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Old baseball players never die, they just lose their hats
As for how I spent Saturday... I sat at home for the afternoon watching Hakone Ekiden and doing some stuff here. Then I went to the Tokyo Dome for the Pro Yakyu Old-Timers game; ended up sitting in the middle of a ton of Little League kids, which was both fun and unfun (the latter was only between every inning when a bunch of boys would run around like maniacs yelling for the guys on the field to throw them a baseball). Took a ton of pictures, haven't finished going through them yet. The Pacific League beat the Central League 7-2, though I'm not really sure how much it matters when you're talking about dudes who are anywhere from 33 at the youngest (guys like Tatsuya Ozeki who just retired) to 65 at the oldest (at one point Yukio Ozaki pitched to Isao Shibata; this was basically a reinactment of the 1961 Koshien where they played against each other. Ozaki was a dropout from Namisho who was Rookie of the Year for the Toei Flyers in 1962, and Shibata being the leadoff batter for the Oh-Nagashima V9 Giants).
Me, I was really just there because I wanted to see Choji Murata pitch. There's something that just totally kicks ass about a 60-year-old guy who can still throw 83 mph (he hit 135km/h at one point tonight, AND pitched a whole inning). I saw him pitch two years ago and just thought it was awesome then too. He also happens to be legendary as the first Japanese guy to have Tommy John surgery, and the first 4-decade player, and in his prime supposedly could pitch in the upper 90's.
Oh yeah, and Norihiro Komada looks significantly less fat than he did last time I saw him play. Good for him. Shigeki Sano's hat kept flying off, which may or may not have been on purpose. He also came by to high-five all the kids in the stands when he was on coaching duty.
After the game I stopped off in Ikebukuro to look for Carl's manga again, but still didn't find it at that bookoff either. Alas. I came home via Ito Yokado, where I barely got there in time to buy toilet paper before the upper floors close at 10pm. Oops :)
Also, my friend Mizushima might be the only person in Japan who errs on the wrong side of my Japanese language ability -- he called me to ask if I was coming to cheer for Hosei at the Ekiden tomorrow, told me a little about what happened today ("we sucked, we were 18th place"), and was trying to explain where/when the ouendan are setting up tomorrow morning, and I'm like "Dude I really have no fucking clue what you're saying or where you're talking about" and he's like "You've never been to Tokyo station?" and I'm like "No, I can't understand Japanese well enough to catch your directions," and he's like "You're joking, right?" It's funny, usually people just assume, because I'm a white person, that I'm an idiot who can't speak or read Japanese at all, and even most of my baseball friends have a pretty good idea of where my language ability starts to fall apart, but he's always like "whatever, I think you're fluent, therefore I'm going to treat you like you're fluent," which is both good and bad. I think I'm not going to go, though, just because it's going to be crowded and cold and I'm going to be confused. And I have plans to do hatsumode tomorrow afternoon at some obscure temple I've never been to. So.
I changed calendars to 2010 around here! Put up the new Fighters calendar on the wall where the old one was... and then put up my Tokyo Big 6 calendar on the other wall :)
Me, I was really just there because I wanted to see Choji Murata pitch. There's something that just totally kicks ass about a 60-year-old guy who can still throw 83 mph (he hit 135km/h at one point tonight, AND pitched a whole inning). I saw him pitch two years ago and just thought it was awesome then too. He also happens to be legendary as the first Japanese guy to have Tommy John surgery, and the first 4-decade player, and in his prime supposedly could pitch in the upper 90's.
Oh yeah, and Norihiro Komada looks significantly less fat than he did last time I saw him play. Good for him. Shigeki Sano's hat kept flying off, which may or may not have been on purpose. He also came by to high-five all the kids in the stands when he was on coaching duty.
After the game I stopped off in Ikebukuro to look for Carl's manga again, but still didn't find it at that bookoff either. Alas. I came home via Ito Yokado, where I barely got there in time to buy toilet paper before the upper floors close at 10pm. Oops :)
Also, my friend Mizushima might be the only person in Japan who errs on the wrong side of my Japanese language ability -- he called me to ask if I was coming to cheer for Hosei at the Ekiden tomorrow, told me a little about what happened today ("we sucked, we were 18th place"), and was trying to explain where/when the ouendan are setting up tomorrow morning, and I'm like "Dude I really have no fucking clue what you're saying or where you're talking about" and he's like "You've never been to Tokyo station?" and I'm like "No, I can't understand Japanese well enough to catch your directions," and he's like "You're joking, right?" It's funny, usually people just assume, because I'm a white person, that I'm an idiot who can't speak or read Japanese at all, and even most of my baseball friends have a pretty good idea of where my language ability starts to fall apart, but he's always like "whatever, I think you're fluent, therefore I'm going to treat you like you're fluent," which is both good and bad. I think I'm not going to go, though, just because it's going to be crowded and cold and I'm going to be confused. And I have plans to do hatsumode tomorrow afternoon at some obscure temple I've never been to. So.
I changed calendars to 2010 around here! Put up the new Fighters calendar on the wall where the old one was... and then put up my Tokyo Big 6 calendar on the other wall :)