Major leaguers

 You might have missed it these past two days with all the college buckets and what-not going on, but something happened over in Japan that was the biggest to happen in Japan since Matthew Perry showed up in 1853 and introduced Western decadence to an insular society that was doing just fine without it.

("Please! Not more history!" you're saying now.)

What happened was, the Hanshin Tigers stole the World Series trophy and said "Ha! 'World Series', my ass! Look at this cheesy thing! Where'd you get it, Big Lots?"

OK, so they didn't do that.

What they did do is shut out the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers (and their supposedly invincible GNP-of-Switzerland lineup) 3-0. This was after they shut out the Chicago Cubs, also 3-0, in game that saw the Cubs go without a baserunner until the sixth inning.

That makes the Tigers 2-0 against the National League with March just half over. It also, presumably, makes everyone else in the NL glad major league baseball doesn't yet allow Japanese teams to join their little club.

"Damn right!" the Mets, Phillies, Braves, Brewers, et al might presumably say. "We don't need them coming here to mess with our playoff dough!"

"Double damn right!" the Pirates, Rockies, Marlins, Nationals, et al might presumably chime in. "We don't need them coming here to embarrass us! We embarrass ourselves just fine without them!"

The Cubs and Dodgers didn't do that, exactly. But they did show, somewhat glaringly, that they couldn't hit Japanese League pitching -- or at least Hanshin Tigers pitching.

The Cubs went down easily to 20-year-old lefty Keito Mombetsu, who threw five perfect innings and struck out two before departing. He and four other pitchers allowed just three hits and fanned seven.

And the Dodgers?

Didn't manage a hit until the fifth inning against Hanshin starter Hiroto Saiki, who struck out Shohei Ohtani to start the game and fanned six more Dodgers before, like Mombetsu the day before, taking a seat after five innings. The Dodgers managed just two more hits and Daichi Ishii closed it out by catching James Outman looking with a 95-mph fastball.

So two games, 18 scoreless innings against the bigs for Hanshin.

Or, you know, against the littles, as the case may be.