Monday, August 17, 2009

プロ野球ナイター記念日(puro yakyu naita kinenbi): Anniversary of the night game of professional baseball game

What sports do you like? In Japan baseball (yakyu: 野球 ) is the most popular sports I think. It is a high school baseball game season now.
On Aug. 17, 1948 the first night game of professional baseball teams (Giants vs. Dragons) were played. Therefore it is the anniversary for that. In Japan the baseball night game is called naita(ナイター), it is Japanese-English of night+er. The word "Nighter" was used for the first time at that time.
Speaking of baseball, Matsui Kazuo(松井稼頭央) of Houston Astros made a record of 2000 hits recently. Congratulations! It's been 16 years since he became professional. He is the third Japanese player who made the record. The first was Ichiro (イチロー) of Seattle Mariners who has 3256 hits, the second was Matsui Hideki(松井秀喜) of New York Yankees who has 2327 hits.
When I was young there were some foreigners playing in Japan, but no Japanese in the US major leagues. But these days many Japanese baseball players have been very active in the USA. We are so proud of them.

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