![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
It's not a great photo but...
Rob Fitts is on the left, and Wally Yonamine is on the right. Yonamine is known as the "Jackie Robinson of Japan" -- a Hawaiian nisei, he was the first American to play baseball here after WWII. Rob wrote a biography of him, which I couldn't get until today because it's not selling in Japan I don't think. The good part is, now I have a signed copy... the bad part is, I bet I will have a ton of questions to ask AFTER I read it, but it was frustrating during the event because I couldn't think of any questions to ask.
Also I didn't know anyone there and felt very out of place, it was at the Tokyo American Club which is apparently a club for rich American ex-pats, and I think most people there were Wally's friends and family essentially. Though -- Rob, the author, has written emails with me for the last few years about Japanese baseball cards so HE was all like "wow! Deanna! it's so nice to finally meet you after reading your blog for so long!" and stuff. But I had NO clue what to say to Mr. Yonamine himself... I mean... the man is a freaking legend. I felt like a big dumbass.
Ran into Mitch and Noriko and their son Max, so that was funny. Max broke his arm, but he's still a cute kid, he had his Bobby-signed Marines hat and some dude's like "you a Marines fan? I'm friends with Bobby" and Max is like "so are the rest of us" and shows him the cap brim. Heh. Eventually they gave me a ride back to Shinagawa station, that was nice.
I ate some kaitensushi at the station and came home and did laundry for the afternoon...
Shinsuke (CMU friend I hadn't seen in like 3 months) came over around 6:15 and we watched the Japan Series final game together. Originally we were going to watch it on my TV but channel 4 comes in CRAPPY, he took one look at it, laughed, and got out his Playstation Portable which has 1-seg and so we huddled under the kotatsu and watched the game on his PSP. That was funny. For the first half we were convinced the Giants were going to win and that was really sad, so we geeked out about trains and stuff instead... he's crazy about travelling to random places on trains and knows more than I ever will, and makes me look like not a train geek at all in comparison. We were discussing Eulerian paths to go ride all of the train lines in Kyushu -- that was hilarious.
About 2/3 of the way through the Seibu Lions started winning and then we were like "OMFG" and were glued to the game. They held onto the lead and WON THE JAPAN SERIES. Take that, Gomiuri!
Shin and I were dumbasses and didn't eat dinner, but by the time the game was over it was 10pm so he had to head home, and I headed here to McDonald's to eat gurakoro and leech internet. Yay. He realized we should have just called and ordered a pizza, heh, which is true.
----
Also, to add to last night's entry... the internet cafe was dumb and didn't give me change when I paid. That was really annoying. They had to count the cash register to give me my change, seriously... and then I saw a cockroach in my kitchen when I got home afterwards. Grumble.
Rob Fitts is on the left, and Wally Yonamine is on the right. Yonamine is known as the "Jackie Robinson of Japan" -- a Hawaiian nisei, he was the first American to play baseball here after WWII. Rob wrote a biography of him, which I couldn't get until today because it's not selling in Japan I don't think. The good part is, now I have a signed copy... the bad part is, I bet I will have a ton of questions to ask AFTER I read it, but it was frustrating during the event because I couldn't think of any questions to ask.
Also I didn't know anyone there and felt very out of place, it was at the Tokyo American Club which is apparently a club for rich American ex-pats, and I think most people there were Wally's friends and family essentially. Though -- Rob, the author, has written emails with me for the last few years about Japanese baseball cards so HE was all like "wow! Deanna! it's so nice to finally meet you after reading your blog for so long!" and stuff. But I had NO clue what to say to Mr. Yonamine himself... I mean... the man is a freaking legend. I felt like a big dumbass.
Ran into Mitch and Noriko and their son Max, so that was funny. Max broke his arm, but he's still a cute kid, he had his Bobby-signed Marines hat and some dude's like "you a Marines fan? I'm friends with Bobby" and Max is like "so are the rest of us" and shows him the cap brim. Heh. Eventually they gave me a ride back to Shinagawa station, that was nice.
I ate some kaitensushi at the station and came home and did laundry for the afternoon...
Shinsuke (CMU friend I hadn't seen in like 3 months) came over around 6:15 and we watched the Japan Series final game together. Originally we were going to watch it on my TV but channel 4 comes in CRAPPY, he took one look at it, laughed, and got out his Playstation Portable which has 1-seg and so we huddled under the kotatsu and watched the game on his PSP. That was funny. For the first half we were convinced the Giants were going to win and that was really sad, so we geeked out about trains and stuff instead... he's crazy about travelling to random places on trains and knows more than I ever will, and makes me look like not a train geek at all in comparison. We were discussing Eulerian paths to go ride all of the train lines in Kyushu -- that was hilarious.
About 2/3 of the way through the Seibu Lions started winning and then we were like "OMFG" and were glued to the game. They held onto the lead and WON THE JAPAN SERIES. Take that, Gomiuri!
Shin and I were dumbasses and didn't eat dinner, but by the time the game was over it was 10pm so he had to head home, and I headed here to McDonald's to eat gurakoro and leech internet. Yay. He realized we should have just called and ordered a pizza, heh, which is true.
----
Also, to add to last night's entry... the internet cafe was dumb and didn't give me change when I paid. That was really annoying. They had to count the cash register to give me my change, seriously... and then I saw a cockroach in my kitchen when I got home afterwards. Grumble.
Re: Wally Yonamine Reads Your Blog