4/3/2011: Kuwana, Japan – On April the second, the Steel Dragons made their spring debut on the road in Seoul.  For Yoshitake Tanaka this was the dawning of a new era in his career.  For the past 3 seasons, Yoshitake served as the 4^th outfielder to the stars.  With an outfield filled with the likes of Taro Kudo, Sozui Kawashima and Katsunosuki Kichida, playing time was hard to come by.  But with the departure of Kichida and career-threatening injuries to youngsters Manabu Oka and Noritada Kanda, Yoshitake Tanaka was left as the lone man standing to fill the left field vacancy.  He finally had his chance to shake the 4^th outfielder moniker and cement his place as an everyday LRS player.

Late in the game, with Kuwana in the oh-so familiar position of being down by a couple of runs, a line drive was hit over Tanaka’s head.  It must have been going through his mind that he had to fill some big shoes defensively; Kichida was a two-time Gurabukin winner who made only 2 errors in his 4-year LRS career.  Tanaka, who has very good speed once in motion and an excellent work ethic, gave it his best effort.  With one last dive as he approached the fence, he hauled in the ball for an out before crashing head-first into the hard exposed wall of “The Maw”.  Yoshitake laid on the ground motionless for a good 15 minutes, his head… a bloody mess.  After being taken to Seoul National University Hospital, X-rays reveled that he indeed had a fractured skull.  Yoshitake is expected to miss the next six months, nearly the entire season.

Kuwana team officials immediately filed a complaint with the league offices, saying this was an intentional act.  It’s been no secret that Seoul has been making every effort to move highly-paid left fielder Tashiaki Tanaka.  Kuwana claims that Seoul has removed all the padding from the left field fences in order to…

1. Injure Tanaka so badly that he’ll be forced to retire.
2. Injure every other left fielder in the league to create a better trade market.

It’s very “ironic” that Kuwana’s left fielder is the first to go down.  After all, they have been not-so-secretly trying to make the finances work on a deal for the estranged slugger.  Then there are the mysterious phone records between members of the Seoul front office and the Seville Motel in North Bergen, New Jersey, believed to be from the cell phone of one Julian Nizinski.

For now, Kuwana is claiming that there was not enough padding on the fences to protect the players and is seeking $841,914 in damages from the league, just enough to cover Tanaka’s 2011 salary.  Investigations will continue into this alleged act of violence.  As for their return trip to Seoul next week, Kuwana has already stated that star center fielder Taro Kudo will not make the trip.  Even though the center field area is well padded, we all know Kudo covers enough ground to play all 3 outfield positions at once.

In some “on the field” news, 27-year-old rookie Akihisa Mori has started to make a strong case to not only be the utility infielder, but also to get some platoon at bats as the starting shortstop versus left-hand pitching.  Mori was picked up off the scrap heap as a minor league free agent in June of last summer.  He’s been pinned as an all-glove, no-hit player, but is showing some life with the bat as of late.  After one week, he leads all LRS players in batting.  Of course he won’t hit anywhere close to .533 over the course of an entire season, but if he can hit .260-.270, with his speed, defense, gap power and heads-up play, then he’ll be a welcome addition to the team.