21.   Japanese baseball should know by now that its level of competition is on a par with major-league baseball.

22.   Japanese baseball teams do represent corporations, not towns.

23.   Japanese baseball has long been a refuge for American ballplayers past their prime or young hopefuls who were unlikely ever to get the chance to reach theirs.

24.   Japanese baseball has stayed with him.

25.   Japanese baseball made the cover three times.

26.   Japanese baseball binds players to their teams, but there are escape hatches.

27.   Japanese baseball does.

28.   Like many Japanese baseball fans, Omura was saddened when Ichiro left Japan and his team, the Orix Blue Wave.

29.   Major League Baseball plans to look into its entire relationship with Japanese baseball.

30.   Nomo retired from Japanese baseball to gain his freedom from the Kintetsu Buffaloes, for whom he pitched the previous five seasons.