Baseball

“Ugh, more baseball? You just talked about baseball!" I hear you say. Hear me out, this isn’t about watching baseball. I mean, it’s definitely about baseball, but this time it’s about playing it. There’s a subtle difference. Maybe I should have made that a bit more clear in the title. Sorry about that.

A couple of weeks into our living out here, Seri and I went out to dinner with her cousin, Tsuyoshi. A waitress spilled beer on me, and we got a free upgrade to better beer during the course of the meal. That bit isn’t exactly important to this post, but I still laugh about it when I remember (the poor woman was horrified and overly apologetic — welcome to Japan), and notably, Tsuyoshi and I (through Seri) talked about baseball. He extended an offer to have me join the team he plays for, and maybe it was the premium beer, but I told him I was totally down. I don’t know how to say that in Japanese. I suppose Seri probably just told him, “un.”

Fast forward four months. It snows in Hakodate, so the winter months are basically spent with us trying desperately to not freeze to death, interspersed with trips to go snowboarding. Baseball is right out. But the weather is better, now, and although Seri is currently in Hong Kong at a wedding, Tsuyoshi (again, through Seri) asked if I wanted to play a pick-up game as practice before the season starts in May.

I have a “problem,” generally, of saying, “yes” to most things that are asked of me (as Seri surely rolls her eyes). So I dutifully went to bed at 8pm last night in order to get my requisite amount of sleep before leaving the house at 4:30am to play.

Oh yeah, we played at like 6am and it takes about 30 minutes to drive to the field (plus about an hour to warm up because I’m both old and out of shape). And apparently the league I joined has the same or similar time table, so… that’ll be fun.

But it was so fun. I grew up playing baseball, but stopped when I was about 14 because a number of my friends had stopped playing. They’d started playing soccer again and I wanted to hang out with them, and doing two sports at once at that level was a big commitment. It definitely was not because I was chosen for the Dublin All-Star team but the coach decided to bench me basically the entire series because he obviously knew what he was doing but we still got knocked out after the first round. I’m not saying I could’ve helped, but it’s very exciting to sit on your butt for a number of games, helpless, while your team proceeds to lose. But again, not about that. Friends playing soccer.

I knew this morning was going to be difficult without my lovely translator, but I need to thrust myself into the deep end of this whole Japanese experience, or I’m just going to fall back on English and not grow. Last week, I had my first 1:1 lesson at Italki, and have since had 2 more lessons, with more scheduled (in addition to my weekly in-person class in Hakodate, starting back up in May). The baseball game would be a somewhat informal lesson, too, because literally everyone else at the field was Japanese.

The “being the only foreigner” aspect hasn’t exactly bothered me out here, but when you’re plopped into a situation where literally no one can communicate effectively with you — especially in a team sport — it’s a bit intimidating. Fortunately, we spoke the universal language of baseball (that’s not a thing, but they do use a lot of the same words for core concepts), and although it was just a pick-up game, I was determined to not make a complete fool of myself.

The self-appointed manager of my team — I’m not used to that but we also had someone who volunteered to be a home-plate umpire, which seemed crazy for pick-up — quickly started calling me “Giambi” because I was wearing my A’s hat and was batting left-handed. Not exactly the type of person I’d consider a role model, but hey, he was trying to connect! I also met a really nice guy who was incredibly athletic for being FIFTY-ONE YEARS OLD. He’s a social studies teacher who spoke enough English to have a meaningful conversation, and told me that a number of Japanese people love the A’s because Ken Macha (a former A’s manager) played out here in the ’80s for the Chunichi Dragons (who have arguably the best baseball logo out here). All that to say, people were incredibly welcoming and although it’s annoying to not be able to chat as much as I’d like with them, it made me feel good to know they didn’t see me as some weird outsider (one assumes).

Tsuyoshi was actually one of the better players, getting on-base at least once (maybe twice?). Sadly, I didn’t record any hits. He’d warned me at dinner those months ago that some pitchers in the league can throw up to 80 mph, and he wasn’t kidding. I could barely get my bat around fast enough to make contact a few times. I did hit it cleanly on my 3rd at-bat, but it was a pop-up to 2nd that was routinely caught. It felt good to at least get around on it, though. I went down swinging my first two at-bats, leading me to wonder if baseball just isn’t for me anymore. And while I didn’t actually get any action playing in right field (there was only one lefty on the other team, and no opposite hitters), they seemed to appreciate my hustle backing up first base on infield plays.

After the game, we stuck around and did fielding practice, which I realized I sorely needed. It was nice and inclusive, and I felt capable when I’d catch the ball and make a play. The rest of the players were also quick to praise good effort, which only further solidified my feeling included. I told Tsuyoshi I’d love to go to the batting cages at some point, and he agreed; he loves baseball, and I get the feeling that any chance he can get to take some swings, he’ll take it.

Then I went home and napped for another two hours, exhausted. The season is gonna be brutal. But I’m excited.