japan Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Japanese Gymnast Reportedly Racks Up $5,000 Bill Playing <i>Pokémon Go</i> At The Olympics
Kohei Uchimura is a six-time world champion gymnast, a four-time gold medalist at the Olympics, and, apparently, an aspiring Pokémon trainer. Playing Pokémon Go in different locales can be a great way to accrue a collection of new monsters, but it can also cost you severely. Uchimura reportedly play...
Japanese Pro Wrestling Continues To Be Delightful
The DDT Pro Wrestling promotion in Japan is a goldmine of hilarious whimsy. It has given us Dick Strong, which in turn brought us Dick Stronger, and now it brings us a match with an incredible twist ending:...
What The Hell, Japan?
All sorts of people throw out first pitches before baseball games. Old guys, dinosaurs, washed rappers—you name it, they’ve done it. But this week, Nippon Professional Baseball—ever the innovators—went and put every quirky MLB first pitch into the toilet with this bizarre, unsettling play-within-a-p...
Brandon Laird Won Free Beer For A Year With This Dinger
Brandon Laird is a 28-year-old infielder who scuffled his way to a .197 average in 53 games for three teams in three years of Major League ball. He’s currently plying his craft in Japan for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, who are now my favorite NPB team because that name rules (the nickname is, s...
Lionel Messi Is Back On Japanese TV, Juggling Balls He Kicks To The Moon
During the same appearance on the Japanese game show in which he bested that enormous robot demon keeper, Lionel Messi sought to reclaim the world-record juggling trick he set the last time he was on the show. Unsurprisingly, he succeeded:...
Lionel Messi Takes On Giant Inflatable Demon Robot Keeper
A Japanese game show recently tested out the “Why don’t you just play with a huge goalkeeper who can block the whole goal?” theory on Lionel Messi. He showed that, even if you get a nightmarish, house-sized Miitomo-looking demon to guard the goal, he’ll still score on you....
Syria Score An Especially Painful And Embarrassing Own Goal
All own goals are painful for those who score them. This one, though, scored when Syria’s keeper punched a cross straight into teammate Hamdi Al Masri’s face for the ball to ricochet back into their own net, had to hurt even worse than normal, physically as well as psychically:...
Fourth Yomiuri Giants Pitcher Admits To Betting On Baseball
Japan’s professional baseball league was hit by a betting scandal this past fall, when a Nippon Professional Baseball investigation revealed that three pitchers on the Yomiuri Giants had bet on games. Now a fourth pitcher, reliever Kyosuke Takagi, has admitted to betting on games, as well as lying t...
College Basketball Game In Japan Cancelled After Wet Floor Causes Injuries
Pittsburgh and #9-ranked Gonzaga began their seasons yesterday at Foster Field House in the Marine Corps base on Okinawa, Japan, or at least they tried to. A slippery floor surface caused all manner of slips and falls, including the particularly gnarly one below, and the game was called off at halft...
Japan Stuns South Africa For First Rugby World Cup Win In 24 Years
The Rugby World Cup kicked off this weekend in Britain and one of the big favorites has already been upset. South Africa came into today’s game against Japan ranked #3 in the world to Japan’s #13, but the Cherry Blossoms knocked off the Springboks 34-32 with a dramatic try near the death by Karne He...
High School Baseball Player Has Extremely Complex Plate Routine
Whoever this high school baseball player is, he’s got talent when it comes to waiting for a pitch in the batter’s box. No. 12 really makes sure to limber up and spin his bat around before each swing....
Cristiano Ronaldo Has A Great Time Getting Felt Up On Japanese TV
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Apparently the aphorism applies a little differently to cyborgs. New evidence shows that a finger or five on Cristiano Ronaldo’s laser-cut abs turns him into a giggling schoolborg who will love you forever....
For 16 Minutes, Carli Lloyd Was The Greatest Player Of All Time
From the start, it felt like the fate of the United States women’s national team hinged not on talent or tactics or even luck, but on the answers to a series of open questions. Can Alex Morgan get healthy in time to contribute? What do we do with Christen Press and Sydney Leroux? What happens when w...
USWNT Shock Japan With Four Goals In Sixteen Minutes, Win World Cup
Soccer matches are 90 minutes long, and most of the time the ball is nowhere near a goal and 18 of the 22 players on the pitch are walking. But there are stretches—two minutes here, two seconds there—in which the players do unimaginable things with the ball and work with their teammates in a way tha...
Here Is Your 2015 Women's World Cup Final Liveblog
Here we go. The United States women’s national team is taking on Japan in the World Cup final. Follow along as we yell and jingoistically babble our way through the game while the Americans attempt to Do The Whole Shit for the first time since 1999....
England Lose World Cup Semifinal In Most Heartbreaking Fashion Possible
For 90 minutes, England stood toe-to-toe with Japan. The match was tied 1-1, with each team having scored a penalty kick, and as the clock ticked into extra time, it looked like we would need 30 more minutes to decide the tie. And then, English defender Laura Bassett made a touch that will haunt her...
Japan Score Scruffy Goal From A Corner, Progress To World Cup Semifinal
Look, they won’t all be wondrous moves drenched with class, genius, and magic pixie dust. But a winner is a winner, and Japan finally got theirs near the very end of their quarterfinal matchup against Australia....
Japan Scored The Best WWC Goal I've Ever Seen With My Own Two Eyes
This is just, wow....
Netherlands Player Busts Her Ass While Whiffing On Shot
We should be talking about this great run and the exquisite pass and maybe one of the best team moves in the tournament so far, but right before Dutch winger Manon Melis could crown the moment with a goal, she screwed it all up. More than whatever turf-burn she got from the fall, her bruised ego has...
What's Up With The Big Six At The Women's World Cup?
Colombia toppled France. Norway drew Germany. Cameroon, well, Camerooned. This year’s Women’s World Cup group stage was undoubtedly the most thrilling of the modern era. There were upsets and Cinderella stories, agony and ecstasy. No more do the Goliaths automatically rule over the Davids....