Akiyama and Sumitani will be part of Samurai Japan in March exhibitions

Samurai Japan manager Hiroki Kokubo announced the roster for the two exhibitions which will occur before the 2016 NPB season on Monday. Shogo Akiyama and Ginjiro Sumitani are the Saitama Seibu Lions who are on the roster.

There will be two games on March 5 and 6 which will take place against Chinese Taipei (Taiwan). The game on March 5 at 19:00 JT will be in Nagoya Dome and the one on March 6 at 18:30 JT will be in the Osaka Dome.

Some basic rules will include a designated hitter and no pitch count limit. There will also be no extra innings and each game will end after nine innings regardless of the score.

Here is the full roster for Samurai Japan for the series (NPB teams in parentheses):

Pitchers: 

SP Yudai Ono (Chunichi)

SP Daichi Osera (Hiroshima)

UPDATE: Due to elbow issues, Osera will not be pitching for Samurai Japan.

SP Tomoyuki Sugano (Yomiuri)

SP Yuki Nishi (Orix)

SP Yasuhiro Ogawa (Yakult)

SP Shota Takeda (Fukuoka)

RP Chiaki Tone (Yomiuri)

RP Ryo Akiyoshi (Yakult)

RP Yuito Mori (Softbank)

CL Hirotoshi Masui (Hokkaido)

CL Yasuaki Yamasaki (Yokohama)

CL Yuji Nishino (Chiba)

===

Catchers: 

Ginjiro Sumitani (Seibu)


Motohiro Shima (Rakuten)

UPDATE: Shima is out with a bruised hand.

Yuhei Nakamura (Yakult)

===

Infielders: 

SS Kenta Imamiya (Fukuoka)


3B Nobuhiro Matsuda (Fukuoka)

2B Ryosuke Kikuchi (Hiroshima)

3B Shingo Kawabata (Yakult)

UPDATE: Kawabata has withdrawn

1B/2B Ginji Akaminai (Rakuten)

SS Hayato Sakamoto (Yomiuri)

1B Sho Nakata (Hokkaido)

2B Tetsuto Yamada (Yakult)

===

Outfielders: 

Shogo Akiyama (Seibu)


Ikuhiro Kiyota (Chiba)

Akira Nakamura (Fukuoka)

Ryosuke Hirata (Chunichi)

Yoshitomo Tsutsugo (Yokohama)

Takayuki Kajitani (Yokohama)

UPDATE: Kajitani was injured, a replacement was made with Yoshihiro Maru.

Yoshihiro Maru (Hiroshima)

===

Notes: 

-Takashi Saito, remembered as a Baystar, Eagle and being part of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is one of the five coaches assisting Kokubo.


-There are no Hanshin Tigers on this team. Everyone else in NPB is represented with at least one player.

-Kokubo couldn't choose the best pitchers available, where players like Shohei Otani, Takahiro Norimoto and Shintaro Fujinami are not there. He claimed they were the "top players" at the moment as a way of covering things up.

-For anyone wondering what the Oendan songs are of these players, ベル TV uploaded a full songs complication showing what it sounds like when each player is at bat.  At 5:04, the Samurai Japan team has a special theme song called "Dream Park" which is a song often heard as an outro for broadcasts.  Lastly, there's a special chance song for Samurai Japan at 5:44 as well as a scoring song afterwards. 

===

Follow us on Twitter @GraveyardBall