Owen’s school team, the Senri & Osaka International Schools Sabers defeated the Canadian Academy Falcons 10-3 yesterday. In the video above, Owen hits a ground rule double over the head of the left fielder. He played first base and pitched the final three innings in relief. An interesting side note, the Canadian Academy pitcher is the son of former MLB player, So Taguchi, who is also a graduate of Kwansei Gakuin University. Besides winning a World Series with the Saint Louis Cardinals, he was a teammate of Ichiro Suzuki on the Orix Buffaloes and he is a from Nishinomiya.
In the Western Japan Athletic Association, the balls have a rubber cover for safety, but combined with the artificial turf, one sees many high bounces. Owen’s team is still undefeated heading into the last two weeks of the season. There is a really good group of grade 7 players on the Sabers MS team this year. The Japanese players are so fundamentally sound. It is like Serbian basketball, it seems like everyone naturally knows how to play the game because baseball is so popular in Japan. They really made some good plays in the field and it separates us from the other teams in the WJAA.
Bill's Blog 