I had the good fortune of catching a game at Ranger Stadium in Arlington, TX this week, and it was one hell of a game. Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish started well, earning four strikeouts in the first two innings, then imploded. He gave up six runs in the third and another in the fourth before more than 42,000 hometown fans.
Interesting note for those of us who have experienced the phenomenon of Ichiro Suzuki in Seattle. While Darvish is a popular young pitcher amongst Ranger fans of all nationalities, there were a considerable number of Japanese fans in the crowd, almost all of them sporting Darvish jerseys. It’s a considerable market for MLB teams to tap into, and we’ve seen it with Dice-K, Godzilla and a few other import stars. For anyone who has heard entire sections of gleeful college-aged Asian girls squeeing for Ichiro, you’ll know what I’m talking about. As an ex-ESL teacher, I’m interested in things like this.
But I digress. Back to baseball.