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Kamagaya and volleyball and stuff :)
I've been meaning to get to the Fighters' minor-league field in Kamagaya for a few weeks and this was really going to be my last chance until May, so I went there today. I emailed a few friends, and showed up at noon. Ran into Tsuji first, then Ojisan, then the Shinozawa clan showed up, but things were all weird with who saved seats for who. In the end, guess where I sat? Front row, RIGHT behind home plate, next to Ojisan. I didn't even bring my big camera today, because I knew I'd be heading to volleyball in the evening and didn't want to lug it around AND my gym supplies.
Lots of funny stuff happened, like this bizarre Lotte fan lady in a hot pink shirt coming up to me all like "Hey! Remember me? From Jingu?" and it took me like five minutes to realize who she was and when I met her. She was kinda crazy and was like "You need a nickname," and told us we had to cheer for Lotte's Kiyota because he grew up in Kamagaya. I saw my friend Yoshizawa for the first time this year and we joked about Youtube and stuff for a while. And the same Lotte hecklers who sat behind me last year at Kamagaya Lotte games were there again with their scorecards too, so they were like "You weren't here yesterday, we thought you might have left Japan!" and I told them, not yet...
And then also, I was standing in the front row with Ojisan at one point while warmups were going on, and YUKIO FREAKING TANAKA who is now a ni-gun coach walked by, looked up, and pointed at me and said to Ojisan (in Japanese), "Friend of yours?" and he was like "Yeah, we cheer together all the time!" and I said "I'm a huge fan of yours!" and then he laughed and disappeared into the dugout. Ojisan told me he'd introduce me to Yukio after the game, but Yukio ran off too quickly :(
The Fighters won the game 4-1. Ozaki-kun hit a home run. And Yuta Ohmine's brother was playing shortstop for the Marines, which was interesting. And before the game, they had Kentaro Hayami there singing some of the Fighters songs, and he also sang during the Lucky 7 interlude! That was cool. And at one point a staff guy came over with a tray of four cups of iced coffee for Ojisan and Suu-san and a lady whose name I forget, and apparently, one for me too. That was nuts! Ojisan was like "Oh, this is because we're VIPs". I think he was making that up, but you never know. The top Fighters team also won 4-1.
Mizushima showed up too, for about half of the game, mostly to get his Kamagaya passport, and then he disappeared too. He was like "You better be at Jingu next weekend for a Hosei game," and I said "I will! Tell me when my Kagami-kun is going to pitch!"
After the game I went to go stand with the usual suspects to try to get photos and signatures. What sucks is, the weather during the game was HOT today, and sunny. I was sweating in my t-shirt for a while, and I kept putting sunscreen on to avoid getting sunburned even worse (I have a bit from Saturday since I didn't put on sunscreen until the second game). But at about 3:30pm, suddenly the weather turned LOUSY. It got all cloudy and gray, and WINDY. So my hair was blowing all over and I got a little self-conscious about photos, so I mostly went for a few signatures today. Hichori wouldn't stop for anyone, nor would Yukio-coach, but I got a few others...
The old signatures were Tadano, Yohei Kaneko, Imanami, and Nakata. Today I got Sekiguchi, Kikuchi, Ozaki, AND Masato Yoshii :) Sekiguchi's signature is the best, it's the one that looks kinda like a smiley face with a 57 coming out of it. He was really sweet.
With Yuta Sekiguchi. Seriously nice guy. We got him in the big offseason trade with the Baystars (Sekiguchi, Matsuka, and Katoh for Naoto, Matsuyama, and Yataro). He's also a fantastic defensive outfielder and his bat isn't too shabby either.
Yuji Arahari! I was debating bugging him for a photo or signature, I didn't want to bug him as he's a new guy, a catcher, we just drafted him in the fall out of the SIL, but then another girl was chatting him up for a photo and signature and DEAR GOD HE HAS THE NICEST SMILE EVER. Holy shit! I blurted out "egao ga sutekiiii~~~~" and my friend Tomoko nearly fell down laughing and told me I should go get a photo with him too.
This is John Clayton Unten. His mom's Japanese and his dad's American, but they divorced when he was fairly young, he's from Okinawa, they sometimes call him "Okinawa's Darvish" since he's a tall lanky half-breed. I asked him if he spoke English, in Japanese, and he was like "...no, not really, sorry". Heh. I wonder if he gets bugged about that a lot. I did say I write a Fighters blog and sometimes get asked about him, but oh well, he didn't seem to care.
Anyway...
After all that I went and waited for the bus to Nishi-Funabashi (that's the only one that comes by once the game has ended and all the shuttles are gone). While I was sitting there, the Marines' player Takehara came out to get in his car and go home and he got swamped by autograph seekers. I joined too but didn't get there in time :) The thing is, the woman sitting next to me by the bus stop just started babbling at me about stuff, so I babbled back at her, and she's like "I've seen you before in the ouendan, you have an Imanari jersey? You sit with Ojisan? And you like Tsuboi?" and so we ended up sitting on the bus and chatting all the way back to the station and pretty much until she got off her stop somewhere on the Sobu line, I forget where. She's been a Fighters fan for about 5 years, is from Sapporo, and I never caught her name, but before she disappeared she did say she was really glad she finally talked to me, she was curious but scared to before because she can't speak English. Heh, I get that a lot. But the weird thing is that she acted like she'd known me for a long time, and was like "Hope you come join us in the Kamagaya ouendan sometime! Don't worry about not knowing anyone... everyone knows who you are..."
I dunno, I guess that's why Ojisan told me, "ディアナは、顔が広い。。。"
Anyway.
I got back to town and went to Takadanobaba to play volleyball down at Waseda. I got some gyudon on the way there at Matsuya because I was starving, cheap, and lazy, and then went to the gym, where we had all of 11 people and one volleyball court. This older condescending Brazilian dude that I hate was there, but other than him it really wasn't so bad. There was also another (very pretty) white girl who had never been there before, and she was really good at volleyball but really bad at men's height nets, so the Brazilian dude was trying to teach her how to play, like he always seems to do with non-Asians. Gah. Fortunately, and bizarrely enough, I was pretty much at the top of my game almost the entire night. I got set a lot, weirdly, AND I only hit one ball into the net at all, everything else went over, and almost all of it went down and in, too. I had some decent dives even and just really played pretty well, I was very happy with it. Even Scary Maegawa was high-fiving me and he rarely does that. There was one really nice guy there who I hadn't seen in a long time, (he's also fantastic at vball) and we didn't end up on the same team until the very last set of the night, but we were next to each other in the rotation and that was just an awesome way to end the evening. So I'm happy I went. Not sure when the next time I can go is, though.
On the other hand by the time I got back to Akabane I was aching up a storm, and my sunburntish arms are hurting like hell now. My knees hurt from hitting the floor and I think I may have pulled my left oblique muscle. But whatever, volleyball is good for the soul, as is baseball stalking. Or something.
In about 6 hours I have to get up in order to go back to my junior high school and start another semester of teaching madness. Hooray! I'm a little bit terrified, to be honest, but whatever.
Lots of funny stuff happened, like this bizarre Lotte fan lady in a hot pink shirt coming up to me all like "Hey! Remember me? From Jingu?" and it took me like five minutes to realize who she was and when I met her. She was kinda crazy and was like "You need a nickname," and told us we had to cheer for Lotte's Kiyota because he grew up in Kamagaya. I saw my friend Yoshizawa for the first time this year and we joked about Youtube and stuff for a while. And the same Lotte hecklers who sat behind me last year at Kamagaya Lotte games were there again with their scorecards too, so they were like "You weren't here yesterday, we thought you might have left Japan!" and I told them, not yet...
And then also, I was standing in the front row with Ojisan at one point while warmups were going on, and YUKIO FREAKING TANAKA who is now a ni-gun coach walked by, looked up, and pointed at me and said to Ojisan (in Japanese), "Friend of yours?" and he was like "Yeah, we cheer together all the time!" and I said "I'm a huge fan of yours!" and then he laughed and disappeared into the dugout. Ojisan told me he'd introduce me to Yukio after the game, but Yukio ran off too quickly :(
The Fighters won the game 4-1. Ozaki-kun hit a home run. And Yuta Ohmine's brother was playing shortstop for the Marines, which was interesting. And before the game, they had Kentaro Hayami there singing some of the Fighters songs, and he also sang during the Lucky 7 interlude! That was cool. And at one point a staff guy came over with a tray of four cups of iced coffee for Ojisan and Suu-san and a lady whose name I forget, and apparently, one for me too. That was nuts! Ojisan was like "Oh, this is because we're VIPs". I think he was making that up, but you never know. The top Fighters team also won 4-1.
Mizushima showed up too, for about half of the game, mostly to get his Kamagaya passport, and then he disappeared too. He was like "You better be at Jingu next weekend for a Hosei game," and I said "I will! Tell me when my Kagami-kun is going to pitch!"
After the game I went to go stand with the usual suspects to try to get photos and signatures. What sucks is, the weather during the game was HOT today, and sunny. I was sweating in my t-shirt for a while, and I kept putting sunscreen on to avoid getting sunburned even worse (I have a bit from Saturday since I didn't put on sunscreen until the second game). But at about 3:30pm, suddenly the weather turned LOUSY. It got all cloudy and gray, and WINDY. So my hair was blowing all over and I got a little self-conscious about photos, so I mostly went for a few signatures today. Hichori wouldn't stop for anyone, nor would Yukio-coach, but I got a few others...
The old signatures were Tadano, Yohei Kaneko, Imanami, and Nakata. Today I got Sekiguchi, Kikuchi, Ozaki, AND Masato Yoshii :) Sekiguchi's signature is the best, it's the one that looks kinda like a smiley face with a 57 coming out of it. He was really sweet.
With Yuta Sekiguchi. Seriously nice guy. We got him in the big offseason trade with the Baystars (Sekiguchi, Matsuka, and Katoh for Naoto, Matsuyama, and Yataro). He's also a fantastic defensive outfielder and his bat isn't too shabby either.
Yuji Arahari! I was debating bugging him for a photo or signature, I didn't want to bug him as he's a new guy, a catcher, we just drafted him in the fall out of the SIL, but then another girl was chatting him up for a photo and signature and DEAR GOD HE HAS THE NICEST SMILE EVER. Holy shit! I blurted out "egao ga sutekiiii~~~~" and my friend Tomoko nearly fell down laughing and told me I should go get a photo with him too.
This is John Clayton Unten. His mom's Japanese and his dad's American, but they divorced when he was fairly young, he's from Okinawa, they sometimes call him "Okinawa's Darvish" since he's a tall lanky half-breed. I asked him if he spoke English, in Japanese, and he was like "...no, not really, sorry". Heh. I wonder if he gets bugged about that a lot. I did say I write a Fighters blog and sometimes get asked about him, but oh well, he didn't seem to care.
Anyway...
After all that I went and waited for the bus to Nishi-Funabashi (that's the only one that comes by once the game has ended and all the shuttles are gone). While I was sitting there, the Marines' player Takehara came out to get in his car and go home and he got swamped by autograph seekers. I joined too but didn't get there in time :) The thing is, the woman sitting next to me by the bus stop just started babbling at me about stuff, so I babbled back at her, and she's like "I've seen you before in the ouendan, you have an Imanari jersey? You sit with Ojisan? And you like Tsuboi?" and so we ended up sitting on the bus and chatting all the way back to the station and pretty much until she got off her stop somewhere on the Sobu line, I forget where. She's been a Fighters fan for about 5 years, is from Sapporo, and I never caught her name, but before she disappeared she did say she was really glad she finally talked to me, she was curious but scared to before because she can't speak English. Heh, I get that a lot. But the weird thing is that she acted like she'd known me for a long time, and was like "Hope you come join us in the Kamagaya ouendan sometime! Don't worry about not knowing anyone... everyone knows who you are..."
I dunno, I guess that's why Ojisan told me, "ディアナは、顔が広い。。。"
Anyway.
I got back to town and went to Takadanobaba to play volleyball down at Waseda. I got some gyudon on the way there at Matsuya because I was starving, cheap, and lazy, and then went to the gym, where we had all of 11 people and one volleyball court. This older condescending Brazilian dude that I hate was there, but other than him it really wasn't so bad. There was also another (very pretty) white girl who had never been there before, and she was really good at volleyball but really bad at men's height nets, so the Brazilian dude was trying to teach her how to play, like he always seems to do with non-Asians. Gah. Fortunately, and bizarrely enough, I was pretty much at the top of my game almost the entire night. I got set a lot, weirdly, AND I only hit one ball into the net at all, everything else went over, and almost all of it went down and in, too. I had some decent dives even and just really played pretty well, I was very happy with it. Even Scary Maegawa was high-fiving me and he rarely does that. There was one really nice guy there who I hadn't seen in a long time, (he's also fantastic at vball) and we didn't end up on the same team until the very last set of the night, but we were next to each other in the rotation and that was just an awesome way to end the evening. So I'm happy I went. Not sure when the next time I can go is, though.
On the other hand by the time I got back to Akabane I was aching up a storm, and my sunburntish arms are hurting like hell now. My knees hurt from hitting the floor and I think I may have pulled my left oblique muscle. But whatever, volleyball is good for the soul, as is baseball stalking. Or something.
In about 6 hours I have to get up in order to go back to my junior high school and start another semester of teaching madness. Hooray! I'm a little bit terrified, to be honest, but whatever.