japan Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

This Air Hockey-Playing Robot Is Here To Ruin Your Shit
Japan—of course it's Japan, home of the Messi-stopping goalkeeper robot—has found a way to win all the Dave & Buster's tickets....

A Japanese Team Was Interested In Alex Rodriguez
There's nothing the Yankees can do about the five years and $114 million remaining on Alex Rodriguez's contract unless he retires, or unless they can find a Japanese GM who hasn't been paying attention to MLB for the last three seasons....

The Japanese Version Of <em>Sport Science</em> Is Awesome
We've said before in this space that ESPN's pseudoscientific Sport Science segments are "sneakily awful," but this weekend I happened across something from Japanese national broadcaster NHK that puts ESPN to shame....

The Art Of The Japanese Bat Flip
This video was put together by some unknown Japanese hero a year ago, but it's making the rounds today (I think it popped up first on Fangraphs last week). And that's 100 percent of the background on the video you're going to get....

The Cubs' New Japanese Pitcher Accidentally Told The Press He Wouldn't Care If Chicago Traded Him
Today the Cubs officially introduced new signing Kyuji Fujikawa, because any time you can lock up a 32-year-old middle reliever who's never pitched in the MLB for two years and $9.5 million, you have to pull the trigger. Fujikawa met with the media at Wrigley Field, and though he speaks a decent amo...

Don't You Dare Fall Asleep During One Of Marco Chiudinelli's Tennis Matches
During a match Thursday at the Japan Open, Marco Chiudinelli was so annoyed about a sleeping fan in the stands that he asked Janko Tipsarevic, a top 10 player in the world, to do something about it before the next point was played. As for Tipsarevic throwing a ball at the offending narcoleptic? Th...

Cheerleaders, Endless Chants, And Fan-Created Performance Art: Why Baseball Games In The Far East Feel Like College Football Games
On my flight to Busan, South Korea I sat next to an older Korean woman sporting a Detroit Tiger hat. It seemed serendipitous that I'd be seated next to a fellow Tigers fan on a vacation planned entirely around seeing baseball games. The issue, which was a big issue, was expressing this....

South Korean Soccer Player Did Not Receive His Medal Because Of Politics
Park Jong-soo played all 90 minutes in South Korea's 2-0 win over Japan in Friday's bronze medal game. As he walked off the field he held up the sign you see, which apparently reads "Dokdo is our territory." The reference is to a group of islands between South Korea and Japan in waters (the Sea of ...

Was This Disgraceful Olympic Boxing Match Fixed?
Knockdowns are exceedingly rare in Olympic boxing. Japan’s Satoshi Shimizu knocked down Azerbaijan’s Magomed Abdulhamidov five times in the third and final round of their bantamweight bout yesterday. And yet, the judges scored the round in favor of the one who spent more time on the canvas than on ...

Olympics Fans Are Fat And Tired: Foreign Olympics News For The 6.7 Billion People Not Watching NBC
Deadspin and Gelf Magazine bring you the best (or at least the most interesting) foreign-produced journalism about the London Olympics. ...

Japan Made Its Women's Soccer Team Fly Economy, While Putting The Men In Business Class
Despite winning last year's World Cup, the Japanese women's national soccer team couldn't escape economy class on their Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo to Paris this week—despite the men's national team riding in business class....

Gahhh! Japanese Baseball Is Terrifying, Reports Hiroki Kuroda
That smiling man up there is Hiroki Kuroda of the New York Yankees. Kuroda's first season in the American League has been a good one—he's got a 134 ERA+ in 16 starts heading into the all-star break. So he has good reason to smile now. But he didn't, way back when, writes David Waldstein in the New Y...

Japan Is Still Nutso About Hideki Matsui
This is the pregame media scrum around Hideki Matsui, who was called up from Triple-A and will make his Rays debut in St. Petersburg tonight. The spectacle of Japanese fellows swarming their prey with cameras and notebooks is not a new one, and it's something we've come to expect every time a new NP...

70-Year-Old Japanese Equestrian Earns Spot In London Olympics
Hiroshi Hoketsu (who turns 71 on March 28) earned the spot by winning an international dressage meet in France earlier this week. It remains unclear whether he will actually compete in the games, but Japanese Equestrian officials not only exist but will also announce Hoketsu's participation status ...

Kobayashi Almost Pukes, Smiles At The Cameras, Obliterates Wing Bowl Record
Philadelphia's biggest eaters didn't stand a chance this morning against the superhuman maw of Takeru Kobayashi, who set a new Wing Bowl record by eating 337 chicken wings. The old record of 255 wings—set last year by Joey "Super" Squibb—was doomed by the end of the second round, making the final a ...

The Rangers Tossed Yu Darvish The Most Money, Dmitri Young Is Still Skinny, And More Hot Stove News
Your roundup of all the hottest hot-stove items of the day (and whatever shit Ken Rosenthal is throwing against the wall). This is ... HOT FUCKING STOVE!!...

The Facial Expression On The World's Fastest Jump Roper Is Gold
[via The Score]...

And You Didn't Think It Was Possible To Score A Header From 63 Yards Out
Ryujiro Ueda, a defender for J-League team Fagiano Okayama, enters the record books with the longest header goal in soccer (or at least YouTube) history. He owes at least a share of the record to the goalkeeper, who supplies the kinetic energy and misplays the ball perfectly. [Daily Mail]...

Dwight Howard Went To The Mall In Japan And Dunked On A 12-Foot Giraffe
That's pretty much all that happens here. Well, that and the basket is about 11 feet off the ground....

The Best 9-Year Old Girl Pro Wrestler You'll See All Day
From Japanese women's wrestling promotion Stardom comes this amazing match pitting Canadian Kenny Omega against Haruka, the tiny terror of the turnbuckles. And before you dismiss it as just a cute stunt, give Haruka a chance — she combines the technical skills of Dean Malenko, the high-flying abil...