I've got my tickets in hand for Yakult Swallows Opening Day, just a few hours from now and a few miles up the road, at historic Jingu Stadium. So it's time to get the annual thread rolling, though this a bit of a placeholder post.
Jingu is, I believe, one of the last four stadiums still standing that Babe Ruth played in, along with Fenway, Wrigley, and Koshien but there are plans to tear it down soon, build a new one, and redevelop the whole area. That plan involves cutting down about a hundred very old trees and is not without its critics; there have been a bunch of protests over it. I'm all for bigger seats at Jingu but would like to see them just renovate the existing building.
For your enjoyment I present the 12 NPB team slogans for this year. The teams all have a new slogan every year. Some go with Japanese, some with English, some use both. Sometimes the English makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. A few years ago the Swallows slogan was "Snap out of it" which was of course incredibly inspiring. Here are the 2024 slogans from the JapanBall website:
https://japanball.com/npb-newsletter/2024-team-slogans-roki-sasaki-signs/
The Swallows 2024 slogan, ヤり返せ yarikaese or "get it back" / "get revenge" (for sucking last year) is made more enjoyable because they put the ya in katakana as a pun on the ya in Yakult, but when you add that kind of emphasis to a conjugation of yaru (to do), many translation services will render it in English as "f*ck me back."
Anyhoo.
In terms of following NPB or KBO, just my two yen but imho the best social media follows for the two biggest leagues in Asia are:
KBO: a guy named Dan Kurtz, @MyKBO on X.
NPB: @yakyucosmo on X, who some folks here will already be familiar with. Yakyu Cosmo also has a good YouTube channel, worth checking out.
S'all for now, just wanted to get it going. GoGoSwallows 2024!
Jingu is, I believe, one of the last four stadiums still standing that Babe Ruth played in, along with Fenway, Wrigley, and Koshien but there are plans to tear it down soon, build a new one, and redevelop the whole area. That plan involves cutting down about a hundred very old trees and is not without its critics; there have been a bunch of protests over it. I'm all for bigger seats at Jingu but would like to see them just renovate the existing building.
For your enjoyment I present the 12 NPB team slogans for this year. The teams all have a new slogan every year. Some go with Japanese, some with English, some use both. Sometimes the English makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. A few years ago the Swallows slogan was "Snap out of it" which was of course incredibly inspiring. Here are the 2024 slogans from the JapanBall website:
https://japanball.com/npb-newsletter/2024-team-slogans-roki-sasaki-signs/
The Swallows 2024 slogan, ヤり返せ yarikaese or "get it back" / "get revenge" (for sucking last year) is made more enjoyable because they put the ya in katakana as a pun on the ya in Yakult, but when you add that kind of emphasis to a conjugation of yaru (to do), many translation services will render it in English as "f*ck me back."
Anyhoo.
In terms of following NPB or KBO, just my two yen but imho the best social media follows for the two biggest leagues in Asia are:
KBO: a guy named Dan Kurtz, @MyKBO on X.
NPB: @yakyucosmo on X, who some folks here will already be familiar with. Yakyu Cosmo also has a good YouTube channel, worth checking out.
S'all for now, just wanted to get it going. GoGoSwallows 2024!