Baseball
Japan's victory in the 2007 Asian Baseball Championship qualified the Japan national baseball team for Olympic competition. Japan, along with Cuba, has appeared in every Olympic baseball tournament since the sport was elevated to official status. Japan has reached the semifinals each year and taken one silver and two bronze medals, but has yet to win the Olympic championship.
- Roster
|
Pitchers:
Catchers:
|
Infielders:
Outfielders:
|
Group stage
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Group table
| Team | G | W | L | RS | RA | WIN% | GB | Tiebreaker |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Korea | 7 | 7 | 0 | 41 | 22 | 1.000 | - | - |
| Cuba | 7 | 6 | 1 | 52 | 23 | .857 | 1 | - |
| United States | 7 | 5 | 2 | 40 | 22 | .714 | 2 | - |
| Japan | 7 | 4 | 3 | 30 | 14 | .571 | 3 | - |
| Chinese Taipei | 7 | 2 | 5 | 29 | 33 | .286 | 5 | 1-0 |
| Canada | 7 | 2 | 5 | 29 | 20 | .286 | 5 | 0-1 |
| Netherlands | 7 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 50 | .143 | 6 | 1-0 |
| China | 7 | 1 | 6 | 14 | 60 | .143 | 6 | 0-1 |
Semifinal
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 2 | |||||||||||
| South Korea | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | X | 6 | 10 | 1 | |||||||||||
| WP: Kwang-Hyun Kim (1-0) LP: Hitoki Iwase (0-3) Home runs: JPN: None KOR: Seung-Yeop Lee (1) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Bronze medal game
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 1 | |||||||||||
| United States | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 8 | 9 | 0 | |||||||||||
| WP: Brett Anderson (1-0) LP: Kenshin Kawakami (0-1) Home runs: JPN: Masahiro Araki (1), Norichika Aoki (1) USA: Matt LaPorta (2), Matt Brown (2), Jason Donald (1) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Read more about this topic: Japan At The 2008 Summer Olympics
Famous quotes containing the word baseball:
“I’ve gradually risen from lower-class background to lower-class foreground.”
—Marvin Cohen, U.S. author and humorist. Baseball the Beautiful, Links Books (1970)
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“How, in one short century, has this ersatz sport so strangled the consciousness of the country in the grip of its flabby tentacles that the mention of women’s baseball gets no reaction other than blank amazement?”
—Darlene Mehrer, As quoted in Women in Baseball. Ch. 6, by Gai Ingham Berlage (1994)