Bob Sanchez’ BS

So I’m in Nagoya, home of the Chunichi Dragons and Ichiro Suzuki’s stomping grounds. My boss and two scouts from another organization were at the ballgame that night, and the four of us crammed into a cab to return to Nagoya Station.

We may have gotten the best cab driver in the whole gloomy city of Nagoya. He was an older man, in his late fifties or early sixties, skinny as a beanpole with a toothy, gold-flecked smile. His eyes widened at the sight of four foreign fellows piling into his modest cab, and he beamed and offered his best Engrish salute:

“Goo-do eee-buningu!!! Weru-kaaaamu!”

The smallest of the four hopped into the front seat and thought he had won, but that just meant that he was sitting closest to a Japanese guy who wanted to practice his English - usually a pretty awkward situation.

To the driver’s credit, he was fearless despite having indecipherable English and kept trying to make connections. Single words and baseball names did the trick, and sooner or later the conversation got to ICHIRO.

I have yet to meet one person in Nagoya who doesn’t like talking about ICHIRO and I can’t blame them. The guy is pretty amazing.

Yet, for me, he’s like Tommy Lasorda or Bruce Springsteen or Stephen Hawking (but only ICHIRO gets to be bold). All of the information is out there. What in the world could you say to those guys that they hadn’t heard before? That would make you any different from the hundred thousand other slobs they met last week? That would earn you their trust and maybe a piece of secret, valuable information not afforded anyone else?

In short, I believe there’s such a thing as too famous and that it’s near impossible to have any kind of real relationship with a person who has reached those heights. Maybe I take handshakes too seriously, but I am out looking for real relationships and don’t want to waste time with chatter that will go nowhere.

Anyway, the subject in the cab had turned to ICHIRO. The driver flicked his hand to the right and mentioned that ICHIRO had gone to high school over there, at Nagoya High School for Electronics. Just think, if baseball hadn’t worked out, ICHIRO could have put together your car stereo or Tamagotchi pet.

The cab driver then proudly announced that he was Ichiro’s superior, an alumnus of the same baseball club at Nagoya Electric. I interpreted that for the other guys in the cab, and they wanted to know exactly what that meant. So did I!

The cab driver explained that, even though over twenty school years separated them, if they ever met and he mentioned the school that Ichiro would have to refer to him as “sir,” for lack of a better translation.

In Japanese baseball and many other facets of life here, those that come before you are automatically respected in speech and action, though not necessarily in heart and mind, as I explained to the scouts.

I guessed that if Ichiro were sitting in the taxi with us that he might turn to us and say, “This guy is *$&# nuts,” in English and bow and say “sir” in Japanese. And then proceed to listen to the driver tell us his batting average and running time to first base as we did.

I thought the driver was great fun, if a little strange for the ICHIRO claim to fame. We stopped at a light and he pointed down a crowded, dimly-lit street and said that there were many beautiful women down that street.

He was pointing at one of the many “pink towns” that Nagoya is famous for, and when I told the other scouts, the guy in the front seat put his hand on the steering wheel and began inching it to the right. We all appreciated the physical humor, and heck, who doesn’t when words fail?

That opened things up a bit and we talked about other things all the way back to the station, and I got some great practice for interpreting just in case that comes up someday.

My boss wanted me to ask the driver to hit some pedestrians and get some points, and he started to say “just kidding” but the question was already out of my mouth. The cabbie started howling with laughter, and it wasn’t long before all five of us were shaking like bowlfuls of jelly.

He gave us a discount, to top it all off, and I took his business card. Now I have a personal driver in one of the most boring cities in the world.

And if ICHIRO were to come along for a ride, he’d have to bow and call him “sir.”