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The story
Ahead of his retirement game scheduled for August 30, Seibu’s Takumi Kuriyama went down after being hit in the head by a pitch during a farm-team (2nd-team) game against Rakuten on the 26th. Following reports that “it sounded like his helmet cracked,” 5ch’s Entertainment & Sports Express+ board lit up with discussion over whether he’ll still be able to play in his retirement game, how the scheduling works, and reactions toward the opposing pitcher.
8/26 (Wed) 14:19 JST
Nikkan Sports
<Farm League Interleague Game: Seibu vs. Rakuten> ◇August 26◇ Kaminiku Field
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
They can probably still hold the ceremony, but he might not get to actually take the field and show off his game one last time.
They're still in the pennant hunt and want to lock up at least 2nd place, so it's an awkward time for this.
Then again, his stats aren't like Yamasaki Takeshi, who was still smashing hits well past 40 — realistically he's like 5 years overdue for retirement. And now this beanball on top of it lol
Beanballs to the head used to be pretty rare, right?
Maybe pitchers' lower-body mechanics have gotten weaker.
They're just getting velocity from weight training — the actual skill level is seriously low.
It's because batters stopped bailing out of the way.
Wasn't his former teammate Kishi supposed to pitch in that one?
Even if he gets hit hard, they'd cut him some slack given the circumstances.
> Bottom of the 3rd, 2 outs, Rakuten's Koga's fastball hits Kuriyama square in the head.
> Bottom of the 3rd, 2 outs, Rakuten's Koga's fastball hits Kuriyama square in the head.
The way this is written makes it sound like he got hit and died.
They're drawing fans in specifically for Kuriyama's retirement game — a rainout is one thing, but a game where the man himself doesn't play would basically be false advertising lol
He was full of energy back then…
the retirement game is a first-team (top-league) game.
Well, of course it is.
a guy nobody's even heard of has 2,150 career hits
Getting 2,000 hits is genuinely hard, you know
But yeah, unflashy
Even glove-first guys like Araki Masahiro, Miyamoto Shinya, and Tanishige Motonobu got their 2,000 hits too
I saw an article saying it'd be nice if he got to pitch, but it comes down to whether Rakuten's side is willing to make a classy gesture.
They're already locked into last place, so maybe Yoshii will just let it be a friendly, low-stakes game
No pension once you retire either, tough being in a declining league.
Unlike the J.League, both revenue and attendance here keep climbing though
So, did the pension come back?
Apparently the J.League's attendance and revenue are climbing too despite all that
The JFA running a deficit is just because it's not structured as a stock company
Wouldn't it make more sense to give the young guys the reps instead?
He's a franchise legend so they want to give him a top-team retirement game, but Seibu's sitting in 2nd place and can't afford to ease off.
So he went out to a farm game just to get some timing work in — and took a pitch to the head for it.
Guess it's next year's preseason then
Honestly that'd be better
They're already locked into a Climax Series spot this year anyway
Background and Key Points
Kuriyama Takumi is a 42-year-old infielder/outfielder who has spent his whole career with the Seibu Lions and has quietly accumulated over 2,150 hits, a number that would be a career highlight on most rosters but has never made him a headline name — hence posters comparing him to similarly unglamorous 2,000-hit contact hitters like Araki, Miyamoto and Tanishige. NPB teams run two full rosters, an ichi-gun (top team) that plays the games fans watch on TV and a ni-gun (farm team) used for rehab, tryouts and timing work; Kuriyama was only in this Rakuten farm game to sharpen his timing ahead of a pre-arranged “taininshiai” (retirement game), a ceremonial send-off NPB clubs stage for franchise veterans, complete with a chosen opponent and a scripted final at-bat. Seibu, however, is fighting for second place and a Climax Series spot, so the club couldn’t simply bench him for weeks to be safe.
The thread wasn’t arguing about whether Kuriyama deserved the sendoff — everyone agreed he’d earned it — but about logistics: does a possible concussion torpedo his last on-field appearance, should the game be postponed or pushed to next spring’s exhibition slate, and would Rakuten (already eliminated from contention) ease up on him as a courtesy.
What outside readers likely miss is that NPB retirement games routinely rely on the opposing pitcher’s cooperation to let the honoree get a hit or an at-bat cleanly, which is why several posters were specifically hoping Rakuten would “make a classy gesture” rather than pitch him tough — a custom without a real MLB equivalent.
*This article is compiled and summarized from excerpts of the 5ch (Entertainment & Sports Express+) thread “[Seibu] Kuriyama Takumi, set for his retirement game on the 30th, hit in the head by a pitch — sound like a cracking helmet as he collapses, farm game.”
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