July 24 Sapporo Dome
Viewers witness a number of all-star record breaking performances. The Swallows' Roberto Petagine homered, marking his 6th consecutive hit from the previous game. It's an all star record. Hideki Matsui of the Giants homered too, marking his 3 straight game homer, also an all star record. But then, the Buffaloes Norihiro Nakamura did the same. As the Pacific League won 8 to 4, Nakamura won MVP.

July 22 Yokohama Stadium
Both sides hit well on July 22. Pacific League batters Kazuo Matsui and Norihiro Nakamura each homered again. And so did Hideki Matsui for the Central League. This Matsui blasted off Lion's Daisuke Matsuzaka. But who was awesome was the Swallows' Roberto Petagine. He had 5 runs. It's an all-star record. And the Central League this time, defeated the Pacific League 12 to 6.

July 21 Fukuoka Dome
It's the first time that brothers relayed a pitch. They're started Yusaku Iriki of the Giants who was taken over by his older brother Satoshi Iriki of the Swallows later. But they were in a turmoil. The Pacific League blasted in the beginning of the game with the Buffaloes Norihiro Nakamura's homer. The Central League caught up with the Giants Hideki Matsui's homer. For Matsui, it's his 5th straight year to slam a big one at the all star game, tying with the consecutive record held by former Carp Koji Yamamoto. The Lions' 'little Matsui", Kazuo Matsui's homered too. And beside, he had 2 other hits before that. The Pacific League won 7 to 1 to end its losing streak at 8. Kazuo Matsui was chosen MVP. He took home with him 2 million yen and digital HDTV plasma TV.

Miscalculation of all star votes
The all star votes were supposed to be all out on July 10, but there were miscalculations. It's reported that the error was discovered by fans who pointed out that some players lost points after the July 2 mid-term announcement. It was learned later in all 111 players were affected, but not the top positions.

Fans' top picks

	Central League	Pacific League
Pitcher	Koji Uehara (Giants)	Tomohiro Kuroki (Marines)
Catcher	Atsuya Furuta (Swallows)	Kenji Johjima (Hawks)
First baseman	Kazuhiro Kiyohara (Giants)	Alex Cabrera (Lions)
2nd baseman	Toshihisa Nishi (Tigers)	Tadahito Iguchi (Hawks)
3rd baseman	Akira Etoh (Giants)	Norihiro Nakamura (Buffaloes)
Shortstop	Takuro Ishii (Bay Stars)	Kazuo Matsui (Lions)
Outfielder	Hideki Matsui (Giants) Yoshinobu Takahashi (Giants) Tomoaki Kanemoto (Carp)	Koji Akiyama (Hawks) Tuffy Rhode (Buffaloes) Yoshitomo Tani (BlueWave)

BASEBALL ARCHIVE INDEX