The White Sox clinched a postseason berth on Thursday with a 9-1 win over the Royals in Kansas City. The scoreboard said October. Munetaka Murakami said 100.
The rookie first baseman from Kumamoto, Japan, joined Chicago Sports Network for an interview while the clubhouse party roared behind him. Interpreter Kenzo Yagi stood nearby. Reporter Brooke Fletcher asked him to rate his first MLB celebration from one to 10.
Murakami did not scale it. He launched it.
“One hundred!” he shouted. “Not 10 — 100!”
Fletcher tried champagne math next: How many bottles had Murakami opened? Same number.
“Hundred!” he yelled again.
Then she asked what it meant to celebrate the clinch with his Chicago teammates. Beer and champagne poured over his head. Murakami answered with a line already looping from the South Side to Japan.
“I AM JAPANESE!”
The clip, shared by Sox on 35th, raced past two million views within hours. The sequence is downright hilarious, playoff-loud and perfectly timed. It also doubles as a wink to Munenori Kawasaki’s famous 2013 Blue Jays outburst, restaged by a 26-year-old slugger with 33 home runs and no use for a 10-point scale.
Chicago is still chasing Cleveland in the American League Central, but the wild-card math is finished. The White Sox are in. Murakami made sure nobody missed the memo, or the punchline.
