{"id":244559,"date":"2017-01-17T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=244559"},"modified":"2017-01-17T06:00:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T20:00:39","slug":"japanese-pros-conduct-baseball-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/japanese-pros-conduct-baseball-clinic\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese pros conduct baseball clinic"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saipan players watch a Japanese pro bat during a baseball clinic last Sunday at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios Ballfield. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Players from Japan\u2019s Nippon Professional Baseball are in town and held a short clinic at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios Ballfield last Sunday.<\/p>\n

About 20 youth and adult players on Saipan participated in the one-hour clinic conducted by the seven pros who play for three different teams\u2014Yomiuri Giants, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, and Yokohama DeNA BayStars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great clinic even if it was just a short one. We got some tips from the pros and some words of encouragement,\u201d said Virgil Secharmidal, who will be playing in the new season of the Saipan Baseball League.<\/p>\n

Secharmidal was joined in the clinic by other Big League players, who will be suiting up in some SBL teams after their division was scrapped from the Saipan Little League Baseball schedule. Major, Junior, and Senior League players also participated in the clinic.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinue playing even if it is hard to play. Do your best in every game because some people are watching and they may recruit you to play in college, if not in the pro league,\u201d said Taishi Ohta through an interpreter.<\/p>\n

Ohta capped the clinic with a series of power hits. He did not stop swinging until he made the over-the-fence homer, which drew cheers from Saipan players. Ohta used to play for the Yomiuri Giants\u2014the former team of 2013 ALCS MVP Koji Uehara of the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n

Besides hitting, Ohta, who is now with Nippon, and company taught Saipan players the fundamentals of base running and fielding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been teaching our players the same mechanics in batting and hearing similar tips from the pros makes our young sluggers understand more the proper way of swinging the bat,\u201d said SBL official Tony Rogolifoi, who coordinated the clinic with the Japanese Consulate Office on Saipan. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to thank the Japanese Consulate Office on Saipan and Mr. Toshio Matsumuro for making this clinic possible and for introducing these pros to us,\u201d Rogolifoi said.<\/p>\n

The pros, according to their coordinator A.J. Taniguchi, are on Saipan for personal training. They\u2019ve been frequent visitors of the island as the weather is best for their winter training.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey train here before going back to Japan to join their teams for a camp. They are preparing for the new season, which will begin at the end of March. They were glad to be able to meet the local players and share with them their knowledge about baseball,\u201d Taniguchi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Players from Japan\u2019s Nippon Professional Baseball are in town and held a short clinic at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":244562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[170,15154,731,15155],"class_list":["post-244559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-japan","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-sbl","tag-yomiuri-giants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}