Baseball Miscellaneous 2

Besides the fact that some minor league teams are called bees; Salt Lake (AAA Pacific Coast League affiliate of the Angels), Burlington (A Full Season Midwest League affiliate of the Angels) and Binghamton (AA Eastern League affiliate of the Mets),
Bees do not have much to do with baseball. But yesterday a swarm decided to squat the backstop of the Tempe Diablo Stadium Spring Traning Complex. The game was delayed because a bee keeper had to remove the swarm.

Tempe Diablo Stadium has a history of bees invading the park. Last season the Tempe Fire Department  had to extinguish a swarm before a spring training as well. The Los Angeles Times even reported a bee swarm back in 1996.

It took the bee keeper more than nine minutes to remove the swarm.

In January I wrote about Tsuyoshi Iwamoto. DSS had invited him to pitch for the club. The pitcher from Japan had high hopes for the upcoming season but he could not persuade the club from Haarlem to offer him a contract. Manager Lennart Stut, does not expect that the club will not acquire other foreign players. The club will have a 21-man roster. Eight of those are capable to pitch. According to Iwamoto his visa seemed to be a problem too.

Daichi Ohsera of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp will start game one of the Global Baseball Match between Samurai Japan and Europe. Rob Cordemans was tapped by manager Steve Janssen with the honour.
Ohsera pitched in 26 starts and had a 10-8 record with a 4.05 ERA and a 2.90 K/BB ratio.
Cordemans is a Dutch veteran who also faced Japan during the 2013 World Baseball Classic. The 40-year old pitched for L&D Amsterdam Pirates in 2014 and was also their pitching coach.