A few years ago, Masato Akamatsu of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp made one of the greatest catches in baseball history. I recently stumbled across it again, so here it is:
You can see, of course, why it’s been called the “Spider-Man Catch”.
I’ve been working on making WBC projections for Australia, and while doing so I came across this Australian documentary clip of when baseball was played as a demonstration sport at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. For years, it was the most attended baseball contest ever, with over 114,000 spectators (a few years ago the Dodgers had an exhibition game at the LA Coliseum which broke this record).
Interestingly, there is talk of having the 2014 MLB season start in Australia, albeit in Sydney, not Melbourne.
RBI Baseball was one of the great baseball video games of all time. A few years back, somebody used the game to recreate the final inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, complete with Vin Scully commentary.
In 1996, Ichiro Suzuki pitched during a NPB All-Star Game.
This is video of that event. Sadly, Hideki Matsui was pinch-hit for.
The Baseball Continuum 