Here there be Dragons

Over the weekend the Chunichi Dragons defeated the Nippon Ham Fighters to win the 2007 Japan Series (the Japanese equivalent to our World Series, only more appropriately named.) And that's the Fighters as sponsored by the Nippon Ham company, not the Ham Fighters of Nippon. The win by the Dragons ended a 53-year championship drought for the Dragons, the favorite sons of Nagoya, Japan.

Strangest of all, Dragons starting pitcher Daisuke Yamai was pitching a perfect game in the fifth and deciding game when his manager took him out of the game in favor of closer Hitoki Iwase! Proof positive that the Japanese do things differently than we do. Can you imagine if Casey Stengel had pulled Don Larsen from his perfect game in the 1956 World Series against Brooklyn!? Yankee fans would have burned Yankee Stadium to the ground.

Link to Asahi Shimbun article.