
A guide to Michigan-Ohio State, Notre Dame-USC and the rest of Week 13’s top games
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We’ve made it to the final week of college football’s 2022 regular season.
The final week always brings rivalries to the forefront and this season age-old matchups will dictate what happens in the College Football Playoff field.
A spot is reserved in the CFP for the winner of The Game between Michigan and Ohio State once again. Since the Wolverines took down C.J. Stroud and the Buckeyes last season to earn a spot in the playoff, revenge will be on the minds of everyone in Columbus.
Another possible playoff spot is on the line Saturday night in L.A. as USC hosts Notre Dame. The Trojans are the Pac-12’s best chance at the CFP but first will have to get past a Fighting Irish team that has won five games in a row and aiming for a New Year’s Six bowl.
Clemson hosts South Carolina after the Gamecocks put together their best performance of the season against Tennessee last week while a low stakes Iron Bowl hits Alabama.
Tulane and Cincinnati meet with a spot in the American Athletic Conference title game up for grabs and Oregon and Oregon State clash in a ranked matchup.
These are the key storylines ahead of the final week of the regular season.
No. 3 Michigan (11-0) at No. 2 Ohio State (11-0) (Saturday, noon ET, Fox)
There have only been 11 other matchups between these two teams with both ranked in the top five and in five of those 11 games, the winner either went on to the playoff, a berth in the BCS national championship game or won the national championship.
To say the stakes are high is an understatement. Both teams know what’s on the line. Although there has been some trash talk and vitriol in the past, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is taking a different approach to this year’s game.
“We’re very grateful to be in this position to be playing in this game. Winner takes the East, winner takes all right there,” Harbaugh said. “So, strong opponent, and it’s the kind of situation that gives you the opportunity to display how strong our team is. There’s no need to hate, be grateful for the opponent. It’s like superheroes, it’s through a strong opponent you get to find out who you are.”
There might not be much bulletin board material this week for either team, but Ohio State has not forgotten the past. After Michigan won The Game last season, then offensive coordinator Josh Gattis said on the radio that Ohio State was more of a finesse team and not a tough team.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day said this isn’t the place or time to talk about what was said in the past, but tight end Cade Stover made it very clear, he is going to use those words as motivation.
“I really don’t give a s— what anyone outside this program says about our toughness,” Stover said Tuesday. “We know what we’ve got.”
Both teams are undefeated and have Heisman-caliber players, but both teams are also dealing with key injuries.
For Michigan, star running back Blake Corum was injured against Illinois, but told Detroit News reporter Angelique Chengelis that he should be good to go for the game. The Buckeyes have injuries in the backfield as well with Miyan Williams and TreVeyon Henderson both banged up, but freshman Dallan Hayden stepped in against Maryland and rushed for 146 yards and three touchdowns.
Neither coach had an update on their injuries, but neither seemed too concerned about their team or its health.
Day knows no matter who’s on the field, they will be motivated by the loss from last season and both teams will bring their best Saturday. Day said he didn’t want to put too much on his players regarding implications of this game, but he has reminded them of what they felt like after the loss to the Wolverines last season.
“I think you’re shaped by whatever’s happened in your past and we have scars and it motivated us all offseason,” Day said. “So, we’ve worked very hard to get to this moment right here, and now it’s time to go prepare the best we can and that’s what we’re going to focus on physically, mentally and emotionally to go play the hardest game we’ve ever played. And we’ll find out where we’re at on Saturday.” — Tom VanHaaren
No. 15 Notre Dame (8-3) at No. 6 USC (10-1) (Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN app)
Billed at the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football, USC and Notre Dame enter the contest with both teams ranked for the first time since 2017.
The Trojans, who moved up to No. 6 in Tuesday’s CFP rankings, have a realistic path to their first playoff appearance, but not if they can’t beat Notre Dame, which has won five straight since a stunning home loss to Stanford.
“Enjoy being in this moment, enjoy competing at this level,” USC coach Lincoln Riley said of his message to the players. “Our team gets excited to play teams like this, there is no question about it. It’s fun playing really good competition in cool venues with a lot of things on the line. That is so much fun, so embrace it.”
The Heisman Trophy could be on the line for USC quarterback Caleb Williams, who helped his candidacy with a career-best 470-yard passing performance last week at UCLA. Williams has accounted for 40 touchdowns (33 pass, 7 rush) in 11 games for USC, helping the nation’s No. 2 offense eclipse 40 points in five consecutive games.
But he hasn’t faced many defenses as talented and sound as Notre Dame’s, which ranks 16th nationally against the pass.
“They have good players at all levels,” Riley said. “They’ve built a talent base. When their backups come in, there are still a lot of talented guys on that field.”
Both teams have elite defensive ends. Notre Dame’s Isaiah Foskey has 5.5 sacks in his past five games and recently became the school’s career sacks leader (25). USC’s Tuli Tuipulotu is a national defensive player of the year candidate with 11.5 sacks, tying him for first nationally.
“He’s a powerful, athletic defensive end; he can beat you up physically and also use his athletic ability to get around you as an offensive lineman,” Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees told ESPN. “They put him in really good spots, try to single him up. We’ve got to do our part to make sure we’re sound in our protections.”
Rees believes Notre Dame’s offensive line, which entered the season with lofty expectations but struggled early, is playing at a higher level than any group in the country. Notre Dame has effectively used running backs Audric Estime, Logan Diggs and Chris Tyree and eclipsed 220 rushing yards in four of the past five games.
USC ranks 96th nationally in yards allowed but has excelled in takeaways, leading the nation with 18 interceptions. The Trojans’ turnover margin — 25 takeaways, four giveaways — leads the FBS by a wide margin.
Rees, who went 2-1 against USC as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, said decision-making from current QB Drew Pyne, and the Irish’s ability to protect him, will be key in limiting the mistakes that have doomed USC’s opponents. Pyne is averaging only 170.3 passing yards per game but has thrown 19 touchdowns and only five interceptions, avoiding any games with multiple picks this season.
“He’s 8-1 as the starting quarterback at Notre Dame, and he’s done a lot of good things to help our program win games,” Rees said. “Anyone else’s opinion or narrative is kind of nonsense to me. The job of the quarterback is to win football games. He’s extremely confident, and I’m excited for him to get a chance out there in L.A.”
After dropping eight straight to USC from 2002 through 2009, Notre Dame has won four in a row and eight of the teams’ past 11 meetings. — Adam Rittenberg
South Carolina (7-4) at No. 8 Clemson (11-1) (Saturday, noon ET, ABC/ESPN app)
The obvious question following South Carolina’s 63-38 win over then-No. 5 Tennessee last week, a game in which QB Spencer Rattler threw more touchdowns (six) than he had in seven prior SEC games combined (five), was what the heck happened?
Surely, South Carolina found a magic formula by rewriting the game plan, throwing out the playbook and replacing it with some sorcerer’s spells in order to follow up an entirely mediocre season with a stunning upset. A week earlier, the Gamecocks managed just 237 yards and six points in a loss to 6-5 Florida.
So, what’s the secret?
“We called a lot of the same stuff we have all year,” South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said. “If anything, there was less in the game plan. But [Rattler] played with a lot of confidence and he was very poised and knew where to go with the ball.”
South Carolina churned out a historical performance against a top-five team by simply doing what it’s always done — and just did it better than usual.
If that seems illogical, perhaps it’s best to step into the time machine and travel back to August 2021. Rattler was the QB at Oklahoma, a preseason Heisman favorite and a near unanimous pick to be the first overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft. The guy was unquestionably talented.
But then Rattler’s season went haywire, he was benched and eventually he transferred to South Carolina. His new home afforded only minimal respite, and he struggled to recreate the big numbers he’d posted in 2020 that had made him a scout’s dream.
Rather than assume Rattler was simply overrated or lost his touch, imagine when the pieces fit and it all clicked against Tennessee. Suddenly, the guy everyone loved 15 months ago was back.
“He made some throws you just can’t defend,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “You go back and look and some, there was that much” — Swinney holds two fingers separated by six inches — “that much room between a touchdown catch and an incompletion.”
If it seems like a long shot, just consider the QB Rattler will face in this week’s rivalry game against Clemson.
Back in August 2021, DJ Uiagalelei was a guy with real Heisman hopes, too, and with his big arm, he looked like an obvious NFL prospect. But like Rattler, his 2021 season went off the rails as Clemson tried to find the right supporting cast, Uiagalelei battled injuries and doubt and criticism became the soundtrack to a lost season.
Uiagalelei didn’t transfer like Rattler did. Instead, Swinney spent an offseason praising the QB. The result was a solid rebound season that, while far from Heisman-worthy, has kept the Tigers in the playoff hunt. Still, Uiagalelei sees the parallels.
“I don’t want to talk about anyone else’s journey,” Uiagalelei said, “but he’s done a great job of just sticking to being the person he is and playing his game and not listening to the outside noise.”
For both, the highs may have been a bit overvalued. But the lows — well, QBs have a way of being drug deep into the mire when things go bad.
“He gets that, but he’s been a fantastic teammate and a fantastic leader,” Beamer said of Rattler. “I told him the other day, and I think you can say the same thing about DJ — DJ’s the starting quarterback and he’s won 10 football games. With Spencer, too, he’s done a lot of positive things this year. It might not be the year he wanted statistically, but he’s won a lot of football games and done a lot of things for us as a program already.”
Perhaps Rattler and Uiagalelei will never live up to the expectations many had before the start of last season, but 2022 has been, unquestionably, a reminder that both are immensely talented.
“Both have had some ups and downs, but DJ’s really played well for us,” Swinney said. “He’s a winner, a great leader and an unbelievably committed guy. And Spencer, I’ve got a lot of respect for him as a player. He’s got all the tools.”
Rattler and Uiagalelei were both asked this week about their futures in college football. Both can return for 2023 with hopes of building on the steps forward they’ve taken this year. Or they could leave, try their luck in the NFL draft, hope to prove people wrong again at the next level.
There’s probably no simple answer for either one. The path isn’t nearly so clear as it might’ve seemed 15 months ago.
But Saturday’s Palmetto Bowl will allow at least one of them to add another chapter to their personal redemption stories.
“I wanted to come here and win a lot of big games,” Rattler said after Saturday’s win over Tennessee. “We’ve been doing that. And we’ve still got games to finish out.” — David Hale
0:54
CFP selection committee chair Boo Corrigan explains why it has Clemson ranked behind Alabama.
Auburn (5-6) at No. 8 Alabama (9-2) (Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET, CBS)
There’s no such thing as an inconsequential Iron Bowl. Just ask the folks who live in the state or the coaches and players who’ve been a part of one of college football’s fiercest rivalries.
But this Iron Bowl will take on a different feel Saturday. For one, it’s the first time since 2007 that the game hasn’t had direct College Football Playoff or BCS national championship game implications. Alabama has already lost two regular-season games and is out of the playoff chase. This is the first time Alabama has gone into this game with two regular-season losses since 2010.
It’s been a tumultuous season for Auburn, and the Tigers are just trying to become bowl-eligible. But it’s been a different Auburn team these past three games under interim coach and former star running back Cadillac Williams. Auburn, playing with renewed life, has won two straight games on the heels of a 39-33 overtime loss to Mississippi State under Williams, who took over when Bryan Harsin was fired on Oct. 31.
Auburn running back Tank Bigsby said Williams is coaching the whole team with the “same energy” that he coached the running backs before being named interim head coach.
“If you know Coach Cadillac, he didn’t change because he was the head coach,” Bigsby said.
One thing that has changed under Williams is an Auburn running game that has gone from sporadic to dynamic. The Tigers have rushed for more than 250 yards in each of their past three games and averaged 5.4 yards per rush. Auburn has had a 100-yard rusher in each of its three games under Williams, and Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter have each rushed for 100 yards in the past two games, wins over Western Kentucky and Texas A&M.
Alabama has been one of the toughest teams in the country to run the ball against this season, especially those teams that are one-dimensional. The Crimson Tide are tied for eighth nationally in rushing yards per attempt allowed (3.1). But in four different SEC games, they allowed more than 180 yards on the ground, and one of the things to watch in this game is whether or not Auburn quarterback Robby Ashford can loosen up the Alabama defense by having success running. LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels rushed for 95 yards, including a 25-yard touchdown run in overtime, in the Tigers’ 32-31 win.
The Crimson Tide won in four overtimes a year ago against the Tigers, and quarterback Bryce Young rallied the Tide from a 10-0 deficit. They drove 97 yards for a touchdown late in regulation to force the four overtimes and a 24-22 Alabama win. It’s a game that changed the trajectories of both teams. Alabama went on to win the SEC championship and play in the national championship game. Auburn and Harsin never really recovered, as Harsin was the subject of a university-directed investigation a little more than a month later before being fired in October.
And while there won’t be a national championship opportunity down the road for Alabama this season, nobody needs to explain the stakes to Nick Saban. As he’s said multiple times, if you don’t win this game, regardless of anything else you’ve accomplished, there’s always a but.
Of course, the backdrop to this game will center on the guy who won’t be coaching on either sideline. A lot of signs are pointing to Ole Miss‘ Lane Kiffin being named Auburn’s head coach as early as Sunday.
Just the thought of Saban and Kiffin in the same state is enough to spice up even the spiciest of rivalries. — Chris Low
No. 9 Oregon (9-2) at No. 23 Oregon State (8-3) (Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN app)
On some level, it feels like the Ducks are making a winded, but valiant sprint to the finish line. But if that’s the case — after a close loss to Washington and a close win against Utah — maybe the motivation of a regional rivalry game is exactly what Oregon needs to ensure it plays at least one more meaningful game in the Pac-12 championship. A win and the Ducks are in.
Oregon State will arrive just as motivated. The Beavers have quietly put together a fantastic season under head coach Jonathan Smith. Take the blowout loss to Utah in Salt Lake City away and they’ve lost their other two games by a combined six points. At 8-3, it will be easy for Oregon Stage to match the Ducks’ motivation despite not having a trip to the title game on the line. Since 2003, Oregon State has only won nine games in a regular season once.
And while the story for the Ducks this season has mostly been their offense, it’s their defense that comes into this game with some momentum. As Smith noted earlier this week, Oregon’s defense shut down a good offense in Utah last week during what was a tough, low-scoring affair.
“They’re explosive on offense, and we know we’re not going to win this game 3-0, or going into it we don’t think so,” Smith said. “But then you get into these games and each game is a little bit different.”
One of the anchors of that explosive Ducks’ offense led by quarterback Bo Nix has been starting center Alex Forsyth, who missed the Utah game due to a right shoulder injury. Oregon coach Dan Lanning did not shed much light on whether Forsyth would be able to play in this week’s game.
“It’s that time of year when you’re banged up and you’re hurting and it’s not Week 1 anymore,” Lanning said.
If Oregon is limping to the finish line, it feels like the Beavers are catching their stride, which will likely make this an even matchup. And what better way to cap off Smith’s turnaround of the program in Corvallis than with a signature win against Oregon State’s most hated rival. Potentially keeping them out of the Pac-12 championship? That would just be icing on top of the cake. — Paolo Uggetti
No. 19 Tulane (9-2) at No. 24 Cincinnati (9-2) (Friday, noon ET, ABC/ESPN app)
Cincinnati fans have been clamoring for a change at quarterback for a while now.
Well, they may get what they asked for at an interesting time — during the regular-season finale against Tulane with a trip to the American Athletic Conference championship game on the line.
So far, there’s been no decision on whether starting quarterback Ben Bryant will be ready after he suffered a foot injury during last week’s win at Temple. He left the game in the second half and returned to the sideline on crutches.
Following in Desmond Ridder‘s footsteps was never going to be easy, but Bryant has fallen short of expectations. For one, he’s not as skilled a runner as Ridder, checking in with minus-118 rushing yards this season. And while he’s been solid overall in the passing game (21 touchdowns, seven interceptions), he hasn’t been a true difference-maker, ranking seventh in the AAC in QBR (57.4) and fifth in yards (2,732).
So, naturally, fans have been wondering about his backup, Evan Prater, one of the most sought-after recruits in program history and a player who has the ability to run the football when called upon.
Before the Temple game, the former four-star prospect had played only sparingly, completing 6 of 8 pass attempts for 111 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. But, during that time, he carried the ball nine times for 89 yards and a touchdown.
Then, Prater came on against Temple and looked good, completing 12 of 17 passes for 127 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. He also ran nine times for 24 yards.
Afterward, Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell praised Prater, saying he did a good job of what he was asked to do. As the game progressed, Fickell said coaches gave him more opportunities.
“I thought he moved around the pocket really well and delivered some really good balls,” he said.
Against a stout Tulane secondary that gives up only 189.5 passing yards per game, Prater’s ability to mix things up as a runner could come in handy. UCF quarterback John Rhys Plumlee rushed for 176 yards against the Green Wave only a few weeks ago; Tulane is giving up an AAC-high 4.03 yards per rush to quarterbacks this season.
On Tuesday, Fickell didn’t tip his hand about who would start at quarterback. He said they’re “optimistic” about Bryant’s recovery but they won’t know his availability until closer to game time.
“If [Bryant is] able to do it, then you know what, we could go that direction,” he said. “But, we got to have preparations in both ways.” — Alex Scarborough
Clinching scenarios for Week 13
Spots already clinched
• ACC: Clemson and North Carolina
• Big 12: TCU
• Pac-12: USC
• Conference USA: UTSA
• Mountain West: Boise State and Fresno State
• Sun Belt: Coastal Carolina
Big 12
• Kansas State clinches with a win vs Kansas OR Texas loss vs Baylor. According to ESPN Analytics, there’s an 88% chance the Wildcats reach the Big 12 championship game.
•Texas clinches with a win vs Baylor AND Kansas State loss vs Kansas. There’s a 12% chance the Longhorns reach the Big 12 championship game, according to ESPN Analytics.
Big Ten
• The winner of Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game wins the East. According to ESPN Analytics, there’s a 71% chance the Buckeyes reach the Big Ten championship game (29% for the Wolverines).
• Iowa clinches the West with a win vs Nebraska OR losses by Illinois (at Northwestern) and Purdue (at Indiana). According to ESPN Analytics, there’s an 84% chance the Hawkeyes reach the Big Ten championship game.
• Purdue clinches the West with a win at Indiana AND Iowa loss to Nebraska. There’s a 12% chance the Boilermakers reach the Big Ten championship game, according to ESPN Analytics.
• Illinois clinches the West with a win at Northwestern AND losses by Iowa (vs Nebraska) and Purdue (at Indiana).
Pac-12
• Oregon clinches with a win at Oregon State OR Washington loss at Washington State. According to ESPN Analytics, there’s a 78% chance the Ducks reach the Pac-12 championship game.
• Utah clinches with a win at Colorado AND losses by Oregon (at Oregon State), Washington State (vs Washington) and California (vs UCLA). According to ESPN Analytics, there’s a 15% chance the Utes reach the Pac-12 championship game.
• Washington clinches with a win at Washington State AND (1) losses by Oregon (at Oregon State) and Utah (at Colorado) or (2) losses by Oregon (at Oregon State) and UCLA (at California).
American
• The winner of the Tulane-Cincinnati game on Friday clinches a spot in the American championship game.
• UCF clinches a spot in the American championship game with a win at South Florida.
• Even with a loss, Tulane clinches a spot in the American championship game with a UCF loss at South Florida.
• Even with a loss, Cincinnati clinches a spot in the American championship game with losses by UCF (at South Florida) and Houston (vs Tulsa).
• If Houston wins and Cincinnati and UCF loses, the tie between the Bearcats and Cougars will be broken by composite computer rankings (Cincinnati is currently well ahead of Houston in those rankings)
Conference USA
• North Texas clinches with a win vs Rice OR Western Kentucky loss at Florida Atlantic. According to ESPN Analytics, there’s a 91% chance the Mean Green reach the Conference USA championship game.
• Western Kentucky clinches with a win at Florida Atlantic AND North Texas loss vs Rice. According to ESPN Analytics, there’s a 9% chance the Hilltoppers reach the Conference USA championship game.
Sun Belt
• Troy clinches the West with a win at Arkansas State OR South Alabama loss vs Old Dominion. There’s a 75% chance the Trojans reach the Sun Belt championship game, according to ESPN Analytics.
• South Alabama clinches the West with a win vs Old Dominion AND Troy loss at Arkansas State. According to ESPN Analytics, there’s a 25% chance the Jaguars reach the Sun Belt championship game.
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How Ichiro’s HOF induction helps tell the story of Japanese baseball
Published
4 hours agoon
August 2, 2025By
admin
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Bradford DoolittleJul 29, 2025, 10:35 AM ET
Close- MLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com
- Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com
- Been with ESPN since 2013
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Hall of Famers coming to Cooperstown — the newbies and the veterans alike — are typically subject to a fairly regimented schedule. They have a garden party. Ozzie Smith holds an annual charity event. There’s a golf tournament on Saturday morning. They roll down Main Street on Saturday night during the Parade of Legends. Finally, there is the induction itself.
Ichiro Suzuki, a 2025 inductee, took part in much of this, but even though he is an avid golfer, he did not play in the golf tournament. It turns out that doing so would’ve meant that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his usual workout routine. So he headed out to one of the numerous Little League fields a few miles outside of Cooperstown and got in his work.
At 51 years old, he follows the same routine he always has. He played long toss, did his stretching and running, played catch with Billy Wagner’s son — an aspiring ballplayer himself — and took batting practice against Wagner.
When asked why, Ichiro kept it simple.
“Because I love it,” he said.
That much has been clear, not only through his 19-year MLB career but well before it and since. His induction weekend was not the first time Ichiro made the pilgrimage to Cooperstown — he has been here many times. Each trek he made as a player was to view and study different relics that held special meaning to him.
“You just don’t see players come to the Hall of Fame, while they’re actively playing in the winter time — seven, eight times, because they just want to touch the bat of the guy whose record they broke,” Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch said, “or be here in the freezing cold and snow to see this place.”
Ichiro didn’t limit those travels to the stops in Cooperstown — he famously visited the gravesite of Hall of Famer George Sisler after he broke Sisler’s single-season hit record in 2004 — but the beauty of the Hall of Fame is that it ties all of these interlocking stories together, linking the stars of the past with the stars of the present with the stars of the even more distant past, and in some cases, the stars of the future.
For a person like Ichiro, who is deeply interested in historical artifacts and the stories they represent, there is no better place than Cooperstown, and there is no better ambassador for Cooperstown than Ichiro.
“The history of baseball is very important,” Ichiro said. “We’re able to play the game today because of players of the past. I really want to understand them and know more about them. I think we all need to know the game of the past, things of the past, so we can keep moving it forward.”
Ichiro’s plaque there suggests the closing of a historical, cultural and symbolic loop that brings together two great baseball cultures.
It was the converging of paths, joining the practice of yakyu, the game Ichiro began playing at age 3, and the pastime of baseball, the game he still plays — with ritualistic abandon — at 51.
For all of the cultural significance and the historic nature of Ichiro’s induction, it’s this work ethic and his meticulous nature that is almost certainly going to be his greatest legacy. And it’s one that spins into the future, as he blazes a path to serve as a guide for the Japanese and American stars of the future — and present — to follow.
Before Shohei Ohtani, there was Ichiro. Before Ichiro, there were many, but none who followed the path that perhaps only he could see.
EVEN BEFORE SUNDAY, Ichiro Suzuki had a Hall of Fame plaque on a wall. That one was hung in January at the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, located within the Tokyo Dome.
The contrast between Cooperstown, a tiny rustic village in upstate New York, and Tokyo, one of the world’s largest and most dense cities, couldn’t be more stark. But the baseball galleries within them look very similar, right up to the shape and size of the plaques themselves.
This is no coincidence. The American version came first; the very concept of a Hall of Fame is a purely American convention. So when one was built in Japan, back in the late 1950s, it was an early sign of the dissolution of differences between the two leading baseball cultures.
The differences, convergences and exchanges between the two is the story told in the Hall of Fame’s stunning new exhibit “Yakyu | Baseball: The Transpacific Exchange of the Game.”
“This isn’t just an exhibition about baseball in Japan,” said RJ Lara, the curator of the exhibit. “This isn’t just an exhibition about baseball in the United States. It’s about how the two countries and how baseball in two countries has come together and exchanged equipment, ideas, concepts, players, teams.”
Baseball’s roots in Japan trace to the 1850s, the game exported there by visiting Americans and seafarers. For decades, even as the popularity of baseball spread, it remained a strictly amateur practice, with the college level seen as the pinnacle of the sport into the middle of the 20th century.
While baseball grew into America’s pastime as a source of joy and play for anyone who could toss a ball or swing a bat, in Japan, at least in the early years, yakyu was viewed as a martial art. In fact, the first thing you see when you walk into the exhibit is a suit of traditional Samurai armor, full of red and gold — a gift from the Yomiuri Giants to Los Angeles Dodgers president Peter O’Malley in 1988.
Yakyu, one of the Japanese words for baseball, describes a game that evolved from the American version and still differs in mainly intangible ways and strategic preferences. The gap between the two has narrowed, as the success of Ichiro, Ohtani and others strongly suggests. But it might never completely disappear.
The “Samurai Way of Baseball” — as author Robert Whiting described it — meant a painstaking focus on practice and repetition, a heavy emphasis on fundamentals and a standardized version of the game in which every discrete act had a precise method behind it, and everything was about the team: the “wa,” as outlined by Whiting in the seminal “You Gotta Have Wa.”
Starting around 1905, teams on both sides of the Pacific began making the voyage to compete against one another. But the biggest influence on the professionalization of baseball in Japan came in 1934, when a team of American barnstormers stuffed with future Hall of Famers — including Babe Ruth — toured the country, drawing huge crowds nearly everywhere they went.
Plans for a professional league were already being hatched, and the success of the 1934 tour helped to cement them. The Yomiuri Giants were founded in 1935, and, as longtime Tokyo resident Whiting put it, grew into a behemoth that became as popular as the Dodgers, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox combined. It set the stage for Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima and the legends who laid the foundation of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) — and the collision of Japanese and American baseball that the exhibit celebrates.
THE YAKYU EXHIBIT has three centerpieces, and appropriately the first one you encounter focuses on Hideo Nomo. (Ichiro is the second and, though you can probably guess who is the third, we will come to that a bit later.)
Nomo was not the first Japanese-born player to make the transition to the major leagues: The seal was broken in the mid-1960s, when Masanori Murakami pitched two seasons for the San Francisco Giants. There was a lot of rancor in Japan over the move, and after two seasons, Murakami went back to Japan. Meanwhile, greats such as Oh and Nagashima stayed put, both spending their careers with Yomiuri, thanks to the reserve clause in place in Japan, as well as a societal pressure to remain true to Japanese baseball.
Oh talked in later years about how he would’ve liked to have played in the majors, but he just couldn’t do it. The taboo against jumping the pond remained in place until the mid-1990s. This was when Nomo “retired” from his team in Japan, a ploy cooked up by agent Don Nomura to exploit a loophole. Nomo ended up with the Dodgers, and Nomo-mania was born.
Nomo was heavily criticized at the time in Japan, and doubt existed in America about whether a Japanese player could truly make the leap. Nomo more than proved his ability to make the transition, and did so with such verve that it swept through Southern California and beyond, and also captivated audiences in Japan. The practice of baseball fans on the other side of the Pacific rising in the early morning to watch MLB began at that time.
The exhibit features some of Nomo’s equipment, as well as videos of hitters flailing at his nasty splitter. There are also some model baseballs with which you can try to simulate the grips Nomo used on his various pitches, including that splitter.
Jack Morris was in the midst of praising the nastiness of Nomo’s splitter when fellow Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith interjected, “You should try to hit it!”
NOMO’S DEBUT SEASON in 1995 preceded the now-celebrated 1996 Japan tour, which saw an MLB all-star team that included Cal Ripken Jr. play an eight-game series against players from the NPB, then called All-Japan. Ripken had gone on a similar tour in 1986, along with Morris and Smith, and a decade later he already noticed a marked difference in the caliber of play from his Japanese opponents.
“Going over there, you kind of look and shake your head and go, ‘These people are crazy about baseball,'” Ripken said. “They were talking about drawing 60,000 fans for a high school championship game.
“I thought the Japanese were always really competitive and very serious. They wanted to do really well. They wanted to beat us.”
One of the opponents of the all-star group in 1996 was Ichiro, and that experience for the Japanese star, in combination with the phenomenon that Nomo created, began to turn his head toward the other side of the Pacific. He wanted to test himself.
“The excitement I felt in that series was definitely a turning point,” Ichiro told author Narumi Komatsu in “Ichiro on Ichiro.” “Instead of something I just admired from afar, the majors became a set goal of mine.”
Ichiro had become a phenomenon in his home country, his face splattered on billboards all over Tokyo and beyond, as he exploded on the scene by becoming the first player in Japanese professional history to record 200 hits in a season, setting the since-broken record of 210 at age 20. He hit .353 during his nine years for Orix, which would far away be the all-time highest average in Japanese history if he qualified for the career leaderboard.
He did it in his own way, forging a path unlike any players before him. He famously refused to change the batting stance he’d used since high school — much to the chagrin of his first manager with Orix.
Ichiro also donned the name “Ichiro” on his jersey, departing from Japanese tradition. Suzuki is a common name in Japan and his club felt that would make him all the more marketable, which it did. To this day, in baseball everywhere, when you hear the name “Ichiro”, you know exactly who’s being referenced.
Bobby Valentine, who initially bucked against tradition when he went to manage in Japan, eschewing conventions such as marathon practice sessions and incessant meetings, saw things evolving, especially when he prepared for his first stint with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 1995, the year Nomo debuted with the Dodgers.
“That was the year after Ichiro was Rookie of the Year for Orix in 1994,” Valentine said. “Every night, all the coaches got together and looked at video and looked at charts, trying to figure out one guy, Ichiro.
“He showed me what he could do. I asked him for an autographed bat and told him that he was one of the best players I ever saw.”
Later, when Valentine was managing the New York Mets, he unsuccessfully lobbied his front office to pursue Ichiro.
“I was told at the end of the day, that they didn’t want a singles hitter in the outfield,” Valentine said mournfully. “And I said, ‘What if you get 200 of them?’ I swear. And he got like 240 of them.”
AT TIMES, IT has been far from certain that the paths that came together through Ichiro on Sunday would indeed merge. That part of the story isn’t overlooked in the yakyu exhibit.
It’s depicted in a couple of very different ways that relate the baseball sliver of the story of the years during and after World War II, including the post-war period when the United States occupied Japan under the supervision of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
One object from the war years is the most melancholy relic in the exhibition, and indeed perhaps in the entire Hall of Fame.
It is a handmade, wooden home plate that once was part of Zenimura Field at the Gila River in Arizona internment camp during the war. The field was built by Kenichi Zenimura, a baseball advocate born in Hiroshima who spent most of his childhood in Hawaii.
The home plate is a a solemn reminder of how the forces that too often keep nations apart can’t be overcome by baseball alone. But if baseball can’t keep nations from conflict, conflict can’t keep people from baseball.
“It was the anchor of the Gila River community, and that’s how we like to describe it,” Lara said. “During these tragic, incredibly hard times at this camp in Arizona, it was the anchor that brought the community together, around a single baseball diamond that they built with their hands.”
After the war, when the occupation of Japan began, much of the country, and especially Tokyo, was in ruin. The battle for the ideological soul of the country was well underway in those early years of the Cold War, and the influence of communist Russia was of chief concern for the Americans.
MacArthur thought that reigniting the dormant cultural elements of Japanese society might help to calm things down and help make some headway in turning heads from the encroaching communist influence. With many of the country’s cultural institutions in rubble or ashes, sports, especially baseball — which can be played outside and a sport the Japanese already loved — was the answer.
Author Robert K. Fitts describes the sequence in “Banzai Babe Ruth.” League play resumed in 1946. Things improved enough that in 1947, Japan celebrated Babe Ruth Day at the same time that the major leagues were honoring the dying slugger. Quality of play began to recover but the overall fervor around yakyu still fell short of the pre-war years.
In 1949, on a suggestion from MacArthur staffer Cappy Harada, the project was turned over to Lefty O’Doul, who had fallen in love with Japan on a 1931 tour with other major leaguers and played a key role in helping convince Ruth to join the 1934 tour.
O’Doul, manager of the San Francisco Seals, brought his Pacific Coast League squad to Japan after the 1949 season to tour the country. The Seals were welcomed with a parade and, over the course of four weeks, helped boost the morale of a struggling nation. One evening before a game, for the first time, the flags of the United States and Japan were raised together, bringing many fans to tears.
Japanese journalist and historian Tadao Kunishi sees the O’Doul tour as one of the turning points in the evolution of Japanese baseball, especially in its gradual move toward becoming more like the American game.
“During that time, Japan was still doing the rebuilding,” Kunishi said. “We did not have much entertainment, and baseball is outside. So many movie theaters were burned down, so they cannot play, but baseball is outside, and anybody can go there. And really [Lefty] O’Doul brought the joy of watching baseball.”
A veritable baseball Forrest Gump, O’Doul always seemed to be in the middle of baseball history. He pitched for John McGraw. He converted to hitting and one year batted .398 in the National League. He managed and mentored life-long friend Joe DiMaggio, whom he brought along on a later, much-celebrated tour of Japan. He saw the potential of Japan as a baseball nation from the start.
“He said it was just a matter of time that Japanese ballplayers are going to be playing in America,” said Tom O’Doul, Lefty’s cousin. “And they’re going to be playing American baseball because they’re good and they respect the game. And that’s what happened.”
Though you don’t need to attribute the eventual boom in Japan — baseball and beyond — entirely to Lefty O’Doul and baseball, those tours proved to be a turning point in the ongoing exchange in the sport between Japan and America, which had seemed hopelessly severed.
THE THIRD CENTERPIECE of the yakyu exhibit, along with Nomo and Ichiro, as you probably have guessed, is the display for Shohei Ohtani, who is in the midst of a Hall of Fame career, and thus years away from joining Ichiro in the Japanese and the American plaque rooms. But he will get there.
Ohtani’s display looms in the back of the room behind Ichiro and indeed, from a certain angle as you stand there and look upon Ichiro’s uniform and bat and shoes and batting glove, a little lower to the left and against the wall behind him, you see an image of Decoy, the most famous dog — and literary muse — in all of baseball.
As for the player himself, Ohtani’s display is a stunning piece of museum technology. Depending on which angle you take to look at his image, you might see him pitching or hitting for the Los Angeles Angels, doing the same for the Dodgers, or celebrating the end of Japan’s victory in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which he clinched by fanning Mike Trout for the last out.
The rise of Ohtani is also a chief part of the legacies of Oh and Nagashima and Nomo and Ichiro. By now, 74 players have made the transition to the major leagues — not all with resounding success, but many have reached All-Star status. All you have to do is look in the financial ledgers and the contracts that have been dolled out to the likes of Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki to know how Japanese stars are valued today.
For his part, Ichiro does think that the differences between yakyu and MLB have softened, but they still exist — and they should.
“It usually takes a few years for Japanese baseball to pick up the things that happen in major leagues,” Suzuki said. “It’s definitely getting closer.
“I don’t think that Japan should copy what the MLB does. I think Japanese baseball should be Japanese baseball in the way they do things, and MLB should be the way they are. I think they should be different.”
And yet in so many ways, Ichiro himself was the bridge. He was yakyu and he was baseball.
Ichiro, who will generally give frank answers about himself and his thoughts about baseball, almost always deflects when asked about the thoughts or impressions of others. He still does it.
When asked about his role or his sense of how Japanese fans are reacting to his induction to Cooperstown, he says he doesn’t know. When asked about his relationship to the current Japanese stars in the major leagues, he says that he sees them at the ballpark when they come through Seattle.
He doesn’t get any more detailed when asked about the path that he has opened up for other Japanese stars, but he does open up a little when discussing his role in spreading knowledge to the next generation of players on both sides of the Pacific.
“The players need to tell the younger players about the game,” Ichiro said. “That’s a responsibility that those who have played this game have. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to help in that aspect, but it’s something I’d really like to do.”
As much as anything, Ichiro’s legacy is helping to bring the paths of two different baseball cultures together.
“We used to say that yakyu and baseball are different games with the same rules,” Kunishi said. “Now yakyu and baseball is the same game and the same rules.”
As far as legacies go, that’s not bad, even if the process remains ongoing. In the meantime, Ichiro will be there, connected with Cooperstown and Japan alike, making sure that no aspects of all the history he has been a part of will be lost.
Sports
Alcantara: Uncertainty at trade deadline ‘hard’
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4 hours agoon
August 2, 2025By
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Associated Press
Aug 1, 2025, 07:40 PM ET
MIAMI — Sandy Alcantara admitted that Thursday was one of the hardest days of his career.
It has been thought all season that the Miami Marlins could move on from Alcantara amid their rebuilding project, which has included shipping out established players for prospects.
And as Thursday’s 6 p.m. ET trade deadline approached, the Marlins’ ace could not hide his nerves.
He sat in front of his television watching baseball programming with his family for most of the day, repeatedly checking his phone to see if he had been traded.
“It was hard, man,” Alcantara said Friday. “Every time I get on my phone, I see my name. I thought that I was leaving.”
Miami opted not to trade its 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner. In their only trade Thursday, the Marlins sent their longest-tenured position player, outfielder Jesús Sánchez, to the Houston Astros for right-hander Ryan Gusto and two prospects, infielder Chase Jaworsky and outfielder Esmil Valencia.
The rest of the team, which has won five straight series and went 15-10 in July, remains intact. Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said Friday that the club’s recent success, in part, factored into its approach at the deadline.
And manager Clayton McCullough said if there weren’t trade scenarios that “moved the needle for us in the near and the long term,” the Marlins were happy to continue competing with the group they have.
Amid what was expected to be a season of finding out which of its relatively inexperienced pieces Miami could build around in the future, the Marlins are third in the National League East at 52-55 and entered Friday seven games behind San Diego for the National League’s third wild-card spot.
Bendix declined to say how close Miami was to finalizing a trade for Alcantara but noted that the team “felt really comfortable” with its ultimate decision.
“All of the things that go into building a sustainably successful team were taken into consideration,” he said, “at a deadline where you have all of these decisions in front of you. It’s our job to be disciplined. Disciplined means listening, means having conversations, and then means trying to figure out the best decision to make for every decision point that we have.”
Alcantara has played most of his eight-year career in Miami, going 47-64 with a 3.64 ERA in 159 starts while becoming the first Miami player to win the Cy Young Award after a 2022 season in which he pitched a league-high 228 innings and six complete games.
Alcantara, 29, missed the 2024 season recovering from Tommy John surgery and hasn’t yet returned to form in 2025. He is 6-9 with a 6.36 ERA, and despite being known as one of MLB’s most durable starters, has pitched only seven innings once.
He said it has taken a new level of mental toughness to play through a season not knowing if he would finish the year with the Marlins.
“It was a little hard because everywhere you go, every time you grab your phone, you see your name on the media,” Alcantara said. “But you [can’t] think too much about it. Just stay focused on everything you can do. I just came here, and if something happened, it just happened.”
Alcantara’s most recent two starts have been his best, an indicator to both the player and the Marlins that he might be close to returning to his All-Star caliber play.
He allowed one run and four hits in a season-high seven innings against the San Diego Padres on July 23, then pitched five shutout innings in a win at St. Louis on Tuesday.
“Sandy is continuing to trend,” McCullough said. “And we’re going to continue to be the beneficiaries of having Sandy for the rest of the season, continuing to get back to the pitcher that we all know Sandy is.”
Sports
Rays place 1B Aranda on IL with fractured wrist
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4 hours agoon
August 2, 2025By
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Associated Press
Aug 1, 2025, 07:47 PM ET
TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays placed All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda on the 10-day injured list Friday with a fractured left wrist.
Aranda was injured Thursday in a collision with New York Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton.
Aranda said the injury did not feel “catastrophic” and he’s hopeful he’ll return this season, although the Rays cautioned he won’t be able to use the wrist for approximately three weeks.
Aranda’s wrist has been immobilized in an air cast and he’s scheduled to undergo more imaging at the three-week mark. At that point, the Rays will reassess his return timetable.
“Let’s see how the bone heals,” manager Kevin Cash said before Friday night’s series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers. “I think he has re-imaging in about three weeks, but we will continue to remain optimistic.”
Stanton hit a soft grounder in the fifth inning to third baseman Junior Caminero, who charged in on wet grass to field the ball. Aranda reached for Caminero’s wide toss that sailed into the runner, and his left wrist appeared to hit Stanton’s left shoulder.
Aranda, a first-time All-Star, is batting .316 with 12 home runs, 54 RBI in 103 games this season. He has a .394 on-base percentage, and an .872 OPS, making him one of the majors’ most dangerous hitters.
Cash shifted Yandy Díaz to first base in Aranda’s absence.
The Rays reinstated Ha-Seong Kim from the IL and recalled Tristan Gray from Triple-A Durham.
Trade deadline acquisitions Griffin Jax and Hunter Feduccia were active for Friday night’s game.
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