Korea 0, Wae Pirates, 0 in the top of the 2nd.
The evil Wae Pirates are up 1-0 after four.
Choo Shin-soo ties it up with a solo blast in the fifth.
Congenital Island Thieves went up 2-1 in the seventh. Now in the top of the eighth. Now they’re up 3-1 in the top of the eighth.
OK, Korea’s down 3-2 in the top of the ninth.
Bottom ninth — one man out, men on first and second, and Choo’s up. You can cut the tension in the office with a knife. Choo wiffs.
Lee Bum-ho ties it up!!! We’re going into extra innings.
Uh oh. The Wae have men on first and third with one out.
Pop fly out, but now Ichiro’s up.
Damn you, Suzuki Ichiro! Damn you to Hell!
It’s over. The silence is surreal.
{ 55 comments… read them below or add one }
We got out of a jam in the 3rd inning, but it looks like the Japanese hitters have figured Bong out and his off speed pitches are not as effective anymore.
Bong has got to make the counter adjustment otherwise the Japanese are gonna get more hits.
GONE!!!!!! THAT’S MY BOY SHIN SOO!!!!
kick ass. that HR just sent chills up my spine.
dagnabbit, that was some ridiculous D….
It’s 2-1 boys, GO JAPAN!!!
How sweet it is…, 3-1 and counting…GO JAPAN!!!
How many periods are there in a baseball game?
holy crap. 3-3. this is a great game.
this is intense!
Ichiro… the last laugh? NOOOoooo…!
I’m so sweaty now……
And so it ends .. 5-3 Japan.
Damn… we could of used Park Chan Ho to close, but good game. Congrats to Japan. Win for Japan, but also a win for Asian baseball.
Ichiro is my New Hero! 5-3 JAPAN WINS, WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!
Excellent game, congratulations to Team Japan. And by excellent game, I mean the kind that gives me stomach ulcer. Ow.
Pitching to one of the best hitters on the planet with 1st base open, 2 outs, and the game on the line?
Congratulations to Korean manager Trigg Palin for being the dumbest person on the planet.
My tee ball coach would’ve walked Ichiro.
Easily the dumbest managerial move I’ve seen in my entire life.
Hockey. Now there’s a sport!
Wow, digging the quiet while it lasts.
It was the best game in the WBC 2009. Good job, team Korea!
Wasn’t watching, but on ESPN chat a guy thought the Korean closer was looking tired and should have been pulled before Ichiro’s hit. Any thoughts?
Couldn’t be bothered to watch but checked out the box score…and that sure did not tell the story!
I don’t know who was luckier…Korea for even being in it with a box line like that or Japan for somehow managing to hold on.
Have seen so many games where squandered opportunities come back to bite you in the ass.
Once again…this is just from the box score
(14 lob, 6 left in scoring position, 15 hits vs. 5 hits, 1 error, 5 lob, 1 left in scoring position)
And congratulations to Team Japan as well!!
The closer looked tired, scared and ready to die. I had a bad feeling at 2-2 to Ichiro.
Linkd, aren’t you Canukis good at any sports NOT involving ice?
Banzai!
They should not have pitched to Ichiro. The base was open with two outs. You walk the best hitter, and face the next guy. That was a puzzling move by manager Kim In Shik. He made all the right moves before this game. But what happened today? He made a few highly questionable moves. Managers have bad games too. Even good ones.
Did you guys see that hit Lee Yong Kyu took while he tried to steal second? Holy shit he’s gonna feel that one in the morning.
Iwakuma completely destroyed the Korean batting line tonight while the Japanese hitters came alive. 15 hits vs. 5 hits. Big hurt.
15 hits but only 5 runs.. so many singles. They really slap that ball around.
Puzzling? It was full-on retarded. That guy shouldn’t be coaching tee ball if he’s going to pitch to Ichiro in that spot.
# 23,
Banzai is just the Japanese pronunciation of the Korean Mansei. For real, look it up in the Nihon Shoki.
cm, I’m not sure if I agree. If they walk ichiro, you have to face probably their hottest hitter–Aoki. I think MAYBE we woulda had a better chance sending a lefty against Ichiro.
We played absurd defense to be able to make it even that close. If KO had caught that easy line drive…
#27 I looked it up on Wikipedia. It says that both the Korean “mansei” and the Japanese “banzai” have Chinese origins.
#24 Yeah, seriously. It might have been a different game if they didn’t pitch to Ichiro. What was the manager thinking?
If Darvish hit that guy with that pitch near the head…would there have been a brawl?
28 oh, yeah… good point.
JW, you’re wrong. Walking Ichiro would’ve brought Nakajima to the plate, not Aoki.
That was easily the single dumbest move in the history of baseball to pitch to Ichiro. He’s one of the top 5 hitters on the planet, and with the game on the line and an open base…just plain ridiculous to even give him a chance.
The ESPN guys couldn’t believe how stupid it was either. They called the result before it even happened.
A shame for the Korean players to fight so hard for the last few weeks, battle back in the 9th to tie it, and then get shit on by an absolute dumbfuck move by their manager.
None of the assistant coaches had the balls to tell him what was plain to anyone with half a brain cell?
Or was he trying to stick it to “garlic man” Ichiro by challenging him?
Either way, he cost them the tournament. Congratulations dipshit.
# 27,
That’s true. But they got the specific pronunciation from the Koreans. “Live 10,000 years” sounds totally different in Mandarin.
Wow, blueballs would make a great hockey commentator. That’s the first time I’ve heard a Y-chromosome engaged during a discussion of baseball.
What a game! That series could have gone 7 and I still would not say for sure who would win- but I could tell you it would be a great game.
I was pulling for Japan but what was with that gang tackle at second, and with Kyu getting worked by Japan not once but twice during the series. Neither time did Japan see if he was ok after he was hit in the back of the head, or in the face, and don’t tell me that second baseman didn’t feel his face in his shin. You can be competitive but you don’t have to be a ass about it, go see if the dude’s ok.
Bong and TK Kim man I want to see those guys in MLB. Every time Kim stepped up to the plate I was worried he’d go yard. Anytime that guy gets a hold of a pitch it launches off that bat.
Korea has heart and hopefully with take the loss in stride- they’re a stellar team with tons of talent that will be the future of solid baseball unlike the MLB’s self loving players such as A-roid and B-roid.
Hmm.. the manager is saying that he did tell the pitcher to walk Ichiro…
Mis-sign or covering his ass?
Even my wife, who knows as much about baseball as Carr does about presidential politics (less than nothing), said “Isn’t Ichiro the really good one? Why don’t they walk him?”
If that guy still has a job in the morning, it better be as a janitor.
It was a what, 9 pitch at bat! You’re telling me he told him to walk Ichiro, and then watched 9 pitches go by, many of them in the strike zone and fouled off, and definitely not an intentional walk…and he didn’t go to the mound to explain what a walk was or tell him to stop throwing strikes?
I gave him too much credit when I called him retarded. Now he’s a coward or a liar to boot.
Unbelievable.
WangKon936,
Stop smoking crack. Mandarin is only recently the ascendant language of China. AFAIK, most of the vocabulary to Japan came from the Tang dynasty era, and that language is more similar to Chinese southern dialects that modern Mandarin. Also, while plenty of Chinese knowledge flowed through Korea to Japan, much also came directly from China.
万岁！
Aigo…it had to be Suzuki in the end, damn….
Korea’s been playing exceptional baseball lately, so that’s some consolation I suppose.
Just got back from the game…it was intense with all of those fans there…something like 55k….
Overall a great game, my only gripe like others is why did they pitch to Ichiro?
That is a question that will be asked for the next three years I think.
aren’t you Canukis good at any sports NOT involving ice?
Rowing. Diving. Swimming.
Waitaminnit… that’s liquid ice.
Rowing. Diving. Swimming.
Waitaminnit… that’s liquid ice.
BTW, thank you Ichiro. You took all the smack talk thrown your way and smacked it right back when it counted.
Stick to what you know, and leave linguistics to those who do.
Koreans must have felt the pain twice as much since it was Ichiro who hit in the winning runs. I am almost certain most Koreans watching the game were saying to themselves, “No, no, not Ichiro, not Ichiro, please not Ichiro,” then BANG!
Hard to argue with anything said here:
http://eastwindupchronicle.com/how-korean-nationalism-cost-it-the-wbc-crown/
All bravado, no brains.
Amid all this sweaty jock-talk, I’d like to interject with a warning that Diamond D over at Asian Sirens is not to be missed.
Did Darvish pick up both a blown save and the win? Can’t be every day that happens.
# 42 & 49,
Trust me, its in the Nihon Shoki, but it’s an over 600 page document and I’m not going to plow through it for this.
I comment more about it here:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/06/24/protests-halt-kamikaze-memorial/#comment-165641
and here:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/06/24/protests-halt-kamikaze-memorial/#comment-165651
Yes yes, gbevers, we know you were happy with the results.
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