加賀美くん♥♥♥

I went to Jingu today for Hosei's first game of the year. Kisho Kagami, my favorite college player, pitched a complete-game 10-inning win over Rikkio. He and Taki were the game heroes, and afterwards I got him to sign a photo I took of him last year. I asked a little shyly because I didn't want to be a pain, but he was like "Yorokonde!" which means "Happily!" and signed it for me, the long way, writing his university and name and number on it. I had been sitting in the front row on the Hosei side for the whole game, so when I said in Japanese, "Thank you! YOU PITCHED TOTALLY AWESOME TODAY!!!!" he laughed like "Thanks for cheering for me."

I talked to a few other players and met team captain Ohyagi for the first time, and I also got Mishima and Hiromoto's autographs, but that was not nearly as heart-thumping for me. Kagami is just tall and gorgeous and smart and kind and polite and a great pitcher at a famous university and all. He makes me swoon. GOD I hope the Giants don't draft him.

As for the rest of the game, I sat up front with Suda-san, who graduated from Hosei back in the 1960's and goes to all their games and keeps a scorecard too. Ogura and Tanaka showed up an inning or two in, like "We knew Deanna would be up here since Kagami is pitching!" Mizushima actually had apparently asked a guy on the team to save me a seat behind home plate but I didn't know and got settled into my spot before he told me. Oops. But afterwards Mizushima and his dad gave me a ride back to Shinjuku since it was on their way home. Kinda crazy, but nice of them, it was really cold out today.

Actually, the cold is why I didn't get to Jingu until like 2pm. It SNOWED here last night, no joke, and this morning was still raining, so the games started at noon. I got there JUST as the Keio-Tokyo game was ending, and guess what happened? Keio's Daisuke Takeuchi pitched the 22nd no-hitter in Tokyo Big 6 history. And I missed it. Oh well. I wonder how many of those no-hitters have been over Todai... :)

I got ramen on the way home for dinner, and stopped in Ito Yokado to get some milk tea and some snacks to share at the game tomorrow, and I wanted taiyaki, and THEY WERE SOLD OUT OF CUSTARD CREAM. wtf? I mean, you're a taiyaki place in a SUPERMARKET for crying out loud!

I really need to learn to believe people when they say "This person is a famous actor"

I have this theory that basically EVERYONE in Japan must know someone famous. Just one way or another, like, their classmate from college, or someone they knew at something-or-other... but I swear it seems like everyone has some link to at least one person considered famous here.

Anyway, so, there's this crazy genki older lady who I've seen at a ton of Hosei baseball games. She wears a Saginomiya Baseball Team jacket (they're an industrial league team, or maybe they used to be, I forget) and yells her head off and is pretty much at ALL their games, including things like the Rookie Tournament and such. I'd met her a few times but never actually gotten her name.

So today outside Jingu after the game was the first time I saw her since last November's rookie game... and she saw me and waved, so I said hi and all, asked how she's doing, and she was babbling something in half English about how she was doing karaoke training on some TV show. I was of course a little confused, and so Mizushima's like "Oh, you didn't know? She's an actress..." And I'm just politely like, "Oh, really? I didn't know that..."

Yeah. Turns out the crazy genki older lady is Tokachi Hanako. She used to make a lot more appearances in movies and TV shows and stuff but apparently hasn't done all that much lately. Kinda crazy. She LOVES the Hosei baseball team and they all love her too. I had thought she must just be some alumni of the university who always cheered for them, but no. Amusingly, in the college baseball magazines, one of the survey questions is for the team's "favorite actress or TV talent", and all the other teams choose these like, 18-year-old fashion model types, and Hosei lists Ms. Tokachi, who is something like 65 years old :)

I ought to ask for a photo with HER sometime :)