Hey, we missed you!
So amidst all the other stuff we did yesterday for my husband's birthday, we missed this little news item - Takatsu Shingo signed a minor league contract with San Francisco. This is actually pretty noteworthy because he and Furuta actually had a great working relationship going on for, well, a long, long time.
2007:
Click to viewOf course, they go back far further than that - they'd worked together throughout the 90s and on and off in this decade (Takatsu found his way to the US for a little bit, then returned to Yakoooolt in 2007, when this - Furuta's last in-game appearance - was shot). The reason it's significant that he signed on Kazu-san's birthday is that we used Takatsu and Furuta as a model when we were first starting out in middle school. I was starting to develop my sinker around that time, and, well, Takatsu has about three of those (he can even change his arm angle and stuff - he's really clever). Kazu-san had looked up to Furuta since before he could walk (and still very blatantly does), and so it kind of seemed like it was perfect. (Takatsu and I even have similar last names, after all.)
Something about them seemed different than when Furuta worked with other pitchers on the team, and we kind of both picked up on that (even though I'd been raised in a Seibu family) and just ran with it. And now we're married. So honestly, we have Takatsu Shingo to thank in part for our marriage.
Now let's just hope San Francisco calls him up for some work soon so we can see him...
EDIT: This was cute, too.