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Whoa neglected Livejournal -- We're in NC!
Is this really me saying that? Wow.
Well, so Thurs night late I came back to Seattle from SF as usual.
Friday was a down day of sorts, Mike and I got bagels for lunch, I did some work and did some laundry and so on. Oh, took a walk to the shopping center so I'd get a good mile of walking in, and I had some errands to run there. Then puzzle stuff in the evening, and Matador with Adam and Rehana for dinner. (Which turned out to be a mistake, my stomach hurt for a while after that.)
Saturday morning we got up bright and early and flew to Charlotte. Well, we arrived there at 7pm, thanks to the time difference. We were staying with Bob Rost and his wife Erin, and get this -- we show up at their house to discover their AC is broken :( It was like 95 degrees out, so the four of us went to dinner at a NC-style BBQ place, which was really fantastic. Then we came back and played videogames and stuff. Bob and Erin also have a really cute dog named Rocky. It was fun hanging out with them.
I couldn't sleep though -- it was so humid and I was so jetlagged. I felt bad because I'd been sluggish before in the evening, but... I guess I'm just a slug.
But, we woke up this morning, and they got their AC fixed, and we hit the road to come to Durham, which took about 2 hours. Checked into our hotel, crashed for a few minutes, and then went to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park for the Japan-US college baseball game!!!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG WHAT A DAY.
You know there is nothing I love more than Japanese college baseball. And while I was disappointed that Mishima and Daisuke didn't make it onto the roster, nor did Fushimi, nor a few other boys I really hoped to see, well, this group turned out interesting anyway.
Though the first thing that happened was, we found out our seats were on the wrong side of the stadium :( I had asked months ago and ordered seats in the front row on the 3rd base side since I was told that was Japan. It wasn't. We ended up in the office downstairs watching scouts pick up their passes, and were told "Just go sit wherever and don't worry about it."
So we did.
I sat next to two guys who work as photographers for Sponichi and some other paper, talked to them in Japanese for half the game. That was kinda cool. Mike sat behind me and I was in the front.
I saw Taki warming up, and Mikami, and held up my big orange Hosei towel like "MIKAMI!!!!" and he came over basically like "OMG! What are you doing here?" I chatted with him for a bit, asked who was starting, he told me it was Nomura. I told him good luck in the bullpen and all. Whee :) Flashed Taki with the orange too and he smiled at me too, though didn't come over.
I yelled "ganbare" at various players as they walked by. Caught Itoh, he did a double-take though I'm not sure he remembered who I was, he did say thanks and all. And I yelled at Nomura as he walked by; he was going to ignore me but Yoshinami-kantoku was like "Hey, acknowledge your fans," so Nomura nodded at me. I was like "Yoshinami-kantoku mo ganbare!" Yoshinami was pitching coach for this, Kanemitsu was the manager manager.
Yuta Yoshida, the former Nichidai San captain, was catching in the bullpen for a while. He almost missed a shot from Yuhei Nakaushiro that would have gone straight into my face. I yelled "abunnai!" and he looked back like "WTF!" It was funny. I did apologize to him after the game...
As for the game itself, Japan had a huge inning in the 5th and went up 6-1 on a grand slam by Hotaka Yamakawa, who hails from Fuji University and who I had never seen. But he hit a HUGE SHOT over the "Blue Monster" in left field. Daaamn. Unfortunately, the US eventually caught up on a big 7th inning, and won 7-6 :( It was very sad to me. There weren't many people cheering for Japan, and I must have looked pretty weird, but whatever.
The photographers next to me were all over Tomoyuki Sugano when he was warming up and/or pitching. The one guy's like "You know who he is, right?" and I'm like "Hara-kantoku's nephew?" and he said in English (so Mike would catch it too), "Damn, she knows EVERYTHING about these guys!"
Tomoki Takata was playing catch at one point and looked for someone to throw the ball to afterwards... I didn't have a glove or anything but so I yelled in Japanese "throw it here please?" and so he threw it to me :) Dude. Afterwards when he realized that I was a crazy foreign chick he smiled at me and I yelled thanks in Japanese too. Heh. I think a lot of the boys on the team were like "WTF is with this crazy chick", but hopefully some of the others explained to them. Or not.
What rocked is, after the game, Yamakawa, the kid who hit that grand slam, was signing for a few people, so I went up and politely asked him to sign the ball :) And told him he hit a great homerun and it was a real shame that Japan lost the game. Sigh.
AND GET THIS I GOT A PHOTO WITH YUSUKE NOMURA. A couple from Japan asked to get a photo with him and I was like "umm... could I too?" and he agreed. It's not a very good photo but I was pretty happy about it. Then I talked to the couple... turns out they're just pretty crazy Big 6 fans who decided to take a trip to the US. Though they were like "You came all the way from Seattle? That's so far!" and I'm like "YOU CAME FROM JAPAN! OMG!"
Hehe.
By accident, we ended up stalking the Japan bus afterwards. I got Takahiro Fujioka to sign a photo! I told him I took it at open-sen when he was playing against Hosei and he's like "...really? You were there?" and I said "Yeah, I watched you pitch and bugged you to get a photo with me afterwards" and his eyes got wide like "OMG YES I REMEMBER YOU!" It was so funny. Then he was super-friendly and all like "Do you live near here? You came from Seattle? That's insane!" and so on and so forth. My heart was pounding though because OMG TAKAHIRO FUJIOKA. I mean I've only been in love with this kid since he was a freshman in college :) He saw my Big 6 shirt like "You like Big 6?" and I'm like "Yeah... I watched a lot of baseball in Jingu!"
I caught Itoh and asked him about his leg, but he said he's fine, so I told him good luck tomorrow. Caught Fukutani too for a second and asked if he'd pitch tomorrow and he said maybe. Said goodbye to Taki, and then kind of exploded on Yoshida apologizing to him for yelling at him and he was just like OMG CRAZY GAIJIN. There were some kids getting their photos with the players too, it was cute, I felt bad interrupting. Shrug.
Still pretty nuts!!
I really miss Japanese college baseball, clearly :)
Oh, so after the game we met up with my friend Conor Glassey, who I know from the Seattle baseball scene years ago. Conor works at Baseball America now and has a super-sweet job. He recommended yet another BBQ place, this one Texas-style, and so we went there and ate BBQ and it was awesome and yay it was good to catch up and all!
Then we came back to the hotel and I died of heatstroke. Seriously. We took showers and cranked up the AC and have basically been here since. I've been cropping photos and reading stuff and whatnot. Gonna photopost this to Marinerds I guess!
Overwhelming day whee!!
Well, so Thurs night late I came back to Seattle from SF as usual.
Friday was a down day of sorts, Mike and I got bagels for lunch, I did some work and did some laundry and so on. Oh, took a walk to the shopping center so I'd get a good mile of walking in, and I had some errands to run there. Then puzzle stuff in the evening, and Matador with Adam and Rehana for dinner. (Which turned out to be a mistake, my stomach hurt for a while after that.)
Saturday morning we got up bright and early and flew to Charlotte. Well, we arrived there at 7pm, thanks to the time difference. We were staying with Bob Rost and his wife Erin, and get this -- we show up at their house to discover their AC is broken :( It was like 95 degrees out, so the four of us went to dinner at a NC-style BBQ place, which was really fantastic. Then we came back and played videogames and stuff. Bob and Erin also have a really cute dog named Rocky. It was fun hanging out with them.
I couldn't sleep though -- it was so humid and I was so jetlagged. I felt bad because I'd been sluggish before in the evening, but... I guess I'm just a slug.
But, we woke up this morning, and they got their AC fixed, and we hit the road to come to Durham, which took about 2 hours. Checked into our hotel, crashed for a few minutes, and then went to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park for the Japan-US college baseball game!!!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG WHAT A DAY.
You know there is nothing I love more than Japanese college baseball. And while I was disappointed that Mishima and Daisuke didn't make it onto the roster, nor did Fushimi, nor a few other boys I really hoped to see, well, this group turned out interesting anyway.
Though the first thing that happened was, we found out our seats were on the wrong side of the stadium :( I had asked months ago and ordered seats in the front row on the 3rd base side since I was told that was Japan. It wasn't. We ended up in the office downstairs watching scouts pick up their passes, and were told "Just go sit wherever and don't worry about it."
So we did.
I sat next to two guys who work as photographers for Sponichi and some other paper, talked to them in Japanese for half the game. That was kinda cool. Mike sat behind me and I was in the front.
I saw Taki warming up, and Mikami, and held up my big orange Hosei towel like "MIKAMI!!!!" and he came over basically like "OMG! What are you doing here?" I chatted with him for a bit, asked who was starting, he told me it was Nomura. I told him good luck in the bullpen and all. Whee :) Flashed Taki with the orange too and he smiled at me too, though didn't come over.
I yelled "ganbare" at various players as they walked by. Caught Itoh, he did a double-take though I'm not sure he remembered who I was, he did say thanks and all. And I yelled at Nomura as he walked by; he was going to ignore me but Yoshinami-kantoku was like "Hey, acknowledge your fans," so Nomura nodded at me. I was like "Yoshinami-kantoku mo ganbare!" Yoshinami was pitching coach for this, Kanemitsu was the manager manager.
Yuta Yoshida, the former Nichidai San captain, was catching in the bullpen for a while. He almost missed a shot from Yuhei Nakaushiro that would have gone straight into my face. I yelled "abunnai!" and he looked back like "WTF!" It was funny. I did apologize to him after the game...
As for the game itself, Japan had a huge inning in the 5th and went up 6-1 on a grand slam by Hotaka Yamakawa, who hails from Fuji University and who I had never seen. But he hit a HUGE SHOT over the "Blue Monster" in left field. Daaamn. Unfortunately, the US eventually caught up on a big 7th inning, and won 7-6 :( It was very sad to me. There weren't many people cheering for Japan, and I must have looked pretty weird, but whatever.
The photographers next to me were all over Tomoyuki Sugano when he was warming up and/or pitching. The one guy's like "You know who he is, right?" and I'm like "Hara-kantoku's nephew?" and he said in English (so Mike would catch it too), "Damn, she knows EVERYTHING about these guys!"
Tomoki Takata was playing catch at one point and looked for someone to throw the ball to afterwards... I didn't have a glove or anything but so I yelled in Japanese "throw it here please?" and so he threw it to me :) Dude. Afterwards when he realized that I was a crazy foreign chick he smiled at me and I yelled thanks in Japanese too. Heh. I think a lot of the boys on the team were like "WTF is with this crazy chick", but hopefully some of the others explained to them. Or not.
What rocked is, after the game, Yamakawa, the kid who hit that grand slam, was signing for a few people, so I went up and politely asked him to sign the ball :) And told him he hit a great homerun and it was a real shame that Japan lost the game. Sigh.
AND GET THIS I GOT A PHOTO WITH YUSUKE NOMURA. A couple from Japan asked to get a photo with him and I was like "umm... could I too?" and he agreed. It's not a very good photo but I was pretty happy about it. Then I talked to the couple... turns out they're just pretty crazy Big 6 fans who decided to take a trip to the US. Though they were like "You came all the way from Seattle? That's so far!" and I'm like "YOU CAME FROM JAPAN! OMG!"
Hehe.
By accident, we ended up stalking the Japan bus afterwards. I got Takahiro Fujioka to sign a photo! I told him I took it at open-sen when he was playing against Hosei and he's like "...really? You were there?" and I said "Yeah, I watched you pitch and bugged you to get a photo with me afterwards" and his eyes got wide like "OMG YES I REMEMBER YOU!" It was so funny. Then he was super-friendly and all like "Do you live near here? You came from Seattle? That's insane!" and so on and so forth. My heart was pounding though because OMG TAKAHIRO FUJIOKA. I mean I've only been in love with this kid since he was a freshman in college :) He saw my Big 6 shirt like "You like Big 6?" and I'm like "Yeah... I watched a lot of baseball in Jingu!"
I caught Itoh and asked him about his leg, but he said he's fine, so I told him good luck tomorrow. Caught Fukutani too for a second and asked if he'd pitch tomorrow and he said maybe. Said goodbye to Taki, and then kind of exploded on Yoshida apologizing to him for yelling at him and he was just like OMG CRAZY GAIJIN. There were some kids getting their photos with the players too, it was cute, I felt bad interrupting. Shrug.
Still pretty nuts!!
I really miss Japanese college baseball, clearly :)
Oh, so after the game we met up with my friend Conor Glassey, who I know from the Seattle baseball scene years ago. Conor works at Baseball America now and has a super-sweet job. He recommended yet another BBQ place, this one Texas-style, and so we went there and ate BBQ and it was awesome and yay it was good to catch up and all!
Then we came back to the hotel and I died of heatstroke. Seriously. We took showers and cranked up the AC and have basically been here since. I've been cropping photos and reading stuff and whatnot. Gonna photopost this to Marinerds I guess!
Overwhelming day whee!!
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Welcome to NC! It's not usually this hot. :(
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