El Son De Los Japoneses: Kitasuna To The Top!

As Little League celebrates its 75th Anniversary at the 2014 Little League Baseball® World Series, Tokyo’s Kitasuna Little League will be coming to Williamsport in search of its third world championship. In Tokyo, Japan, Kitasuna Little League captured the banner as Japan Region Champions with a 12-0 win over Toyonaka Little League on Saturday, July 5, and secured a place in the field of 16 for the 68th Little League Baseball World Series.

“Teams from Japan have appeared in the Little League Baseball World Series since 1962, and the country of Japan has been represented as its own region beginning in 2009,” said Patrick W. Wilson, Little League International’s Senior Vice President of Operations and Program Development, and the Director of the Little League International Tournament. “For more than 40 years, Little League Baseball has been a major part of the lives of Japanese children. This year, Tokyo Kitasuna Little League will be playing for an opportunity to win its second world title in three years and the third straight for Japan.”

In 2001, Kitasuna Little League won the World Series in its first appearance, 2-1, over Apopka (Fla.) National Little League. Six years later, Kitasuna returned to the World Series and the World Championship Game, but lost in extra innings, 3-2, to Georgia’s Warner Robins American Little League. The league’s second LLB World Championship was claimed in 2012, with a five-inning, 12-2 victory over Goodlettsville (Tenn.) Baseball Little League.

In this year’s Japan Region Tournament, Tokyo Kitasuna Little League finished 4-0. Toyonaka Little League defeated defending LLB® World Series Champion Musashi Fuchu Little League in the region’s semifinal round by the score of 5-4, before falling to Kitasuna Little League in the title game. Learn more about the Japan Region Tournament.

The Japan Region Champions will face the Latin American Region Champions on Friday, Aug. 15, at 5 p.m. at Volunteer Stadium, airing on ESPN2. On June 29, Coquivacoa Little League from Maracaibo, Venezuela won the Latin America Region Championship in Managua, Nicaragua. All games at the Little League Baseball World Series will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks, the Watch ESPN app or ABC.

The 68th Little League Baseball World Series begins on Thursday, Aug. 14 in South Williamsport, Pa., with the Championship Game scheduled for 3 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 24, airing on ABC. The World Series will culminate the year-long celebration of the 75th Anniversary of Little League. For more information on the Series and to follow the action live, visit llbws.org. To learn more about Little League’s Diamond Anniversary, visit LittleLeagueBigLegacy.com.

USA, Italy, Brazil, and…Iraq!?

It was only fitting that captain Younes Mahmoud of the Iraq national football team send his countrymen to the FIFA Confederations Cup. The sons of a land torn by bloodshed and war, the Lions of the Two Rivers defeated Saudi Arabia’s Sons of the Desert, 1-0, and Mahmoud’s goal off an assist by Hawar Mullah Mohammed sent eruptions of joy, and bullets pumped into the air, from Baghdad to Basra, from Fallujah to Sadr City, and from Karbala to Najaf.

Iraq’s victory over Saudi Arabia was one of the few events that brought happiness. In a country where suicide bombers and car bombers make living or dying a lottery of fate, and where the United States has failed to stabilize tensions to the fact that billions of dollars are wasted on a meaningless cause, its football team was its angels, and its salvation.

With Iraq qualifying for the Confederations Cup in 2009, one wonder if they will be in the same pool as the USA. As if our ill-fated campaign wasn’t bad enough…

Let me go ahead and change the pace, and talk a little bit of Little League. First off, there are brackets where there is only one team qualifying, and one team only. You gotta give credit to Dhahran’s Arabia-American Little League because every year since the Transatlantic bracket was made, this group of expatriate children win this tournament every year. It’s not even a contest. It’s like the Golden Bears of California and the national collegiate rugby tournament: only one team has dominated the entire tournament, though there have been a few breaks.

Maybe the people should change the Transatlantic tournament to the “Dhahran Invitational at Kutno,” because patsies like Dubai (stick to your horse racing), Stuttgart (a football city), London (who even plays baseball there? Did you mean “rounders” or “cricket”!?), and Naples (the home of Italian-American cuisine may be best to stick to watching the Azzuri kick butt at Euro 2008, or seeing the next Serie A scandal unfold) can’t lift a tip of a finger to these regulars. Just bloody forfeit; the worst team in my high school baseball league can rough you guys up! Oy!

This year, the boys from Tokyo Kitasuna return to Williamsport, in hopes of bowing to the Lamade bust when they win it all (no hara-kiri, please). For these guys, this is their only chance, because it’s off to the high school ranks, where Koshien is their goal, and everything must be sacrificed in the name of aspiring to be in the ranks of kokoyakyu immortality. That explains why they do not have a Junior, Senior, of Big League entry: the road to Koshien is already keeping them busy.

That, and the examination exams, the cram sessions, and perhaps, the manga and anime that inspires them to visualize where they will be when the former two result in futulity. Make note of it, Hikkikomori nation.