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The Legend of Mac: Return to Castle Mountain

Published by Bob Sanchez on October 9, 2008 in Misc. 2 Comments

While casually thumbing through a monthly community newsletter, I stumbled across an outdoor cooking event to be held at none other than mystical Castle Mountain.

I did eventually and successfully navigate the inner roads of Castle Mountain once, although like beating Super Mario Bros. the first time, I wasn’t sure if I could do it again.

This time, the Kochi Youth Association offered to drive twenty 15- to 30-year-olds up the mountain on a Sunday morning in October for a short hike and a lunch consisting of mountain cuisine.

The day arrived, and with it torrential rains. I called up the fellow at KYA and he said that there was a Plan B and to come on down.

I invited Noodles, an English teacher from Massachusetts who lives to the east of Kochi City and who once consumed 159 bowls of soba noodles in succession.

About 15 folks our age showed up, and we piled into two vans and headed up the crooked road that wraps around Castle Mountain. The rain was practically coming up from the ground, it was falling so hard.

We arrived at a small building on the main road of a tiny town perched on a hillside. Across the street was a post office, a fire station, and an elementary school, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all in the same building. Sheets of rain prevented me from taking a closer look.

It was at this community center that we met Mountain Main, a swarthy, wiry Japanese man in his fifties who had grown up deep in the Shikoku Mountain Range and knew everything there was to know about…well, the Shikoku Mountain Range.

Tough as a hunk of beef jerky yet gentle and grandfatherly, Mountain Man shook our hands and told us to get back into the vans - we couldn’t hike in the rain, but dammit, we could drive!

We hopped out at a familiar place to me, it was one of those devilish crossroads that had given me fits in Quest for Castle Mountain. Mountain Man scrambled up the glistening black cliff, and for the first time, I realized that it was a rather unique rock formation with sparse vegetation compared to the rest of the scene.

He told us that it was rock from deep within the Earth, jarred loose and thrust into the Kochi landscape by periodic earthquakes. It was of the right quality for a certain kind of concrete and was beneficial to a few specific types of plants, the names, functions, and even tastes of which he knew by heart.

There was a story for every plant, and I was overwhelmed by the breadth of his knowledge. I blurred my focus and looked at the cliff, and at the dirt hillsides surrounding it - just hills with plants, I thought. If I had had to guess, I would have said that all of the plants were the same.

Not so for Mountain Man. He knew which plants to eat, which not to even touch, and which to strip the bark off of and sell to Japanese paper makers. He was like Willy Wonka and Castle Mountain and the Shikoku Range were his chocolate factory.

His eyes danced and he spoke at a rapid pace, and it was evident that his mind was moving faster than his mouth allowed. I detected traces of a mountain accent and would have loved the chance to hear him and a farmer go at it, though I probably wouldn’t have understood a single word.

We squeezed back into the vans, all of us dripping wet by that time, and the vans strained to carry us up to the peak. We encountered a fallen tree blocking the road, and none of the guys in the group had to be told twice to jump out of the vans and push it away.

Finally, we reached the “parking lot” close to the top, which barely had room for the two vans and called for some creative parking. On the small summit, we looked down at nothing but bright, gray rainclouds.

It was a shame, because Mountain Man knew about the centuries-old castle ruins and abandoned prison visible from the peak. He also told us about fault lines and old city and town boundaries that he could have shown us on a better day.

The geography geek in me really wants to go back and scale Castle Mountain for a look at these things, but I’ve made it up there myself and didn’t see them before, so the budding cyclist in me is refusing.

Mountain Man found some mushrooms and began to explain the ways he could tell if they were tasty or even edible. I was taken with the way he handled them, the pale, white caps flailing about in his brown hands as he raved about the risks and rewards of mushroom hunting.

I’m not sure if I only imagined him taking a bite of one and continuing to educate with probably-poisonous-but-maybe-not-let’s-see mushroom spilling out of his mouth.

It was a great chance to hear a Japanese person speak about a subject other than baseball with real expertise. Rare is the opportunity to take on the challenge of deciphering alien words and concepts in addition to processing information that is new regardless of language or culture.

Since Mountain Man was schooling us all on rocks and plants and using terminology that none of us knew, the foreigner/Japanese lines melted away as much as they ever will. We were all students becoming enlightened and that was what mattered most. I enjoyed that situation very much and should seek out opportunities like it more often.

Noodles and I kept the ball rolling once we returned to the community center and set up the tarps and cooking equipment. Everyone was in a great mood despite the pouring rain, and we were determined to enjoy a cooking lesson from Mountain Man. That made it easy to maintain the flow of conversation and make sure that everyone was a part of it.

At a few times it became necessary for me to say something to Noodles or vice versa, and we surprised ourselves by keeping it in Japanese. That allowed us to be courteous to everyone else without disturbing the speed and momentum of the conversation.

We’ve talked with each other about how much we dislike hearing non-native Japanese speakers speak Japanese. I can’t stand it because very few people pronounce things correctly or attempt to make it sound Japanese. Noodles has an extensive vocabulary and impeccable command of grammar, and he doesn’t like wading in the kiddie pool.

Yet this is the second time that we’ve hit the override button on speaking to each other in Japanese, and each time it made sense as we were in front of other Japanese. If we’re willing to beat our swords into plowshares over this, we actually make a pretty good team - he always knows the word that I’m looking for, and when his textbook-perfect Japanese and quirky delivery is met with quizzical looks, I’m there to help him package it better.

Noodles seems to be the right guy with which to try and let go of another piece of Marco Polo Syndrome. I’m sure that non-Japanese Japanese will always grate on my ears (even my own does, on occasion), but I must admit that I am quick to judge and compare whenever I hear a fellow barbarian speaking in tongues. Life will be better the more I simply smile and move on.

In any event, it was fantastic to meet a whole bunch of young Japanese people. One point on the negative side for Kochi is that, due to its remote location and poor economic performance compared with the rest of the country, it lacks the job opportunities and the night life that attract young people.

Many of them flee to Osaka and Tokyo right out of college, if not high school, and stay there until they have a family to raise or elderly parents to care for. I am always a bit blown away by the seeming explosion of youth that I see when I step off a train in the big cities (even Nagoya). There just aren’t that many twenty-somethings in Kochi.

Most of the participants did not know each other prior to the outdoor event, and so we all spent time telling our stories and the dearth of youth in Kochi came up several times. Many of them said that upon returning they feared they wouldn’t be able to find jobs in Kochi and that all of their other friends were long gone.

I suppose that’s why they showed up on a Sunday morning to mess around in the mountains with a bunch of people they didn’t know. After we made baskets by hand out of kudzu vine, the day ended with us sending each other our cell phone information via amazing laser technology (okay, it’s just infrared rays).

All in all, it was a very fulfilling day. Geology and botany lecture for starters, a huge pot of deer meat stew for the main dish, and a sense of belonging and fellowship on the side.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Published by Bob Sanchez on October 6, 2008 in Baseball and Lessons. 0 Comments

I want to travel back in time and visit a young man who didn’t know what he was quite literally throwing away.

I want to see him in 1999 and tell him that he doesn’t have to throw the ball as hard as he can to get guys out. Also that it wouldn’t hurt to let up a little bit when his teammates and he are doing rundown drills without gloves.

I want to see him in 2001 and make him promise never to set foot on a pitching mound again, no matter how tempting it may seem. Furthermore, I’d tell him that even though curve balls are standard fare in the Sunday beer league that he still isn’t quick enough or nasty enough to be effective at all.

I want to see him in 2002 and tell him that it’s just C-league intramural co-ed softball. Again, that he doesn’t have to throw the ball as hard as he can to get guys (and girls) out.

I want to see him in 2004 and convince him that it’s not worth it to wind up a cold, drunk arm to try and throw 82 MPH to beat some guy named Brett Hughes at the speed pitch booth. I’d also let him know that the girl with the gun was probably lying when she said, “The last two were 100 miles per hour, I think you need to throw again!”

I want to see him in 2006 and tell him not to try and tough out batting practice, not even for one more batter. I’d remind him that he hates batting practice and that he could do a better job helping players hit while giving them soft-toss.

In all of these situations, I would try and explain to him that it makes more sense to enjoy throwing for a long time rather than spending all of his bullets in relatively meaningless endeavors.

Let’s see, play catch with your son in twenty years, or attempt to throw your friend out from left field on a softball field when the first baseman isn’t even looking and everyone is just there to screw around and hit some balls? Obviously, he wasn’t smart enough to make those decisions on his own, time and time again.

Sadly, this young man is still making stupid decisions regarding his shriveled, rotten shadow of a throwing arm. The head baseball coach at his high school asked if he would be willing to throw BP, and for unfathomable reasons, the guy agreed to give it a shot.

Four batters and eighty pitches later, he descended the dirt mound, having bitten the inside of his cheeks to keep from screaming or otherwise showing his pain on his face for the last thirty or so. He cursed the stubbornness and idiocy that kept him from quitting in the middle of a hitter or simply and politely refusing to throw in the first place.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know this young man as well as I do.

Hiroaki’s Song

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 30, 2008 in Baseball and Lessons. 0 Comments

Three summers ago, I met a Japanese fellow by the name of Hiroaki. One of my best friends was visiting me in Japan, and another Japanese friend of mine invited Hiroaki along to make it a foursome.

We met at an English pub in Ikebukuro, one of the many fun parts of Tokyo, and the Americans introduced the Japanese to their first Irish Car Bombs. Twice. We said, “Let’s internationalization!” many times that night.

We couldn’t quit there, so we crammed ourselves into a karaoke box, followed the shaded words, and howled the night away. Sometime during the caterwauling and boozing, Hiroaki and I exchanged our cell phone addresses.

Fall fell quickly in Fukushima, and I took every opportunity to escape to the capital and watch pro baseball games. Hiroaki and I kept in contact, and he was happy to meet me in front of the various stadiums, provided that I had a backpack full of snacks and chilled beers.

We sat together in the outfield seats, right in the middle of the infamous cheer groups, and drank, sang, and shouted our heads off. He always had a last train to catch, and with the last bus to Fukushima leaving the city much too early, I always had a stairwell or park bench to find and curl up on or under, awaiting the morrow’s first return bus.

This happened three or four times, and would have happened again but for a Chiba Lotte Marines sweep of the Hanshin Tigers. Hiroaki had scored tickets to Game 6, but dumped them after the Marines won the first three games 10-1, 10-0, and 10-1.

We obviously had chemistry and something to talk about, and we texted and called each other frequently. Hiroaki was in his fourth year at a prestigious college in Tokyo, all set to become a ubiquitous salaryman at the Hitachi Company when springtime rolled around. I was finishing up my first year of adult life, and I was disappointed, discouraged, battered, and broke.

The baseball dream was fading as I kept running into brick walls in the States. I had written letters to MLB and all thirty teams once a week for a month and could count the number of meaningful responses on one hand. Almost half the teams hadn’t replied at all.

I was in a foreign country, in an area with no baseball team, with no contacts in the game and no prospects for work; I was farther from baseball than I had ever been. I decided to return to California and beat the pavement from there, hoping that I would be harder to ignore from the States.

I didn’t send anything to the Japanese clubs because I thought they wouldn’t have anything for me to do and because sending letters would be too much trouble. I didn’t think I had anything to offer that would put me over any Japanese job-seeker.

Then, out of the blue, Hiroaki emailed me, excited about getting some responses from Japanese baseball teams. He copied the letter he wrote and the letter the teams wrote back to him and sent them to me.

I thought he may have been having second thoughts about Hitachi and had done this for himself; I didn’t realize that he was writing this letter on my behalf until he explicitly said “my foreign friend” about halfway through.

It never even crossed my mind to have him do that for me, let alone ask him, but he did it. He sent out feeler emails to the twelve Japanese pro baseball companies and received two responses.

I was deeply touched that he would go through great lengths to do something like that. He believed in me when I wouldn’t believe in myself.

I was also surprised that he had actually gotten some feedback; surely those letters would find their way to the circular file with much more ease than would my own letters about me in my native language to organizations in my home country.

I couldn’t ignore the kind gesture or its implications, so I set to work writing a “self-appeal letter,” as they call it, and learning how to fill out a Japanese resume. It was as painful and tedious as I had feared it would be, but I had the inspiration that I had lacked before.

It took a week for me to copy all twelve letters and resumes. I suppose I could’ve printed them, but I wanted to show the companies my “fighting spirit” as well as demonstrate my gnarliness, so I decided to do it all by hand. I’ll remember that as long as I’m in my right mind.

The letters garnered responses from three teams and I got interviews with two of them, the Yokohama Bay Stars and the new Rakuten Golden Eagles! I didn’t get either position, although I now realize that I could have made things work with the Eagles if not for some bad information I got (and believed) about visa laws. I could have done a lot of things better with that short burst of energy toward a job in Japanese baseball, come to think of it.

Nonetheless, Hiroaki had saved my life in Japan with a dozen clicks of his mouse. He restored my confidence and encouraged me to continue the fight. He put rear-view mirrors on the plane to California and made the idea of returning to Japan a possibility in my mind.

He did it all with characteristic humility, and he still seems to have difficulty understanding just how seriously he affected my life. Hiroaki is the type of person who will give you something just fabulous and then stand back, look at you marveling over it, and wonder why you like it so much.

I see Hiroaki a couple times a year, and I attempt to return the favor, but nothing I do can reciprocate what he did for me. On top of that, he finds it difficult to accept help, consideration, gifts, love, encouragement, or anything else, for that matter.

He is the guy I turn to first when I’m having trouble in Japan, and I tell him to call on me in good times and bad, but he says he doesn’t want to bother me with his trifles. I think he means it sincerely. I have to work to get things about himself out of him, though it’s never tough to get him to come out and enjoy a few rounds of beers that I never let him buy.

Once, he told me why he wrote those letters. He thought it was a waste of talent for me not to have a job in Japanese baseball and simply decided to do something about it. I hope that I will be able to understand and feel that level of selflessness someday.

Biking Blind

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 27, 2008 in Bike. 0 Comments

You’re doing fine! Just take a rest. Most guys are rolling around in the dirt and throwing up at this point!

I could hear these words coming from a longtime family friend, but I couldn’t see them, or anything else in front of me, for that matter. It was the first time in my life I’d ever done anything so intensely that I went blind.

Do you want a ride home? I can bring the car if you want, really, it’s no big deal.

I think I said I just needed ten minutes to rest. I’m not really sure what I said, or if it made any sense. Thoughts of what I would do to prepare for a life without sight raced through my head faster than I had climbed the dirt hill in the back country of Orange County.

I had expected to reach the top and enjoy the browns and dull greens of rolling hills on that crisp December day during a trip home. Instead, I wondered if I would ever see again.

I was out of breath and my heart was pounding in my head. The world went black soon after I clipped out of the mountain bike that I was riding for the first time. I groped around, stumbled to a bench, and put my elbows on my knees, sure that I was looking straight ahead.

Nothing. Just black. I opened my eyes wider and looked left to right. No valley. No cacti. No ribbon of road in the distance. Just black.

I could hear everything going on around me and feel the bench beneath me, the man next to me, and my own hot breath escaping out of my tired lungs and the cool air invading soon after.

I tried desperately to remember the last thing I saw, as if to create a memento to tell people about when I would have to answer the inevitable questions about my new condition. Even that image would not appear in my mind.

Finally, after about five minutes, I began to see the shape of the landscape and the figures of three other people around me, able to interpret their depth and proximity to me but still no colors. Just black.

Ha ha, wow! You just went ZOOMING up the mountain, man! You really should have paced yourself!

He had been singing a different tune all the way up the hill, getting me to turn on full steam and plunge ahead. I’m not sure if “encouraged” or “duped” is the correct word to use.

You’ve got 24-year-old arms and legs, why don’t you use them? Go on, go ahead!

I’m a sucker for challenges because I still think life is a contest, especially if I’m already dripping in sweat or in a uniform of some sort. This is why I retired.

Eventually, sight and sanity returned and we continued on the rugged trail. I succumbed to the awesome forces of nature and gravity many more times before we made it back to sweet, flat land.

I had had so much fun in my first three months with KCTC that I took this fellow up on his offer to take me mountain biking, figuring it would be at least as fun as the road. He graciously provided me with a bicycle and proper clothes, shoes, and water, and we went out with two of his pals from the neighborhood.

Getting used to the clip-in pedals and shoes was enough for a few spills before we even got to the rough road. Going the right way on the street (they go the wrong way in Japan) and bounding right over curbs and obstacles on the bike weirded me out at first, but that all turned into fun by the end of the day.

Mountain biking is completely different from riding on the road, but I began to recognize the elements on the mountain bike that are present on my current bike, a hybrid. It was exciting to go barreling down dirt hills, focusing on the area immediately in front of me, grappling with gravity, and screaming from the sheer pleasure it brought me.

Downing beers at the end and waking up sore for the next two days wasn’t so bad, either!

I enjoy the road because I can broaden my focus, think about distant physical and mental goals, and masticate other thoughts while my body takes care of the task at hand. I’ve found some answers to life’s questions while the legs just keep pedaling.

My world got a little bigger on the last Saturday of 2007, and I plan to go give mountain biking another shot while I’m home for Christmas this year. Hopefully I’ll be able to see it all this time.

Get it OFF Me!!!

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 27, 2008 in Baseball and Funnies. 0 Comments

A veteran Major League pitcher got up in front of my team’s minor leaguers this spring and gave a very inspired speech about the path to the big leagues.

One point that stayed with me was that it didn’t matter what the path was; spending six years in rookie ball and getting called up is just as good as climbing up step by step and making it. The goal is to get to the top, and there are many ways to do it.

This fellow went on to have the best season of his career to date, and I’m glad that I got to see him give this talk in March. His media interviews mean a lot more to me because I saw how focused he was out of the gate, before he won more games and worked more efficiently than ever.

This is the kind of stuff he does with his free time.

Jari and Doro

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 26, 2008 in Bike. 1 Comment

My first visit to a Japanese hospital came courtesy of an outing with the bike club. It happened during my first month with the club, on a gray Sunday in October.

We were out with the older folks on a relatively flat course next to a gorgeous river, and since I actually got to spend some time ahead of people (imagine that!), I took the opportunity to practice communicating upcoming hazards by mouth and hand.

KCTC members inform those behind them of cars, potholes, high curbs, and other obstacles by yelling out the name of the object or by sticking a hand behind them and pointing downward on the dangerous side. As simple as it is, I think it’s very cool to communicate this way and feel like a part of the club when we do.

So I was trying to be the responsible one, pointing out all of the hazards on the winding backroad that we were taking that day. At one point about 20 miles from home there was a huge pothole that was difficult to see. I had to swerve to get out of the way, and I pointed at it so that the riders behind me would see it.

Little did I know that I was also showing them a huge patch of gravel on the outside of a very sharp turn around an old house. I had taken my eyes off the road for a split-second to point at the pothole, and before I knew it, I was on my back and the bike and I were sliding through the gritty material and right off the road!

My clothes were ripped up and there were scrapes all down the left side of my body, but the worst one was a gash on my forearm just above my elbow. It was about four inches long, a quarter-inch wide, and at least a half-inch deep. Stones and sand were embedded in the cut and I thought I might get my first look at one of my own bones. I wish I had taken a picture.

I rinsed it out with my water bottle and jumped back on the bike. When we reached the next resting point, Mrs. Bike Shop pulled up and said, “Hey, Mac, I heard you fell down. What happene-OH MY GOSH!!! You’ve got to get that stitched up. Someone gimme a water bottle!”

Luckily, Mrs. Bike Shop used to be a nurse and always carries a first-aid kit tucked away somewhere in her body suit. She was right, it needed to be disinfected and stitched. I broke from the group and rode home to shower and get ready to go to the emergency room.

Mrs. Bike Shop knew of a hospital that is open on Sundays showed me how to get there, and even came in to see the doctor with me.

First, I had to make a member card at the front desk, and then they informed me that any treatment would cost double because it was Sunday. Before I could ask why or prod any further, Mrs. Bike Shop interjected and said that I would be glad to receive treatment, pushing me toward the waiting room.

The waiting room was clean and small, and nobody else was there, so I got called into the treatment area very quickly. There were only three partitions for doctors with collapsible walls and curtains separating them - I was at a “clinic,” not a full-fledged hospital. Interestingly, you go to this same sort of place when you have a cold or the flu.

The doctor came in and we did the “Japanese, OK?” dance and got started. He twisted my arm behind me and began poking and prodding, asking if this or that hurt. So far, so good, emergency care is emergency care, right?

Nouns and adjectives that don’t pop up every day can be tough for me to understand quickly, and the doctor kept talking about taking something out of my arm - jari and doro.

Since the cut was on the back of my elbow, I couldn’t see it while he was looking at it and frantically tried to figure out what the heck jari and doro were. Nerves? Tissue? Some kind of body part? I didn’t think so and certainly hoped not.

The doctor kept saying, “Well, I can’t do anything until we get this jari and doro out of there,” and Mrs. Bike Shop couldn’t define the words for me when I asked.

I think she understood the look on my face, which probably said something like, “this guy doesn’t touch me until I know what he’s taking out of my body!”

The doctor finally pulled out some mirrors and showed me what he was looking at when he pried the cut open - there was a bunch of gravel and mud inside the cut that we hadn’t gotten to at the scene.

In a semi-emergency situation, how would you define gravel and mud in English to someone who didn’t know the meanings of the words? Simple and common nouns, but not everyday words.

I told him how freaked out I was by not understanding jari and doro, and the three of us had a good laugh about that. He went to work and the experience wasn’t much different than that of any American emergency room I’ve been to. Until I went home and the following checkups came.

Japanese doctors get paid by the visit, by and large, and they are not bashful about doing whatever they can to get you to come as often as possible. I walked out of the hospital with two days’ worth of gauze and bandages with instructions to return on Tuesday.

Return I did, and I went twice more after that before realizing that visiting every two or three days really wasn’t helping the wound heal any more; it was doing just fine by itself and I was a chump for paying 5,000 yen for bandages and an OK from the doctor.

I was going to pretend to be interested in the next visit and not show up, but then the doctor played his next card:

“Oh, it looks good, Mac. I think we might be able to take the stitches out between Thursday and next Sunday.”

Talk about a rock and a hard place - I had to decide between paying fifty bucks for more bandages and an “Oh, let’s wait until Sunday” on Thursday or preemptively waiting for Sunday and paying double to get some strings cut.

I cut the stitches myself on Saturday.

Or, I went back on Monday to get them cut.

I honestly can’t remember, because I’ve cut stitches by myself before to avoid ridiculous charges in the States, and I’ve also pulled the Monday trick when I need antibiotics here and the doctor arranges to have my prescription run out on a Saturday. I did one of the two in this situation.

It stinks that the system is set up that way, but everybody knows about it and plays the game, so I do, too. Add to that the automatic, unquestionable respect that the title of Doctor commands here, and you have a guy who hated going to the doctor in his home country . . . well, hating to go to the doctor in a foreign country.

I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital at all if not for Mrs. Bike Shop, and I owe her a lot for standing her ground and commanding me to go. It may have taken a few days and an infection for me to figure it out on my own.

The Bike Shops got a container full of homemade American-style French toast as thanks, but they had that coming to them anyway. I felt like I could trust them and this episode simply proved it.

Now I’ve got a cool scar that I forget about because I can’t see it. My students ask about it sometimes, and I’ll usually make up a story - in a mad dash for home plate, I slid so hard that I ripped up my uniform and my arm and it took the groundskeepers three days to fix the hole.

Something along those lines. Certainly something more exciting and less embarrassing than the truth.

Dear Lyle

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 23, 2008 in Lessons. 0 Comments

I was taught that there is “power in the pen,” so I like to write letters occasionally and hope that I will do so as long as I’ve got hands. My only frequent pen pal is my sister, although I do fire off letters to former teachers and old friends from time to time.

One thing I like doing is reaching out to someone from my past via pen and paper, if only for the reason that their influence in my life popped into my head that particular day.

I had one of those moments last September when I introduced myself to the students at school for the first time. I decided to use the Rotary Club Hello, which is silly and obnoxious but is a great way to keep everyone attentive through a long string of self-introductions.

It’s very easy - simply wait until the person says his or her name, and then say, “HIIII, BOB!!!” very loudly and deliberately and clap your hands once.

It sounds stupid and it is, but when everyone does it together, it’s a whole lot of fun and it’s difficult to avoid getting the giggles.

The Rotary Club Hello works best when there is one new person who needs to introduce himself to the rest of the group. He expects to have to say his name, where he’s from, his job - the usual stuff. If everyone else is in on the gag, the newbie is starting to say the name of his town when-

“HIIIII, JOE!!!” CLAP

Startling and relaxing at the same time, a great ice-breaker. I highly recommend the Rotary Club Hello and use it often.

The high school seniors enjoyed it and I thought about the man who taught it to me in my freshman year at UC Santa Barbara. Lyle Hillegas was the head advisor of a college church group that I was a part of in that first year.

A bear of a man with a huge, booming baritone voice, glasses with round lenses, and a smart, well-kept mustache, Lyle was quite adept at talking about God and making him sound approachable, real, and modern.

With a smile the width of a watermelon and bright, bold single-colored sweaters, he walked us through the Bible a verse at a time, stopping to tell one of a myriad of personal stories and offering a wealth of insight while using words like MAGNIFICENT!, MARVELOUS!, and BRILLIANT!

When I began to doubt that I had a truly personal relationship God, Lyle was the one person in the group that acknowledged my doubt as real and was willing to talk about it. I drifted from the group, as I couldn’t connect with any of my peers, but I continued to meet with Lyle and listen to what he had to say about God.

One summer, I wasn’t able to keep my key to the piano practice rooms on campus and didn’t have access to a piano or a keyboard. The band I was in, Los Borrachos, had a full schedule of gigs starting in September, and I wasn’t going to be able to play until school started again.

Lyle and his wife opened up their house to me, inviting me to come over and play even when they weren’t home. I rode the bus to their beautiful English house (complete with a thatched roof) on State Street several times that summer, and they dutifully put up with hearing the same songs over and over, or with hearing news ones with mistakes and tinkering.

I didn’t keep in touch with him very much at the end of college, and I left without saying a real goodbye to him. I didn’t contact him once in the ensuing years and only thought about him when I was between pianos or used that Rotary Club Hello.

He was a perfect candidate for a letter from out of the blue! I vowed to write to him about the smashing success of the Hello on the tech school kids, and though there was time, I never set it aside.

Another former teacher popped into my head in mid-July, and the dusty old memo to write to Lyle remained in my head. I thought I would do it in Sapporo, as I would be there for four days, but I spent all of my time writing reports and watching baseball and let the task slip away.

Finally, I sat down last week and wrote letters to Lyle and the former teacher. Lyle’s letter was difficult. I really wanted to keep it to one page, but I wanted to hit several points and close with a bang. That last line was difficult; I didn’t know what to say to a guy who has it all including a fantastic personal relationship with God that he can’t hide from anybody.

I rewrote the letter three times before it was perfect.

I never knew exactly how old Lyle was, but he was an older gentleman when I met him, and it occurred to me that I should probably check to make sure he was still around. I was shocked to find that he was not.

The pain I felt surprised me; I hadn’t tried to contact this man in five years, but learning of his death felt so fresh and close. I became short of breath and shed some tears right there in the teacher’s staff room in front of my computer.

I’ve drifted away from many people in my life, and some of them have died, and I’ve been sad when I heard the news. Yet, since we weren’t close it wasn’t very painful for me; in a messed-up way, it was like they were already gone and I had already dealt with the loss.

(This is a haunting feeling that is at least partly responsible for my decision to attempt to reach out to those I treasure with this website. I want for my loved ones and me to be alive in each other’s lives.)

For some reason, Lyle wasn’t one of those people. I expected him to be there and be the same, steadfast man that I met back in college. I expected to have a relieved chuckle over having to check the obituaries to see if the recipient of my letter would be able to open his mailbox.

Almost immediately, I was aware of the foolishness of my quest for the perfect letter. Not that writing it once would have gotten it there any faster, but that I had agonized over such a futile exercise. If there was one person who could appreciate the innate imperfection of humans, it was Lyle. He would not have cared if there was white out all over the page before him.

I read the words in the linked article above and thought about Lyle as a fellow child of God for the first time. He, too, worked on things that were hilariously imperfect in God’s eyes, yet were pleasing and full of utility. Go back and read the part where Niggle spreads his arms and says, “It’s a gift!” I can see Lyle Hillegas in that story.

Things have been changing ever since I stopped saying “pencils are for people who make mistakes.” Through baseball, poker, and life and my own mistakes, I have learned more about the relationship between effort and results and have slowly eased away from being a perfectionist, though I still slip and fall often.

There are far more important things than attempting to be perfect. Writing letters to our loved ones while they are still around to read them is one of those things:

I sincerely hope that you are well and not in want or need, and that Melissa and the boys are smiling there with you. Thank you for the influence you have had on my life.

Bob Sanchez

Fire Up the Cannons!

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 18, 2008 in Baseball. 0 Comments

Forgive me if this story is out there already, or if you’ve heard one just like it. Something new happens in baseball every day, but I’m surprised at how similar some stories are; there seem to be a finite number of situations and punchlines.

Or, it could be that baseball people have a characteristic wit about them, a way of dealing with the failure that doesn’t stop at the old three-for-ten line. Call it cynicism, fatalism, dry humor, or Nancy, it runs common in our blood such that we hear a story and know how it’s going to end, but still end up in the aisles when the zinger finally escapes the storyteller’s wry lips.

I have two bosses who are magnificent teachers and outstanding baseball men. I had the privilege of watching a ball game with both of them in Nagoya (why does so much good stuff happen in one of my least favorite places?).

The workers scurried out to the infield cutouts to tidy them up between the fifth and sixth innings. One of the bosses, a former left-handed pitcher in the Major Leagues, took the opportunity to unwind a yarn* from his playing days:

Okay, so Rick Sutcliffe is out there pitching against the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium, where they used to have these cannons out behind the outfield fence that would shoot off rounds if a guy went yard.

He gave up a two-run homer to Andy VanSlyke -BOOM!!!- just clobbered! The cannons did their thing and Sutty prepared to face the next guy, Mike LaValliere.

First pitch -WHAM!!!- thirty rows up into the right field seats. -POW, POW!!!- go the cannons, and Rick’s pissed, y’know?

His eyes twinkled, his eyebows peaked mischeviously, and his mouth opened wider and wider as the story reached its climax.

Well, Bill Connors [[the pitching coach, we had just been talking about him]] goes out there to have a chat with Sutty, and Sutty’s not havin’ it.

He says, “What the hell are you doin’ out here, Bill? I’m fine, I know what went wrong!”

Bill said, “Oh, I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Sutty stared back, he didn’t know what was going on.

Bill pointed to the outfield fence and said, “I’m just giving ‘em time to warm up those cannons!”

I had an especially good laugh at that, and looking back it’s not all that funny, but I had gone through an especially painful and confusing week leading up to that game. I realized while I was clutching my sides that I hadn’t honestly laughed or even smiled all week.

Baseball stories and relationships have a way of cleaning out life’s wounds with laughter and bonding of a very pure form. The business part aside, we are brothers in the lifelong quest to grasp the game, and there seems to be an understanding between baseball people that transcends the logo on our paychecks.

An older scout told me a story about ditching his prom date to try out for the expansion Los Angeles Angels and making a minor league team from that tryout.

I related about the hours I spent in my backyard, pitching the entire 1995 Dodgers schedule against a stone wall, over and over, imitating each pitcher’s windup except Kevin Tapani’s but including that of the man whose influence would eventually lead me to Japan.

Somehow, we were both there, though forty years of age separate us.

When I say I love baseball, I’m usually referring to the game itself, its complex nature, its frustrations, and its secrets which reveal themselves to me one by one. But I love the people in the game every bit as much.

*It’s unfortunate that the events in this story may not have actually taken place. I’ve searched box scores for everyone involved and haven’t found anything similar to it yet. Either way, I was suffering and that sweet laughter got me over the hump and looking downhill, and for that I am very thankful.