MEANWHILE, IN JAPAN...

Yu Darvish, in...

The baseball season has begun (first games were postponed until April 12th) amidst the ongoing tension of the Fukushima plant and its continuing vulnerability. For more, check out the ongoing coverage here and here.

...and out of his uniform.

From an American perspective, the biggest news with respect to Japanese pro yakyu remains the likely 2012 arrival of rock-star pitcher Yu Darvish. The 6'5" Darvish is 58-22 over his past four seasons with the Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Japanese Pacific League, and he possesses the alluring, half-Asian/half-Middle Eastern looks to spark all kinds of mayhem in a major American metropolitan area.

Sho Nakata

So far in 2011, Darvish is 5-1 with a 2.20 ERA and is striking out ten batters per nine innings. He'll be 25 in August and just might have enough prime years left to be of significant value in American baseball. Nothing in his prior history suggests that he'll have the type of adjustment issues that have plagued Daisuke Matsusaka during his tenure with the Red Sox.

Nippon-Ham also possesses another likely "impact player" for a future American franchise in Sho Nakata, a 22-year old first baseman who is just starting to come into his own this year.

For ongoing coverage of Japanese baseball in great depth, including box scores, visit the official site of Nippon Professional Baseball.