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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.

Kicking Kids

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 17, 2008 in Baseball. 0 Comments

High school baseball in Japan is like college football in the United States - relentless recruiting, relentless media coverage, and a relentless fan base. Its biggest event is a yearly summer tournament called Koshien, which takes place in the relentless mid-August Osaka heat under the relentless lenses of a relentless number of TV cameras.

So, if you’re a coach and you want to smack a player in the head or kick him in the shins, Koshien is not a very good place to do it. Unfortunately for one of the most famous high school baseball coaches in Japan, he couldn’t even get away with it during a practice game a couple of weekends ago.

For those who may not be able to read the other end of the link:

During a practice game on school grounds, the coach kicked two players on the bench several times. There was no injury to either player. The school received an anonymous phone call about the incident . . .

I’ve mentioned before that I think some parts of Japanese society are about the same as those of the United States in the seventies, and the attitude toward corporal punishment is one of them.

I don’t know what goes on in the home, but on the baseball field, the manager is a fearful general and the players do what he says. When he opens his mouth, caps come off, heads are lowered, and “SIR YES SIR” is said.

I still find that awkward and even a little shocking, and when I offer my rare bits of quiet advice, I quickly tell the kids to put their hats back on and look at me when I’m talking to them. I’m a student of the game just like they are, only a few years ahead.

Today’s leaders on the ball field were beaten and bruised as youngsters, and nobody thought a thing of it. The aggressors then were members of that Great Generation of men who knew desperation, destitution, and nothingness in postwar Japan. Egos, feelings, and hides were not spared to drill respect, fear, and obedience into young players.

A fabulous professional pitcher who may play in the United States very soon has an older brother who is an official in the Shikoku League. I’ve been out to dinner with the older brother a few times, and he has told me about being his younger brother’s catcher growing up.

When the younger boy would get hit hard in a game, the father would often seek to pile on the pain and demanded to know who was responsible for the fat pitches.

“My kid brother had horrible control and didn’t always get my signs,” the older brother laughed. “I lied to my father and took the blame every time.”

He is deaf in one ear as a result.

In an effort to better understand the baseball culture here, I’ve tried watching baseball cartoons from past eras, and there is no escape from the abuse even in a few of these animated shows.

One was so bad that I had to stop watching after three episodes. Kyojin no Hoshi (Star of the Giants) features a young kid who is not very good at baseball. His father, a former baseball player, war veteran, and single, alcoholic construction worker, straps a springed device across the boys back, chest, and arms and forces him to wear it all day every day in hopes that the boy will fulfill the father’s broken dream.

The boy endures ridicule at school because he can’t throw a ball or turn handsprings, but keeps the hobbling, torturous device a secret at his father’s behest. Inside the home, however, the two go at it violently, usually ending with the boy taking off the shackles and saying that he has quit baseball, and with the father beating him senseless while his sister screams and cries.

And this cartoon was highly recommended to me by many forty-something baseball men, who recalled it fondly. I’ve seen the characters in ads for vitamins and energy drinks, the boy standing there with tan lines across his body from that hideous contraption and the father gleaming with pride.

If the situation seems right, I reference that cartoon in front of older baseball guys to see what they have to say about it, and eventually it comes out that just about everybody was beaten up as a young ballplayer.

“That’s just the way things were,” they say, the look in their eyes growing more and more distant.

In Kyoto last weekend, I visited a college practice game on a lead from a player agent and had a wonderful conversation with one of the coaches from the relatively rural school. When we got to the latest high school kicking scandal, he shook his head and sighed.

“We’re in a difficult spot now,” he said sadly. “None of these kids are hungry, they don’t know hunger. I think it’s our fault. We don’t want to see them experience what we did, and we take it easy on them.”

He lamented that there didn’t seem to be a way to toughen them up; they’ve had everything they needed for as long as they can remember. It sounded as if maintaining that fearful relationship through corporal punishment was taken away from them and they hadn’t found a way to fill the hole.

This particular coach could never bring himself to rough up players, but had watched many a partner do the dirty deed. I, too, stand by while the coaches at my school make physical contact with the players in a way that is inappropriate by American standards.

For that reason, I do nothing. Things are different here. Abuse is where I will draw the line, and I haven’t seen abuse. I’ve seen a different, old-fashioned way of handling children. I was kicked a few times as a young ballplayer, but never without my catcher’s gear on and never to the extent that I would consider it abuse.

I don’t like watching it and as long as there are incidents like the one we’ve been hearing about for the past week, there is a problem that needs to change. I need more information and I need to figure out what I can do about it.

Ichiro Must Bow to His Superiors

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 11, 2008 in Baseball. 3 Comments

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.”

Out of Left Field

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 11, 2008 in Baseball and Funnies. 0 Comments

On Thursdays and Fridays, I suit up in a baseball uni and run out to the communal ground to hit fungoes to the players in the baseball club. The students like to see me dressed up and don’t hesitate to ask for my hat or my pants. Not sure what they have in mind with the latter request.

I enjoy helping out, and I don’t do much actual coaching as I am not the manager or even an official coach. I offer encouragement, and I see the players doing things I don’t like or agree with, but I only speak up if something is truly awful or wrong.

They have to run anywhere from one to five miles before practice, and the coaches typically run with them. I say that I’m grading papers or helping students to duck out of that, but I go home and change clothes and then jog to school (almost a mile) so that I show up sweaty like everyone else.

They do some very strange drills, like fielding ground balls with a rubber tire strapped to each infielder’s back, pushing said tires back and forth across the ground after fielding, playing leap frog, and carrying each other on piggyback across the ground. The point is to get exhausted, and they succeed at that every day.

The players are out there until 7:30 or 8:00 every night, and I have never stayed that late, but I have passed by on my bike and observed them in the fourth hour of practice. About half of all that time is spent doing nothing, screwing around, or “preparing” for the next activity. “Preparing” consists of pushing dirt around with a wooden stick and playing grab-ass until the coach yells at them to get back to work.

The other half of the time, they are swinging bats and fielding balls, but it’s done without much energy or enthusiasm. I can’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to move if I had to run three miles and do a hundred sit-ups before practice, either.

Certainly not how I would use practice time, but I don’t think many high school kids would like my idea of good use of practice time. I just show up, hit fungoes, and run back home in time to catch the pro games on TV.

Today, we couldn’t use the deeper reaches of the outfield because some seniors were practicing their cheers for Sports Day coming up in a few weeks. Batting practice offered a familiar scene - ten outfielders clumped together in three groups, standing back on their heels and arguing over whose turn it was to chase the ball that just went by.

I decided to walk out there and teach them what I think position players should be doing during BP. It’s not a difficult concept and very easy to employ if you decide you want to become a better player.

If you stand at your position every day and watch a couple hundred balls coming off the bat, you begin to build a library of batted balls in your mind. If you’re a smart bear, you’re paying attention and acting like it’s a game situation on every swing, expecting the ball to come to you and moving to the ball when it is hit.

Do this ten thousand times over the course of a season, and you are bound to have sharper instincts. You begin to recognize which swings produce which kinds of batted balls to the point that you know where it’s going to be hit before it’s hit. We’re talking millionths of a second before the ball is struck, but that’s all the time you need to turn a double into an out in the outfield.

It’s conceivable that this instinct could come about after enough time observing passively in the field, but putting yourself in game situations over and over again builds good habits and you’ll get that instinct more quickly.

I suggest that kids focus for five consecutive pitches and take two pitches off, just like a work week. I still think it’s possible to concentrate more, but 5-2 is better than pounding on your cup, staring at the sky, picking dandelions, or talking about who you’re taking to the Prom.

I told all of this to each group and felt that two players understood it. When those seniors stopped their cheering practice, the outfield opened up and I got those same two players for fungoes. Reading a fly ball off a fungo bat is much different than studying BP, but excuses aside, I hit them a whole bucket of balls and they couldn’t have caught a cold.

I walked out there to help them collect the balls when some seniors rode by on their mamacharis. The outfielders snapped to attention, doffed their caps, and bowed to the boys. I recognized them as former baseball club members who, according to custom, “retired” from the club after the summer to focus on getting a job or getting into college.

How long do you have to call them ’superior’ and take off your hat for them?” I asked the outfielders.

“They will always be our superiors,” they said, almost in unison.

“So you’re at a party in 50 years, and you’re still going to call him ’superior’?”

“That’s right, ’superior.’ Say, Mac, do you like boobs?”

I should interject here and explain that the end of the word “superior” and the end of one of the words for “breasts” is the same. So this wasn’t as weird a segway as it seems.

The manager (a sophomore girl) is standing right here, you shouldn’t say stuff like that in front of girls,” I said.

“Oh, sorry. Well, do you like boobs?” the boy persisted.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“OK. Mac, why isn’t there polygamy in Japan?”

Now things were getting weird. First of all, I didn’t understand what the kid was saying the first time he said it. When I asked him to break down the word for me, I got it: one-husband-many-wife-system. Technically polygyny, but I wasn’t prepared to split hairs with this guy.

Sheesh, kid, I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I wanted to know. I heard that polygamy is OK in Africa and wondered why it isn’t anywhere else.”

“…”

That’s me scratchin’ my melon.

Where did you hear that?”

“Junior high world history, I think.”

“Well, what makes you think I would know the answer to that?”

“I don’t know. I just think about this kind of stuff when I’m out here in the outfield.”

So much for my message getting through. I told him that I thought the courage to ask questions was a great trait as a person, but that letting the mind wander in the outfield was not a characteristic becoming a good outfielder.

This is why I keep going to school.

Avoiding Crabs

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 6, 2008 in Lessons. 3 Comments

I don’t have a lot of good things to say about my time in Fukushima in 2005. It was the darkest, lowest point in my life and I didn’t have a great attitude about it.

I’m going back this winter to exorcise the demons and, as I tell people in Japanese, finally admit that I was the bad one.

I did receive a great pearl of wisdom from my boss at the time, and it came from a story he told me over some cigars on a Sunday morning.

As a kid in Hawaii, he played baseball well and enjoyed being at the top of the heap. As an older guy, he understood Japanese people very well because he remembered thinking that the world ended and began with his island. A good number of people here think that way, and let’s face it, not all islands are surrounded by water…

He exhibited that mindset in front of an old man, who pulled him aside and pointed at a bucket full of crabs that was settled in the sand a few paces away. The old man and the boy watched as crabs tried to escape from the bucket.

When one crab got a claw over the side of the bucket, the other crabs pulled it back inside. Over and over again this happened, and not one crab would escape.

“That bucket,” said the man, “is the island of Oahu. These boys you hang out with are just like those crabs. Get out of the bucket the second you have a chance.”

It was a little too simple for me to take at face value, but it was easy to imagine and I understood the lesson.

The image reminded me of that analogy of Hell where everyone is sitting at a table with a huge pot of delicious stew in the center. Everyone has a spoon with a long handle. When they try to feed themselves, they find that they can’t get the food to their mouths. They try in vain to feed themselves for eternity.

Heaven, of course, is where everybody turns to the side and feeds the person next to them with the long-handled spoon.

Back to the crabs. That little anecdote stuck with me and I find myself using it often, especially when dealing with negativity. Most recently, I pulled it out at the Kochi Driver’s License Center.

If you grab an International Driver’s License at Triple-A in the United States before you leave, you are allowed to drive in Japan for a full year from your date of entry into the country. I don’t have a car, but I’ve rented them several times in order to get to baseball games that were far enough off the beaten path to justify renting a car instead of taking a train and a cab.

I also love road trips and like to be able to contribute.

When your year is up, you either stop driving, risk getting caught without a license, or have your American license changed to a Japanese license.

This involves the headache of applying for the change at the DMV, which is just a bureaucratic and inefficient here as it is in the States. Then, you must pass a written test and a road test to make the change. Canadians, by the way, just have to fill out an application and pay a fee.

The written test is cake, ten questions that are pretty intuitive and offered in English, no less. The road test is the hard part. It takes place on a closed course that resembles Mario Kart more than it does an actual road.

There are intersections, railway crossings, and S-curves jammed into an area a shade larger than a football field. In the middle sits a four-way intersection with a traffic light, about the only thing on the course that both makes sense and is realistic.

Some intersections are marked with a number, but most are not. There are no buildings, just a couple of walls in one area that are supposed to be visual obstructions.

You must demonstrate proper scanning technique, but on the closed course you have to imagine the danger and check over your shoulder for stuff you know is not there. It’s very easy to miss checking an intersection, for example, because it doesn’t look like a real interesection (no shops or rice fields) and because you know that you’re the only one on the course.

You must drive in a car furnished by the license center for a mere $16 each time you take the test, which costs another $24. Grading is very strict and proctors are picky, and it is not unheard of for people to have to take the test as many as ten times. What a racket.

You are graded from the moment you step on the course, so if you don’t adjust your seat the proper way, you could fail. If your wheels are not close enough to the edge of the road when you make a left turn, you could fail.

It’s a rather silly way to test someone’s actual driving skills, and foreigners and Japanese alike know that, but this system is in place and it’s not going anywhere.

I signed up for a couple of driving classes at a nearby driving school to test out their course and see just how nitpicky they would be. It really helped out, and I went out to the license center certain that I had a chance at passing the first time.

An English teaching buddy was there taking it for the seventh time, and I was the only one there for the first time among five foreigners. A gloomy mood permeated the room, and I tried my best to joke with the other test-takers that I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed just because it was my first time.

A siren sounded at noon, and we were allowed to walk the course for an hour. That’s actually pretty important because they announce the course in the morning and you have to memorize it as part of your score. So an ideal test should be done in complete silence, no communciation between the proctor and the driver. You only talk to him at the beginning, and again at the end when you “get advice” on your driving.

While walking the course in a big group, the other test-takers started complaining about the ridiculousness of the whole ordeal, shuffling their feet and moving slowly. I was prepared to be frustrated and to take “advice” on something I’ve been doing for a decade with a straight face, but I was not prepared for such negativity.

I didn’t say much, and we were only able to circle the course twice together. The one o’clock siren blew and it was time to take the test. I had drawn the first straw, so I bowed to the proctor and carefully entered the car.

I did everything in the right order - check both ways, open door, get in with a hand on the steering wheel, close the door, lock it, adjust the seat, adjust the mirrors, fasten seatbelt, foot on the brake, start the car, emergency break, put it in drive, signal, check over the shoulders, check the mirrors, ask for permission to drive.

Whew! I got permission and stepped on the gas, but the car didn’t move. I hadn’t started it! I thought I had but the engine didn’t catch on and I couldn’t hear it because of the air conditioning. Nice way to start a perfect test!

I finally got that all sorted out and got onto the course. There’s a section where you have to get up to 25 MPH, which is a lot harder than it sounds because you’re coming out of a curve at less than 10 MPH and you only have about 100 yards to do it in a tin can of a car. Of course remembering to check fake intersections the whole way.

All of the turns and lane changes were on me before I knew it, and when I finally got to a straight section, I forgot where to go next and just went through the intersection with the stoplight. The proctor told me to stop the car and, in an annoyed and condescending voice, told me the proper route.

I continued and handled the S-curve and the crank (a tiny backroad in the shape of a digital five) just fine. I was doing hand-over-hand and was never out of control of the car or the situation.

I took my advice and put a remorseful look on my face, hoping that that might work. It didn’t. I failed for not being close enough to the center line when making right turns, and for forgetting to wait three seconds AFTER signalling to check for a safe lane change. That was the first I had heard of the three-second rule.

The crabs looked happy to welcome me to their bucket. One fellow said, “I know this isn’t a driving test. This is a culture test for me.” But he pressed on complaining about the differences between the Japanese test and the test he took in high school and doomed himself to continue making the same mistakes.

I listened to that on the train the whole way home and encouraged him to be more positive about it, but he wasn’t having it.

I wouldn’t be able to return to the license center for another week due to a scouting trip to Tokyo, but I did my best to use my time there to commit the “great advice” to memory.

Any time I wanted to go to the right, I got my body close to the blind lines on the sidewalk. Every time I wanted to move to the right, I pretended to signal and then WAIT three seconds before checking over my right shoulder. That move was totally against my intuition, because when I drive I throw down the signal and check right away.

It probably looked dumb, but the test is dumb and that’s what I had to do to pass the test. I thought positively about it and dreamed about nailing every turn and checking every intersection.

Finally, Day 2 arrived. Many of the same crabs were there, having failed twice more each in the time I was away. The noon siren wailed, and we were out walking the course. I realized that I could not be with them for an hour the way I had been last time; I had to remain positive.

When we hit the 25 MPH zone, I began running. Running to get out of the bucket, but also to speed things up and properly choreograph the checks I would have to do on that section. It worked. I got around the course three times, planned all checks, signals, and lane changes, and felt prepared for the test.

Once I went to signal and turned on the windshield wipers (the rod is on the opposite side of the steering column here), but it went perfectly otherwise. I didn’t hear the proctor write anything down, and when I went to get my precious advice, it sounded more like a send-off into the world of driving in Japan than tips on how to get a better time on Mario Kart.

Poor Mr. Culture Test failed again, but a couple others passed along with me. We sat through a short lecture, got pictures taken, and escaped with shiny new driver’s licenses. I felt sixteen again and remarked that I didn’t think I would get this day twice.

I strongly believe that mental preparation in Tokyo and maintaining positivity by avoiding the crabs are the reasons I passed the second time. I also strongly believe that I would have been Mr. Culture Test if I had tried to take this test in Fukushima in 2005.

I empathized with him, but I could not make him hear the message. He may still be taking the test.

“CC’s BBs” or “Sabathia = A BS hit + some extra As”

Published by Bob Sanchez on September 4, 2008 in Baseball. 0 Comments

BREWERS APPEAL SCORER’S DECISION

I knew exactly what this article was about before reading it or looking at the sub-head.

I knew that C.C. Sabathia was on the hill for the Brewers against the horrid Pirates. I knew about the only thing worth it for a club to lodge an appeal against a scorer’s decision.

I knew because, on a smaller scale, I have been that scorekeeper.

Milwaukee is upset over a play that was ruled a hit instead of error in the Brewers’ 7-0 win over Pittsburgh. If the play was called an error, starter CC Sabathia would have recorded the second no-hitter in franchise history.

Before I read any further, I had to take advantage of the instant video analysis we are all afforded as Internet-havin’ baseball fans to see this play for myself.

It sure looked like a hit to me. Everyone had their own opinions on it:

I saw it, called it immediately [and] believed it was a hit,” the game’s official scorer, Bob Webb, said. “I think that’s a hit in every circumstance. It was a difficult play. Even if he comes up with the ball cleanly, in my estimation, he’s got more than ordinary difficulty in getting the runner at first base.”

That’s about all you can ask of an official scorer. It’s a reasonable explanation of a tricky play, and it’s his job to sit there and watch the game and make that decision.

Some disagree, however:

It’s not a very good explanation in my mind,” [Brewers Manager Ned] Yost said. “…it’s a lot easier for a left-handed pitcher to go to the third-base line and make that throw than a right-handed pitcher.”

I’ve been thinking about that comment and it just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s a play that requires athleticism and awareness of your body and your target, which pitchers of either hand cannot see as they approach the ball.

About the only thing a lefty has on his side is that his throw is less likely to hit the runner due to the angle of the throw. I could be wrong, there could be something else that makes it easier for a lefty, but I’ve thought it through and I couldn’t find an advantage anywhere else.

Anyway, scoring is instinctive and a scorer shouldn’t spend time debating stuff like that. A decision needs to be made, and the first one is usually right. It’s in your gut, and you and your gut both know the rules.

The Brewers’ scorekeeper, who was probably mowing the lawn or washing his car during the game, saw video and said:

If CC fields with his glove, which he should have done, there’s no question about anything because the guy is out by 15 feet.”

Whoa there, Tiger. Even if that play is made totally professionally, smoothly, glove-on-the-ball, it’s a damn close play, I’d say within ten feet and that’s giving the benefit of the doubt. I think the guy might have been out by a step and a half.

Though I agree with the scorer’s ruling, I think this is a rather valiant case by the Brewers and not a bad situation in which to appeal. Far more insidious things have occurred:

The Brewers were able to overturn a scorer’s ruling earlier in the year, when Prince Fielder was retroactively charged with an error in Houston on a dropped throw to first base. Astros outfielder Michael Bourn was initially given an infield single, and Guillermo Mota went on to allow two runs. The earned tallies were later changed to unearned, dropping Mota’s ERA by half a run.

This is a good time for arguments about all the stats out there that more accurately describe a pitcher’s worth than ERA. Actually, this is a good time to consider alteration of silly distinctions such as hit and error, due to the effect they can have on a player’s perceived value.

Take for example a particularly evil story I heard about Alex Rodriguez storming the press box over an error that would hurt his chances for a Gold Glove during his Seattle Mariners days. The error was changed to a hit, and that one play upped pitcher Paul Abbott’s ERA enough to cheat him of a bonus at the end of the year.

There doesn’t seem to be anything on the Internet about this, and I can only guess that it happened in 1998 when Abbott’s ERA was 4.01. However, I heard this story while I was working for the same team as Abbott, and had it confirmed when I worked in Seattle. I wouldn’t put it past a player to pine for individual awards like the Gold Glove, and certainly not past a guy like Rodriguez.

Official scorers aren’t toying with destiny, they simply watch games and make decisions. Unfortunately, these decisions, as in Sabathia’s case and Abbott’s case, can be quite heavy and have tremendous effects.

I think it’s time to enjoy baseball a little differently, and if you haven’t already read about my scoring story for further explanation, please do. We need to get past the zero on the board or the three in front of a guy’s ERA and enjoy good baseball when we see it.

The history books may not record John Lackey’s amazing performance on July 7, 2006 as a perfect game, but what more do you want? The guy gave up a leadoff double and then retired every single hitter for the rest of the night, with ten strikeouts! Not perfect by definition, but is that not a great story to tell your grandkids? Isn’t that why we go see baseball games? Don’t you wish you had been there?

It’s not a stretch to say that he was at least as dominating as guys who retired the first 27 hitters, and more so than guys who have gotten through a game with a zero on the board under “hits.”

While I’m at it, I may as well dust off the old beef I have with no-hitters not counting if your team loses the game. If the fans are hankering for a zero on the frickin’ scoreboard, and that takes precedence to things like the spectacle of true pitching dominance, the outcome of the game shouldn’t matter.

And saying that eight innings (visiting team loses) is not a complete game is total garbage. Or that if you pitch nine innings and strike out twenty hitters that you should bear an asterisk for your performance because your team didn’t finish things up in regulation.

We know that the rules aren’t going to change, so it’s time to change the way we watch and appreciate games. In most cases, the scoreboard matches what our eyes see, but I implore baseball fans to think for themselves and eschew these six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-the-other arguments.

Great baseball is great baseball no matter what the box score says.