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Little League and stuff
May. 9th, 2010 11:52 pmToday I went to the American School in Japan to watch a Little League game going on as part of the Tokyo American Club league. Basically, my friend Mitch's son Max is playing in the games there, and I hadn't seen any of their family since last year (I was actually introduced to them through Larry and the Lotte gang two years ago...) so they thought it'd be fun to have me come along and check out Max's team.
First off, the ASIJ is gigantic. It's basically like having an American-sized high school, just it's in Mitaka. They even have tennis courts and a pool and an actual football field and all this other stuff. I was noting that you could fit all of Nanachu, the school AND our schoolyard, on top of that football field. Kind of crazy.
Second off, most of the kids are, obviously, Americans. Max's team had a few other Japanese kids on it, but most were white kids, with their white parents watching the games and all. I haven't been around so many white people in one day in Japan in quite some time! His team even had a girl on it -- a girl with long blonde hair who turned out to be one of their best pitchers. Max is actually the tallest kid on his team, even taller than the American boys who are the same age as him. There was a Japanese couple hanging out next to where I was sitting with Mitch's wife Noriko, and their son was another pitcher (Sosuke, I think?) who was little, but sure could throw. And he's also 11 like Max.
(For the record, Mitch is actually Japanese-Canadian, so Max does have two Japanese parents and is full Japanese, but he's just a really tall kid for someone his age. I think it's a good thing, honestly. And apparently he really likes playing basketball, so it can't hurt there either.)
Anyway, I did some throwing before the game, and then I kinda tagged along with Mitch for a bit while he organized kids to get their bats between at-bats and swing in the on-deck circle and all (rather than hit each other in the head) but I didn't have all that much to do so I mostly sat around with Noriko and the others and watched from afar. We think the game score was 8-6 in favor of the other team -- honestly, even the kids playing weren't sure. A lot of points got walked in. Max struck out twice, I was saying it isn't quite fair because he has a bigger strike zone than most of the other kids. This one really small boy on his team walked every time he came up!
Actually, the game ended on a weird note. Sosuke got a hit, but for some reason he either overran first base, or something, and the coach yelled for him to "GET BACK TO THE BASE!" except Sosuke's English isn't so good, so apparently he thought it meant "go back to home plate" so he went that way and got tagged out. Oops.
One or two people asked me "Which kid out there is your son?" and I'm like "...none of them! Mitch invited me to come watch today, I'm a family friend and a fake baseball writer." It was a little weird, because I mean, of course you'd assume a white woman my age there must have a kid playing on the team. Duh :)
Lent my glove to Noriko for a while so she could play catch with Max. She's left-handed too, so she doesn't have a glove, but she can throw really well. She was like "This glove is awesome, how much was it? $200 or $300?" and I was like "...er... I bought it for like $25 when I started playing softball a few years ago...?" Apparently a big soft leather Nike glove like mine is worth a LOT more over here! She was telling me about when they went equipment shopping for Max and how expensive the bats and gloves and all were. I had no idea, but this at least explains why all of my Fighters friends were also oohing and ahhing over my glove when I brought it to Salaryman Night last year to play catch.
We gave a ride home to the umpire, who is an Australian dude who works as a recruiter, but apparently spent a while playing baseball. And on the way out some of the people had brought snacks for the kids, so I also got a bag of BBQ potato chips, yum! Max was drinking Capri Sun and eating some Nerds. I think there must be a few people associated with the USA embassy or who work on military bases or something there, maybe.
Coming home was kinda annoying, even though I got a ride back to Iidabashi with them. I thought I'd go Yurakucho line to Ikebukuro and switch trains there, rather than Nanboku to Oji, but as it turns out there was some huge set of "accidents" on the trains today, so EVERYTHING was fucked up. I ended up taking the Yamanote to Komagome and getting on the Nanboku after all, to Akabane Iwabuchi, and walking home from there, stopping in for tempura for dinner on the way. Grrr. Seems like it must be "accident" season.
Oh, well. Hosei won their game today (no surprise there), and Ueno-kun didn't pitch in the Marines-Shonan game, so I don't feel regret over missing that either.
First off, the ASIJ is gigantic. It's basically like having an American-sized high school, just it's in Mitaka. They even have tennis courts and a pool and an actual football field and all this other stuff. I was noting that you could fit all of Nanachu, the school AND our schoolyard, on top of that football field. Kind of crazy.
Second off, most of the kids are, obviously, Americans. Max's team had a few other Japanese kids on it, but most were white kids, with their white parents watching the games and all. I haven't been around so many white people in one day in Japan in quite some time! His team even had a girl on it -- a girl with long blonde hair who turned out to be one of their best pitchers. Max is actually the tallest kid on his team, even taller than the American boys who are the same age as him. There was a Japanese couple hanging out next to where I was sitting with Mitch's wife Noriko, and their son was another pitcher (Sosuke, I think?) who was little, but sure could throw. And he's also 11 like Max.
(For the record, Mitch is actually Japanese-Canadian, so Max does have two Japanese parents and is full Japanese, but he's just a really tall kid for someone his age. I think it's a good thing, honestly. And apparently he really likes playing basketball, so it can't hurt there either.)
Anyway, I did some throwing before the game, and then I kinda tagged along with Mitch for a bit while he organized kids to get their bats between at-bats and swing in the on-deck circle and all (rather than hit each other in the head) but I didn't have all that much to do so I mostly sat around with Noriko and the others and watched from afar. We think the game score was 8-6 in favor of the other team -- honestly, even the kids playing weren't sure. A lot of points got walked in. Max struck out twice, I was saying it isn't quite fair because he has a bigger strike zone than most of the other kids. This one really small boy on his team walked every time he came up!
Actually, the game ended on a weird note. Sosuke got a hit, but for some reason he either overran first base, or something, and the coach yelled for him to "GET BACK TO THE BASE!" except Sosuke's English isn't so good, so apparently he thought it meant "go back to home plate" so he went that way and got tagged out. Oops.
One or two people asked me "Which kid out there is your son?" and I'm like "...none of them! Mitch invited me to come watch today, I'm a family friend and a fake baseball writer." It was a little weird, because I mean, of course you'd assume a white woman my age there must have a kid playing on the team. Duh :)
Lent my glove to Noriko for a while so she could play catch with Max. She's left-handed too, so she doesn't have a glove, but she can throw really well. She was like "This glove is awesome, how much was it? $200 or $300?" and I was like "...er... I bought it for like $25 when I started playing softball a few years ago...?" Apparently a big soft leather Nike glove like mine is worth a LOT more over here! She was telling me about when they went equipment shopping for Max and how expensive the bats and gloves and all were. I had no idea, but this at least explains why all of my Fighters friends were also oohing and ahhing over my glove when I brought it to Salaryman Night last year to play catch.
We gave a ride home to the umpire, who is an Australian dude who works as a recruiter, but apparently spent a while playing baseball. And on the way out some of the people had brought snacks for the kids, so I also got a bag of BBQ potato chips, yum! Max was drinking Capri Sun and eating some Nerds. I think there must be a few people associated with the USA embassy or who work on military bases or something there, maybe.
Coming home was kinda annoying, even though I got a ride back to Iidabashi with them. I thought I'd go Yurakucho line to Ikebukuro and switch trains there, rather than Nanboku to Oji, but as it turns out there was some huge set of "accidents" on the trains today, so EVERYTHING was fucked up. I ended up taking the Yamanote to Komagome and getting on the Nanboku after all, to Akabane Iwabuchi, and walking home from there, stopping in for tempura for dinner on the way. Grrr. Seems like it must be "accident" season.
Oh, well. Hosei won their game today (no surprise there), and Ueno-kun didn't pitch in the Marines-Shonan game, so I don't feel regret over missing that either.
