSC Premier12 was an international baseball championship featuring the 12 highest-ranked national teams in the world, held by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). It was the second WBSC Premier12 event. The championship was held from November 2 to 17, 2019, in Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. The tournament served as a qualifier for baseball at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Two quota spots were allocated, with Team Mexico as the top finisher from the Americas earning one spot, and Team South Korea as the top-finishing team from the Asia/Oceania region (excluding Team Japan, which already qualified as host) earning the other. Japan defeated South Korea in the championship game, and the bronze medal game was won by Mexico over Team USA. Teams The 12 highest-ranked national teams qualified to participate in the 2019 WBSC Premier 12, based on the then-most-recent WBSC World Rankings, which were as of December 17, 2018. Format Opening Round The t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Japan National Baseball Team
The is the national team representing Japan in international baseball competitions. It won the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009, as well as WBSC Premier12 in 2019. The team is currently ranked 1st in the world by the World Baseball Softball Confederation. The team has participated in every Summer Olympic Games since the first demonstration tournament in 1984, through when baseball was discontinued following the 2008 Beijing Games. Until 2000, the team was made up exclusively of amateur players. Since the 2000 Summer Olympics, the team has been composed of players from Nippon Professional Baseball. The team that played in the 2006 World Baseball Classic included Japanese players from Major League Baseball as well. The team won the 2006 Classic. It played at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, as it had qualified through the Asian Baseball Championship in 2007. Unlike the WBC roster, the Olympic team was composed exclusively of NPB players (though it included one amateur pl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Japan Times
''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by Motosada Zumoto on 22 March 1897, with the goal of giving Japanese people an opportunity to read and discuss news and current events in English to help Japan to participate in the international community. The newspaper was independent of government control, but from 1931 onward, the paper's editors experienced mounting pressure from the Japanese government to submit to its policies. In 1933, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed Hitoshi Ashida, former ministry official, as chief editor. During World War II, the newspaper served as an outlet for Imperial Japanese government communication and editorial opinion. It was successively renamed ''The Japan Times and Mail'' (1918–1940) following its merger with ''The Japan Ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Central League
The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around the country. Unlike the Pacific League, designated hitters are not used during Central League home games. History The Central League was founded in 1949 with eight teams: four holdovers from the previous Japanese Baseball League — the Chunichi Dragons, the Hanshin Tigers, the Yomiuri Giants, and the Shochiku Robins (formerly the Taiyō Robins) — and four new teams — the Hiroshima Carp, the Kokutetsu Swallows, the Nishi Nippon Pirates, and the Taiyō Whales. The Nishi Nippon Pirates existed for one season — they placed sixth in 1950, and the following season merged with the also Fukuoka-based Nishitetsu Clippers (a member of the Pacific League) to form the Nishitetsu Lions, who joined the Pacific Lea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |