Baseball in Japan

Now that Shikaoi Elementary School's short baseball season is over I thought I would share my experiences playing baseball in Japan. Japan's dedication to baseball is well known in the West. It was a proud moment this year when Japan stood supreme at the World Baseball Classic. My season was only two games which makes it possible to write a full account of each game. I had no idea how many games our season involved and I only had an inkling - abet a scary one - of what the Japanese thought of baseball, when I jumped at the opportunity to play with my peers on Shikaoi Sho Gakko's baseball team. We call it "Yakyuu", which translates as baseball, but what is in reality for us what we call softball. In any case, I was surprised after playing Kevin and Shikaoi Junior High School (not to make it sound like he was leading them) to learn that that had been our last game of the season. I'm glad I remembered my camera which I had forgotten the first game. I think the last picture turned out well.

I can't give a complete comparison between baseball in Japan and baseball in Canada because in my youth I had little interest in baseball. This has continued into the present. Some sports are better to play then to watch, like soccer: I much rather play soccer then watch two teams battle to a scoreless tie. Sports like curling are enriched though the television medium. Baseball, on the other hand, is neither attractive to watch nor play to me; the difference here being that I was playing with friends. A full study of baseball's history in Japan makes clear there is a deep connection between the game of baseball and Japan's inner psyche (to which I am clueless).

On a scale of seriousness - one being not very serious and ten being near professional - the division we were in contained a range of teams. I would peg Shikaoi Sho Gakko a one; we were only in it to have a few laughs. The first team we played was Tsumei, a smaller community northwest of Shikaoi proper. These guys were killers, real robots. I think they even held practices. This is the game I refer to below and blame on the fog. The only reason I will mention the score now is because it really was quite humorous. We lost 19-2. Ouch. Now in hindsight I just blame the lose on bad luck, of which there was lots to go around. But if you don't take it too seriously no one gets hurt.

Shikaoi Junior High School was much more relaxed about such things and thus the second game was much closer. Still it was a lose. My whole methodology while playing baseball was two fold; not to make any big mistakes to lose the game and, secondly, not injure myself, which I am more than capable of doing even though it's only a community sport. I actually pitched for the first inning of the second game (there were only three innings and Kevin was pitching for the Junior High School) and did quite well. Letting in only four runs before mercifully pitching enough fly balls to end the inning. The local diamond where we played was nicely equipped. Playing under the bright lights made it feel like the big leagues. There were also four umpires, one at each base, of which I was able to raise the eyebrows of each individually with a mix of my foreign strangeness and completely beginner status. I also owe a big thanks to the first and third base coaches, without which I would never had made it around the bases to make my first run ever.