The 8Asians Talk About: Yu Darvish and Japanese Baseball Players

Our internal e-mail lists have us discussing all kinds of stuff: Asian American identity, representation in the media, the experiences of activism in an academia setting and its progression as we transition to the working, adult world. And sometimes, people talk about Yu Darvish, the half-Japanese, half-Iranian pitching phenom, while other people stand around politely and think to themselves when the next season of American Idol will come out since they know nothing about baseball. (And of course, that someone is me.) Let us watch, shall we?

Joz: The Texas Rangers win negotiating rights to Yu Darvish.

Russell from GASP!: Just watched this video [from mlb.com]. Looks to be a good deal if they can snag him.  Their pitching roster is already good, with them reaching the world series two years in a row, if he can pitch as well as Cliff Lee I’m sure he’ll be welcome. On that note, whatever happened to Okajima and Matsuzaka for the Red Sox?

Lily: Sadly, Daisuke was on the DL I think for allllll of the Red Sox’s last (heartbreaking and disastrous) season and hasn’t had nearly as good of seasons since his first two with the Sox (also not pitching as many games either for DL or management decisions, I think some combo of both). And Okajima is playing for the Pawtucket Red Sox (our AAA team), for non-baseball people that means he got demoted. We’ve got a couple other Asians on the team but I don’t think anyone who is particularly good… but I didn’t watch overly much of the end of the season because well, you know.

Russell: Oh man, didn’t know that Okajima was pitching in the minor-leagues.  Sucks since they were really in need of good closing pitching last season.  Oh well, here’s hoping either of them will make it back into the starting rotation. Oh, and completely off-topic but a good player to watch for is Kolten Wong.  He played for my University and got drafted 22nd in last year’s draft by the Cards.  Since Pujols is gone, hopefully they’ll bump him up from the minor leagues for a DH spot or something; he was pretty awesome when he hit here.

Everyone else: …

Ernie: Yay, sports are great! I love sports!