Matsui backs games between Japan and MLB champions

Not only Matsui any/all j-players in MLB have to support for their own pride and survival.

I like the idea too. Play the game in Hawaii. It would be a blast.

This would be a great idea, although Hawaii probably wouldn't be the best venue. Maybe alternate between the cities of the champions. First you would need to decide the first place to play, that may be the hardest part. After that you could go from Japan to USA. Say Seattle Mariners won in the USA one year, they host the Japan vs USA. Then say the next year Rakuten wins in Japan, they host the game. That would be interesting. Lot more for the Japanese teams to play for every year.

I find it unlikely that they would play more than one game if it was just the US and Japan. The Asia series got cut to one game this year.

Yeah I am sure the Koreans would love this idea too!

But please don't leave it in the hands of the Japanese organisers.....they will want a best of 5 series played in various venues.....kind of like a traveling circus.

Would be cool to see the NPB champions get a wildcard in the MLB playoffs.

Surely they could make it work with the shorter Japanese season.

HELLO Hideki Matsui WORLD SERIES MVP!!! bat in 7 runs... New York was stupid to let him go . I hope they lose to the angels! A game between Japan and America would be great it used to happen in the days of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth back in the day one of them was struck out by Japanese pitchers and couldn't stand it! I have the details in a book somewhere but am too lazy to look it up, anybody else out there remember who it was?

Again, bad idea. The J-league is a bunch of chumps, a mere farm system to provide cash cows for the Steroid...I mean, Major Leagues. As if their season doesn't drag on long enough. Both leagues are trying to overmilk this cow. (I think this is the first time I've used "cow" twice in the same paragraph.)

Mike McFly, I like your idea, but surely the Japanese organizers will never allow it. They'll demand that the Japan-based games are played in Tokyo, regardless of who the actual champion is.

I definitely prefer this kind of championship to the nationalist, jingoist World Baseball Classic, in which players are torn from their real teammates and made to play on temporary all-star teams based on the players' nationalities. Let's have a Real World Series between club teams, competing from the champions of four leagues: National League (16 teams), American League (14), NPB (12), and KBO + Taiwan (?). That could be a somewhat-balanced setup.

tarento at 03:02 PM JST - 21st January

Again, bad idea. The J-league is a bunch of chumps, a mere farm system to provide cash cows for the Steroid...I mean, Major Leagues.

Why is it that people just decide to cosolidate every member of every organization into a bad person, or everyone is evil, or everyone is a steroid user. Yea there were a few bad apples, but why must you throw everyone under that bus?

ThonTaddeo, your right, Japanese organizers will never allow it, neither will the American ones. This idea just makes too much sense to become a reality.

If there's money to be made, the leagues will try to find a way to make it happen. But they might have a problem getting it past the MLB Players Association.