TransmitterTalk, Official blog of the Kawaguchi Transmitters.
Written by: Tabito Matsushima

April 15, 2018, Kawaguchi.

The four year man-hunt for Hiro Sato comes to an end today as Tokyo police declare him officially dead.  On the bright side, this forsaken blog dusts off the vacuum tubes in the old transmitter tower over here in Kawaguchi and is going to be transmitting blogs once again. Whatever a blog is. Whatever is a blog?  Anyway, I’m the author of this thing now. I was actually pretty excited when the Transmitters called me and asked me to come down, until I found out it was not for a tryout. Instead, they gave me this dusty computer and told me to write about my first and only true love. That would be the Transmitters, with whom I played four years and am still the career HR leader. Despite how awesome I am, that is all you will hear about me and my paltry 130 HR, becasue they pay me to talk about the team, not myself. So after much ado about nothing, on to the team.

The Transmitters are looking forward. This is good because a peak in the rearview mirror may result in a gasp, followed by losing control and swerving into a telephone pole. They have had seven straight losing seasons, one with 102 losses. That means they lost more than 70% of their games that season. Hopefully, that old losing culture is about to change. Newly-hired General Manager Daniel Diemer is in charge of dragging the Transmitters out of the muck. One of Diemer’s first goals is to hit the 2 million mark in attendance, which has not been done since their last winning season, in 2010. Not a lot is known about Diemer, but he is not afraid to spend money. Shortly after being hired, he signed SP Greg White on a one-year deal for $4.5 million. The Transmitters have a lot of young pitchers, but they are not fully developed yet, and a veteran like White could be the stop-gap the Transmitters need. It will certantly help them as they attempt to avoid finishing dead last in team ERA for a third straight year.   

I could not get a prospective opening day lineup out of Transmitters manager, BIAO CI. He did mention that he was looking forward to this year, and thinks the pitching will be much improved. “If we can just stop the bleeding there, I think we can score enough runs to compete,” CI commented.  Well, competition is good news to any Transmitter fan, because for the last seven years they might as well have stayed home. See you all at the ballpark!