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baseball interactions
what a day!
I've had a lot of interactions with people lately around college baseball that have been kinda amusing/bizarre/awesome.
Last weekend, the 23rd-24th (Sun-Mon), some of the moments that stick out to me were like, hanging out with the Todai kids a bit, getting Naoto Hatsuma's signature (he was STUNNED when two of us came up to him like "We think you're awesome can we have your autograph?" since he's just a freshman and all), chatting with Shota Suzuki's HS teacher, talking to Takayama and Tachi and all ("You write righty?" "Yeah, but everything else lefty...") and getting photos, etc. Waiting for the Meiji boys to come out; I got Shimauchi's autograph and gave him some photos, and I said hi to some other people, and then OMG SECOND GAME was Hosei-Rikkio, and Hosei lost, and Egashira didn't even come to Jingu at all, and I got Harada's autograph afterwards and found out he'll be at Mitsubishi Nagoya, but I failed to really interact with anyone else I wanted to except Yokoyama-manager-kun -- I had some Halloween candy and asked him in English who I should give it to, and he's like "Me!" so I did. He's really adorable. OH -- I did, however, finally give Keisuke Okazaki the photos from the US-Japan tourney, and get him to sign one, and I tried to explain to him but oh man my Japanese comes out fucked up sometimes. Oh well.
Oh, one awesome thing during that second Hosei game was, I sat next to a guy named Ohashi. Who remembered me from the Yokosuka Baystars ground in the winter, when I got Kagami's autograph on a custom jersey and all. (People seriously keep coming out of the woodwork like "I know you, you're the huge Kagami fan!") Ohashi turns out to be a Hosei OB who loves baseball and trains -- he saw the stamps in my scorebook from stations like Aomori and from Yokokawa and get this, we went to Yokokawa within a week of each other earlier this month. How weird! Usually nobody has any fucking clue what I'm talking about when I traingeek, whereas this guy was like "YOU WENT TO TAPPI KAITEI? OMG TELL ME EVERYTHING." So we spent most of the game talking about trains and Hosei baseball players, which are two of my favorite subjects.
After the game I ran into Kanai-kun again. I've been running into Kanai all semester. I finally found out his name on like, Tuesday of this week. He goes to Nichidai and we have ridiculously similar viewing/stalking habits.
We also found Toda-kun afterwards which was a nice surprise. He's been very busy this semester apparently with random things but he was like "OMG I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU WERE IN JAPAN!" and told me he was going off to Osaka for a week for the Toshitaiko, and I was like OMG JEALOUS, and we geeked out about some various players and teams for a while, until we and Kobayashi all got dragged into a Meiji nomikai going on down the block from Jingu. That actually totally ended up sucking -- it was all those goddamn drunken old men that Ogura is friends with, who are all like HEY A GAIJIN, LET'S GO MAKE FUN OF HER! which is so annoying. Like they'll struggle so hard to make random sentences in English like "What type of man do you like?" WTF seriously isn't that so 20 years ago? The dumbest part was when they asked who my favorite Meiji player was and I said Kumabe, they're all like "...who?" Sheesh.
HOWEVER, I made the connection later on that one of the guys there was Oshimoto Cosplayer from our section at Jingu for Swallows games. He was way the hell down at the other end of the table. BUT that is why he came up to me today at Jingu like "dude!" and I'm like "DUDE MEIJI!" and he's like "DUDE MEIJI HELL YEAH!" basically. I saw him on Monday running with the ouendan runners afterwards, in full Meiji regalia, and realized who he was then.
Monday shoulda been a nice leisurely empty day at Jingu, except it was the Meiji championship day, so by the end of Game 1, Hosei-Rikkio, the 3rd base side of Jingu was PACKED! If Rikkio won the first game or Meiji won the second, Meiji would win the championship. And of course, sadly... Rikkio did win the first game, on a walkoff hit by Yusuke Yamada. I spent the game chatting with Kobayashi and so we were both vaguely stunned at the outcome. Ogura had gotten out of work for the day and showed up around noon, and so there was a huge Meiji crowd.
I went outside for about 10 minutes between games, mostly just to see if I could find anyone from Hosei to say goodbye to. I knew they'd do the goodbye party for the seniors but I also knew that I really really wanted to see game 2. And unlike last year when I wouldn't have missed Kagami's goodbye for the world, this year I didn't have anyone I felt that strongly about. So I did some aisatsu, like with Tokachi-san, and then went back into the stadium.
EXCEPT GET THIS -- while I was standing outside, a bunch of Meiji guys showed up, including TOMOYA FREAKING KUMABE! Who comes up to me like "Deanna! Long time no see" and we chat for a while. I was so stunned that he was there and that he came up to me and all -- Kuma is one of my favorite Meiji boys, he's funny as all hell and a lefty pitcher and so on, we went out to dinner a few times last year (in groups, but still). I hadn't actually seen him at ALL this semester since he hasn't played much; he said it's been complicated but he has to get his shit in order for graduating and starting his job in the spring. I told him I sent him a birthday card in August and he's like "WTF? I never got it... you sure it went to the right place?" and I'm like "WTF, I DOUBLE CHECKED" and so he said he'd ask the dorm people. I told him I'd brought some Halloween chocolate for the Meiji boys and he was like "GIMME" and I'm like "Ok, find me after the game."
I really wanted Todai to win Game 2. And would you believe it, they were actually up 3-0 after 3 innings and were leading for the first 6, until the inevitable time came when Meiji went ahead. Sachiya Yamasaki pitched for Meiji for 5 perfect innings -- he's that lefty from last year's Sanko team. And he is, in person, pretty amazing. I mean, he's no Kentaro Yoshinaga (WHO OMG I SAW OUTSIDE JINGU TODAY BUT COMPLETELY WAS UNABLE TO SAY A DAMN THING TO) but he's pretty damn close.
Meiji didn't actually have to win to get the championship anyway, since Hosei lost. But Nomura pitched the 9th inning, Meiji won, they had a huge photo finish and doage and all that other stuff, people threw purple ribbons, it was kinda exciting to be in the middle of all of it.
(Oh yeah and Kobayashi gave me a Meiji towel, so I had that and Hosei in my bag. Go figure.)
The only sad thing is that I really wanted to say goodbye to some of the Todai boys and tell them that I thought they kicked ass over the weekend even if they didn't win. And I didn't see them because by the time the doage and stuff were over, they were all gone home.
Outside, we found Kumabe and I handed off bags of chocolate to him and Morita. Even Ueda was there and he was like "Oh! Miss Deanna! Uhh... HISASHIBURI!" Kurihara had made a "Yappari Meiji ga No. 1" banner and was getting photos of various players with it. Ran into Kanai-kun again and he had me take a photo of him with captain Ikuhiro Takeda. I got Takeda to sign a photo at long last, and gave him a few photos too, and when he saw me he was all smiles like "Whoa! Hisashiburi! Genki?" basically a "long time, how the hell are you?" kinda greeting, which was awesome, he's a really sweet boy and I was surprised he remembered me. I was like "CONGRATULATIONS!!" of course. We talked a little, though he was super-busy and had a line of people waiting to bug him for stuff.
Yusuke Nomura refused to interact with anyone on his way out to the Meiji bus, which is not too surprising. He just DARTED out and actually kinda had a security guard of sorts with him.
BUT, Katsuya Kawashima (3rd-year infielder) actually tagged me like "hey! long time! do you remember me?" and I'm all like "of course! how are you, Kawashima-kun?" and we chatted a bit, he said he had to get on the bus, and I'm like "Can you do me a HUGE favor? Can you give these photos to Nomura? They're from the US-Japan tourney in America, I was there..." and he was like "yeah, no problem."
So as the Meiji bus was pulling out, I was scanning the windows to see the different players, and I saw Nomura going through the stack of photos! And he had a huge smile on his face!! So, I didn't succeed in actually interacting with him, or getting any of the photos signed, BUT it was at least a successful handoff.
After all the excitement died down, I went to a cafe with Yuka and Kobayashi and hung out for an hour or so. Good times. I think the weirdest moments of our conversation were mostly gossip about players' love lives. Like how apparently Daisuke Takeuchi (Keio 3rd-year LHP) is dating a TV announcer. I guess he really wants to go pro and is in training. The other gossip was about Chuo's Kageyama, who I think is a fantastic baseball player... Yuka's like "Yeah, he's a good baseball player. He's also a player in other ways... he likes to date lots of girls."
Then on Tuesday I went to the Toyo-Aoyama game. Fujioka's last start. He pitched a complete game win, woulda been a shutout if a ball hadn't been dropped in the 9th. Struck out 13. He's so awesome. Apparently he hadn't pitched a CG since last time I was there, I'm good luck for him maybe :) A guy sat behind me for most of the game, an older guy named Ogata (I think), who was a Toyo OB and so he was telling me various things about the team... and I was telling him stuff too. Afterwards he wanted to get a photo of me just to remember that I exist. Bizarre.
Outside the stadium I ran into Kanai and also a guy named Sakai, who is a Fighters fan that I have kinda-sorta known for a few years. We were all hoping to stalk Daichi Suzuki. We failed, Suzuki refused to talk to anyone except other ballclub members, and kinda hid on the side of the bus (though he didn't go in for a while). I eventually was like "Fuck this" and just went over to the bus, and another player gave me a weird look but I'm like "I just want to give these to Suzuki-kun, they're photos from the US tourney" and he's like "oh, ok" and that's essentially what I did. I figured I bothered printing them out, why waste them. Suzuki was kinda like "oh hey weird okay thanks" and the other guys with him were all like "OOOOOO, USA! USA! USA!" I didn't even bother trying to get a signature or a photo or anything. I found out later that Takahashi-kantoku basically tells the Toyo boys not to do fan service for the most part. What a jerk. I understand it though, as Toyo makes a LOT of pro players. I'm super-lucky that I somehow got around all that to meet Fujioka several times, I guess. This time, however, he basically ran out of the stadium and darted for the bus despite like 30 people trying to chase him for signatures.
Kanai and Sakai and I hung out talking for like an hour, until Kozo showed up, heh. Sakai goes to Senshu Univ, so they're both involved in Tohto League, kinda.
Wow, all of this I've been writing for an hour and haven't TRULY gotten to today yet. I suck.
So I went to Soukeisen with Mac and Kozo today, so we sat fairly far back so those guys could observe the ouendan craziness. But I first went up to say hi to people -- Matsui-san was there as was like 5 people from Kohei Nishino's family, and another boy whose name I forget but who's been around Keio games for years, he used to have crazy hair and wear a Chukyo shirt. So I go to greet everyone and I gave them photos and the entire Nishino family's very OMFG about the entire thing -- Matsui and Nishino's mom explain the entire thing, how I was there a few weeks ago, I come to a lot of Keio games, etc, etc, etc. I also gave Matsui-san some pictures of Tadano-kun since she likes him. I asked if they knew where I could get a Keio megaphone, and Nishino's mom literally hands me a bag like "here, a megaphone, a towel, a Keio book... oh, lemme give you a second one for your friend" and so I come back to Mac and Kozo like "I HAS STUFF".
Waseda won the game. That was sad. We got to see Good Arihara and Bad Arihara in the 8th and 9th innings. And Daisuke kinda blew the game... I dunno, dude.
Afterwards Mac and Kozo left and I went outside to hang out. Ran into Sakai, so I basically hung out with him for like an hour. He spotted all of these famous baseball guys coming into the stadium's kankeisha entrance, for the playoff game. Crazy.
I got Ren Yamasaki to sign a photo :) He was very funny. And he has insane callouses on his hand, kinda like how my JHS Takeuchi used to, from batting. It was very nostalgic in a way to be like "dude, do those hurt?" "nah, they're from batting." "Don't you have gloves?" "Yeah, but I practice swinging a LOT!"
Said an otsukaresama to Daisuke, and a good luck to Fukutani. I saw, but didn't approach, a few guys like Iba, Agata, etc. Maybe tomorrow if they win. (I didn't even bother trying to get anywhere near Itoh -- I know better, and he was surrounded by a shitload of people.) Anyway, the nuts thing was... several Keio OB were around... hell, lots of Big 6 OB were around, I even saw Todai's Maeda-kun again. (AND DID I MENTION I SAW NICHIDAI SAN HS'S YOSHINAGA??)
I've been following Hironori Tanaka (a Keio pitcher who was a 4th-year last year) on Twitter for a while ever since he came up as a "similar user". I saw him pitch a couple of times last year. Anyway, he was there today. And I'm like "OMFG SHOULD I SAY SOMETHING?" but get this, HE eventually came up to ME like "you're that girl from Twitter, right?" and we talked a bit. In Japanese. I probably totally screwed up everything I was saying since I was so surprised and nervous. But anyway it turns out he didn't graduate and is still studying as an undergrad at Keio, but you can't play sports for more than 5 years, so he's graduated from the baseball club but not the university. So his USA trip before was just for fun, not for work as I'd vaguely thought. How crazy. OMG still.
I saw Andoh-san, the 80-something-year-old lady who goes to all the games, and she's like "DEANNA GUESS WHAT? I SAW FUJIOKA-KUN HERE TODAY!" Apparently Fujioka went to Soukeisen and nobody recognized him DESPITE HIM GETTING DRAFTED ON THURSDAY, but Andoh talked to him a bit. She told me that he's actually VERY happy about getting chosen by Lotte, it was infact one of his first choices, he respects Naruse a lot and gets to rejoin Hiroki Ueno and all. So the "tears of happiness" when he got drafted were actually for real. So I'm happy too.
dude, I really gotta sleep. Clearly I should be braindumping these interactions to LJ more often.
I've had a lot of interactions with people lately around college baseball that have been kinda amusing/bizarre/awesome.
Last weekend, the 23rd-24th (Sun-Mon), some of the moments that stick out to me were like, hanging out with the Todai kids a bit, getting Naoto Hatsuma's signature (he was STUNNED when two of us came up to him like "We think you're awesome can we have your autograph?" since he's just a freshman and all), chatting with Shota Suzuki's HS teacher, talking to Takayama and Tachi and all ("You write righty?" "Yeah, but everything else lefty...") and getting photos, etc. Waiting for the Meiji boys to come out; I got Shimauchi's autograph and gave him some photos, and I said hi to some other people, and then OMG SECOND GAME was Hosei-Rikkio, and Hosei lost, and Egashira didn't even come to Jingu at all, and I got Harada's autograph afterwards and found out he'll be at Mitsubishi Nagoya, but I failed to really interact with anyone else I wanted to except Yokoyama-manager-kun -- I had some Halloween candy and asked him in English who I should give it to, and he's like "Me!" so I did. He's really adorable. OH -- I did, however, finally give Keisuke Okazaki the photos from the US-Japan tourney, and get him to sign one, and I tried to explain to him but oh man my Japanese comes out fucked up sometimes. Oh well.
Oh, one awesome thing during that second Hosei game was, I sat next to a guy named Ohashi. Who remembered me from the Yokosuka Baystars ground in the winter, when I got Kagami's autograph on a custom jersey and all. (People seriously keep coming out of the woodwork like "I know you, you're the huge Kagami fan!") Ohashi turns out to be a Hosei OB who loves baseball and trains -- he saw the stamps in my scorebook from stations like Aomori and from Yokokawa and get this, we went to Yokokawa within a week of each other earlier this month. How weird! Usually nobody has any fucking clue what I'm talking about when I traingeek, whereas this guy was like "YOU WENT TO TAPPI KAITEI? OMG TELL ME EVERYTHING." So we spent most of the game talking about trains and Hosei baseball players, which are two of my favorite subjects.
After the game I ran into Kanai-kun again. I've been running into Kanai all semester. I finally found out his name on like, Tuesday of this week. He goes to Nichidai and we have ridiculously similar viewing/stalking habits.
We also found Toda-kun afterwards which was a nice surprise. He's been very busy this semester apparently with random things but he was like "OMG I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU WERE IN JAPAN!" and told me he was going off to Osaka for a week for the Toshitaiko, and I was like OMG JEALOUS, and we geeked out about some various players and teams for a while, until we and Kobayashi all got dragged into a Meiji nomikai going on down the block from Jingu. That actually totally ended up sucking -- it was all those goddamn drunken old men that Ogura is friends with, who are all like HEY A GAIJIN, LET'S GO MAKE FUN OF HER! which is so annoying. Like they'll struggle so hard to make random sentences in English like "What type of man do you like?" WTF seriously isn't that so 20 years ago? The dumbest part was when they asked who my favorite Meiji player was and I said Kumabe, they're all like "...who?" Sheesh.
HOWEVER, I made the connection later on that one of the guys there was Oshimoto Cosplayer from our section at Jingu for Swallows games. He was way the hell down at the other end of the table. BUT that is why he came up to me today at Jingu like "dude!" and I'm like "DUDE MEIJI!" and he's like "DUDE MEIJI HELL YEAH!" basically. I saw him on Monday running with the ouendan runners afterwards, in full Meiji regalia, and realized who he was then.
Monday shoulda been a nice leisurely empty day at Jingu, except it was the Meiji championship day, so by the end of Game 1, Hosei-Rikkio, the 3rd base side of Jingu was PACKED! If Rikkio won the first game or Meiji won the second, Meiji would win the championship. And of course, sadly... Rikkio did win the first game, on a walkoff hit by Yusuke Yamada. I spent the game chatting with Kobayashi and so we were both vaguely stunned at the outcome. Ogura had gotten out of work for the day and showed up around noon, and so there was a huge Meiji crowd.
I went outside for about 10 minutes between games, mostly just to see if I could find anyone from Hosei to say goodbye to. I knew they'd do the goodbye party for the seniors but I also knew that I really really wanted to see game 2. And unlike last year when I wouldn't have missed Kagami's goodbye for the world, this year I didn't have anyone I felt that strongly about. So I did some aisatsu, like with Tokachi-san, and then went back into the stadium.
EXCEPT GET THIS -- while I was standing outside, a bunch of Meiji guys showed up, including TOMOYA FREAKING KUMABE! Who comes up to me like "Deanna! Long time no see" and we chat for a while. I was so stunned that he was there and that he came up to me and all -- Kuma is one of my favorite Meiji boys, he's funny as all hell and a lefty pitcher and so on, we went out to dinner a few times last year (in groups, but still). I hadn't actually seen him at ALL this semester since he hasn't played much; he said it's been complicated but he has to get his shit in order for graduating and starting his job in the spring. I told him I sent him a birthday card in August and he's like "WTF? I never got it... you sure it went to the right place?" and I'm like "WTF, I DOUBLE CHECKED" and so he said he'd ask the dorm people. I told him I'd brought some Halloween chocolate for the Meiji boys and he was like "GIMME" and I'm like "Ok, find me after the game."
I really wanted Todai to win Game 2. And would you believe it, they were actually up 3-0 after 3 innings and were leading for the first 6, until the inevitable time came when Meiji went ahead. Sachiya Yamasaki pitched for Meiji for 5 perfect innings -- he's that lefty from last year's Sanko team. And he is, in person, pretty amazing. I mean, he's no Kentaro Yoshinaga (WHO OMG I SAW OUTSIDE JINGU TODAY BUT COMPLETELY WAS UNABLE TO SAY A DAMN THING TO) but he's pretty damn close.
Meiji didn't actually have to win to get the championship anyway, since Hosei lost. But Nomura pitched the 9th inning, Meiji won, they had a huge photo finish and doage and all that other stuff, people threw purple ribbons, it was kinda exciting to be in the middle of all of it.
(Oh yeah and Kobayashi gave me a Meiji towel, so I had that and Hosei in my bag. Go figure.)
The only sad thing is that I really wanted to say goodbye to some of the Todai boys and tell them that I thought they kicked ass over the weekend even if they didn't win. And I didn't see them because by the time the doage and stuff were over, they were all gone home.
Outside, we found Kumabe and I handed off bags of chocolate to him and Morita. Even Ueda was there and he was like "Oh! Miss Deanna! Uhh... HISASHIBURI!" Kurihara had made a "Yappari Meiji ga No. 1" banner and was getting photos of various players with it. Ran into Kanai-kun again and he had me take a photo of him with captain Ikuhiro Takeda. I got Takeda to sign a photo at long last, and gave him a few photos too, and when he saw me he was all smiles like "Whoa! Hisashiburi! Genki?" basically a "long time, how the hell are you?" kinda greeting, which was awesome, he's a really sweet boy and I was surprised he remembered me. I was like "CONGRATULATIONS!!" of course. We talked a little, though he was super-busy and had a line of people waiting to bug him for stuff.
Yusuke Nomura refused to interact with anyone on his way out to the Meiji bus, which is not too surprising. He just DARTED out and actually kinda had a security guard of sorts with him.
BUT, Katsuya Kawashima (3rd-year infielder) actually tagged me like "hey! long time! do you remember me?" and I'm all like "of course! how are you, Kawashima-kun?" and we chatted a bit, he said he had to get on the bus, and I'm like "Can you do me a HUGE favor? Can you give these photos to Nomura? They're from the US-Japan tourney in America, I was there..." and he was like "yeah, no problem."
So as the Meiji bus was pulling out, I was scanning the windows to see the different players, and I saw Nomura going through the stack of photos! And he had a huge smile on his face!! So, I didn't succeed in actually interacting with him, or getting any of the photos signed, BUT it was at least a successful handoff.
After all the excitement died down, I went to a cafe with Yuka and Kobayashi and hung out for an hour or so. Good times. I think the weirdest moments of our conversation were mostly gossip about players' love lives. Like how apparently Daisuke Takeuchi (Keio 3rd-year LHP) is dating a TV announcer. I guess he really wants to go pro and is in training. The other gossip was about Chuo's Kageyama, who I think is a fantastic baseball player... Yuka's like "Yeah, he's a good baseball player. He's also a player in other ways... he likes to date lots of girls."
Then on Tuesday I went to the Toyo-Aoyama game. Fujioka's last start. He pitched a complete game win, woulda been a shutout if a ball hadn't been dropped in the 9th. Struck out 13. He's so awesome. Apparently he hadn't pitched a CG since last time I was there, I'm good luck for him maybe :) A guy sat behind me for most of the game, an older guy named Ogata (I think), who was a Toyo OB and so he was telling me various things about the team... and I was telling him stuff too. Afterwards he wanted to get a photo of me just to remember that I exist. Bizarre.
Outside the stadium I ran into Kanai and also a guy named Sakai, who is a Fighters fan that I have kinda-sorta known for a few years. We were all hoping to stalk Daichi Suzuki. We failed, Suzuki refused to talk to anyone except other ballclub members, and kinda hid on the side of the bus (though he didn't go in for a while). I eventually was like "Fuck this" and just went over to the bus, and another player gave me a weird look but I'm like "I just want to give these to Suzuki-kun, they're photos from the US tourney" and he's like "oh, ok" and that's essentially what I did. I figured I bothered printing them out, why waste them. Suzuki was kinda like "oh hey weird okay thanks" and the other guys with him were all like "OOOOOO, USA! USA! USA!" I didn't even bother trying to get a signature or a photo or anything. I found out later that Takahashi-kantoku basically tells the Toyo boys not to do fan service for the most part. What a jerk. I understand it though, as Toyo makes a LOT of pro players. I'm super-lucky that I somehow got around all that to meet Fujioka several times, I guess. This time, however, he basically ran out of the stadium and darted for the bus despite like 30 people trying to chase him for signatures.
Kanai and Sakai and I hung out talking for like an hour, until Kozo showed up, heh. Sakai goes to Senshu Univ, so they're both involved in Tohto League, kinda.
Wow, all of this I've been writing for an hour and haven't TRULY gotten to today yet. I suck.
So I went to Soukeisen with Mac and Kozo today, so we sat fairly far back so those guys could observe the ouendan craziness. But I first went up to say hi to people -- Matsui-san was there as was like 5 people from Kohei Nishino's family, and another boy whose name I forget but who's been around Keio games for years, he used to have crazy hair and wear a Chukyo shirt. So I go to greet everyone and I gave them photos and the entire Nishino family's very OMFG about the entire thing -- Matsui and Nishino's mom explain the entire thing, how I was there a few weeks ago, I come to a lot of Keio games, etc, etc, etc. I also gave Matsui-san some pictures of Tadano-kun since she likes him. I asked if they knew where I could get a Keio megaphone, and Nishino's mom literally hands me a bag like "here, a megaphone, a towel, a Keio book... oh, lemme give you a second one for your friend" and so I come back to Mac and Kozo like "I HAS STUFF".
Waseda won the game. That was sad. We got to see Good Arihara and Bad Arihara in the 8th and 9th innings. And Daisuke kinda blew the game... I dunno, dude.
Afterwards Mac and Kozo left and I went outside to hang out. Ran into Sakai, so I basically hung out with him for like an hour. He spotted all of these famous baseball guys coming into the stadium's kankeisha entrance, for the playoff game. Crazy.
I got Ren Yamasaki to sign a photo :) He was very funny. And he has insane callouses on his hand, kinda like how my JHS Takeuchi used to, from batting. It was very nostalgic in a way to be like "dude, do those hurt?" "nah, they're from batting." "Don't you have gloves?" "Yeah, but I practice swinging a LOT!"
Said an otsukaresama to Daisuke, and a good luck to Fukutani. I saw, but didn't approach, a few guys like Iba, Agata, etc. Maybe tomorrow if they win. (I didn't even bother trying to get anywhere near Itoh -- I know better, and he was surrounded by a shitload of people.) Anyway, the nuts thing was... several Keio OB were around... hell, lots of Big 6 OB were around, I even saw Todai's Maeda-kun again. (AND DID I MENTION I SAW NICHIDAI SAN HS'S YOSHINAGA??)
I've been following Hironori Tanaka (a Keio pitcher who was a 4th-year last year) on Twitter for a while ever since he came up as a "similar user". I saw him pitch a couple of times last year. Anyway, he was there today. And I'm like "OMFG SHOULD I SAY SOMETHING?" but get this, HE eventually came up to ME like "you're that girl from Twitter, right?" and we talked a bit. In Japanese. I probably totally screwed up everything I was saying since I was so surprised and nervous. But anyway it turns out he didn't graduate and is still studying as an undergrad at Keio, but you can't play sports for more than 5 years, so he's graduated from the baseball club but not the university. So his USA trip before was just for fun, not for work as I'd vaguely thought. How crazy. OMG still.
I saw Andoh-san, the 80-something-year-old lady who goes to all the games, and she's like "DEANNA GUESS WHAT? I SAW FUJIOKA-KUN HERE TODAY!" Apparently Fujioka went to Soukeisen and nobody recognized him DESPITE HIM GETTING DRAFTED ON THURSDAY, but Andoh talked to him a bit. She told me that he's actually VERY happy about getting chosen by Lotte, it was infact one of his first choices, he respects Naruse a lot and gets to rejoin Hiroki Ueno and all. So the "tears of happiness" when he got drafted were actually for real. So I'm happy too.
dude, I really gotta sleep. Clearly I should be braindumping these interactions to LJ more often.
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One specific line that I partiularly enjoyed was "So we spent most of the game talking about trains and Hosei baseball players, which are two of my favorite subjects." - I can just relate to it!