Home Run Derby

Even though the Cubs play the American League East this season, for some reason the Chicago Cubs don’t play the Boston Red Sox. Or the New York Yankees. Do you think MLB wants the Cubs to make the playoffs again this season, or what?

So that means we’ll have to wait until the 2008 All Star Game (maybe) or the 2008 World Series (even bigger maybe) to see Kosuke Fukudome (the Chicago Cubs’ prize acquisition in free agency) take some swings against someone like the Red Sox’ Josh Beckett, who won 20 Games last season and was the AL Cy Young Runner Up. Right?

Wrong. Over ten years ago, a Texas High School flamethrower named Josh Beckett pitched for the semi-pro Reno Astros (then in Houston) in the 1997 Grand Forks International Tournament. Beckett was on loan from another Texas team for the tourney.

In the tournament, Reno played a Japanese National Team and Kosuke Fukudome was a member of that squad. Let’s watch Josh Beckett pitch to Kosuke Fukudome …

Fukudome walked all three times he faced Beckett. But the youngster only allowed one run in the game, which the Astros won 9-1.

If you noticed Fukudome glare at Beckett during the at-bat, that’s because current Atlanta Braves’ backup catcher Corky Miller was Beckett’s batterymate for the game – and he had Beckett twice throw inside on Fukudome, which Fukudome didn’t like very much. I talked with Reno Astros‘ owner/manager Matt Konopisos about the game. I was told that Fukudome was the big name on Team Japan (he was the top draft pick of the Chunichi Dragons the following year) and came across as a little bit arrogant – hence the inside pitches.

Konopisos also told me that Josh Beckett has seen the video you just saw, and Beckett still feels he got squeezed by the ump on some of those pitches. Beckett was a junior in High School and showed up to meet the team while wearing his HS letterman jacket, which had “phenom” written across the back – which had some of the veterans question their manager’s sanity about letting him pitch. But he was the real deal.

It was the first game of the Tournament and no one typically wanted to play the Japanese team, who had won the previous tourney. In the Astros’ first appearance in the Grand Forks’ tournament they beat Japan 9-1. Beckett did not pitch again in the tournament and when the Astros met the Japanese team again in the Championship game … the Astros lost a late lead and fell 2-1.

Let’s watch Beckett pitch a few more innings …

Thanks to Matt Konopisos of the Reno Astros for his time and stories.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Cubs, Japan, Kosuke Fukudome, Red Sox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.