autumn tactics

Storm front is moving in now, the outskirts of a typhoon in Kyushu.  The rapid temperature drop is appreciated, but the wind let’s me know we won’t be dry for long.  I’m on my way to a baseball game anyway, I haven’t hardly had a chance to go all season.  Baseball is dharma, like running or raves.  There is a balance in it you strive for, and a simplicity that loosens your heart. 

My team is the Yakult Swallows, because I lived in Shibuya for eight years, their simple, open air stadium a five minute bike ride from my apartment.  In the States this would be a AAA minor league stadium, but it doesn’t matter.  I’d rather have it that way because it keeps the focus on the game, on the fans.  With their traditional band-led cheers, to the ritualistic raising of umbrellas for every run, it’s honest and open, something rare in the deferring Japanese society.

Baseball isn’t religion, but it can be some kind of salvation.

I started a post in late July last year, right about the time the police tape was being drawn over the door of another Mariners’ baseball season. The homicide had been committed months prior (the perpetrator of course being Bill Bavasi), but everyone in the neighborhood knew since the 2005 postseason that the victim was bled to death from a thousand bad signings. It’s just that the smell of rotting sluggers gets particularly unbearable in mid-summer’s heat.

The title of the post was “The increasing lack of baseball relevancy”, and it ended something like this:

That’s it, I’ve had enough. From now on, I’m going to focus on more useful pursuits– as soon as the World Series is over, I’m not going to follow this anymore until next season.

The takeaway here is the sad truth of my baseball addiction. In elementary school I collected nearly the entire 1986 Topps series (collecting far more copies of Jose Guzman’s scruffy mug than any boy should ever see), fixating on my hero, Charlie Hustle, Mr. Pete Rose. However, after Rose was banned from the sport, I didn’t have much to do with baseball, other than an unhealthy obsession with Robin Ventura Donruss prints.

Many years later, I went to college, and still didn’t really care, but dragged around a 1976 Catfish Hunter Wilson glove for the occasional game of catch with Big Dog. Then I moved to Seattle.

Long story short, Kazuhiro Sasaki came to town and kicked ass. I got to see some free games and marvel at Safeco Field. Then Ichiro came to town and kicked so much ass Chuck Norris began to grow concerned about copyright infringement. So I came to Tokyo, became a Yakult Swallows outfield junkie, and cleaned the clock of my ESPN-devouring master in games attended for two consecutive seasons.

But I wasn’t the cleanup hitter for Mark McGuire, or on the chain smoker-ridden UVa club baseball roster.

So this year I’m torn between being more concerned that the Yakult pitching squad has actually gotten WORSE, or the fact that Mariners are prime for another dismal season and exit, stage right for Ichiro come July. Like the Mariners, my season looks to be about over before it’s even begun. Brandon has season tickets at five dollars a piece (compared to my occasional twelve). Even if I had season tickets, I’d probably lose the game attendance challenge since the number of days I leave the office before nine-thirty is about twenty five a year.

Yeah, it’s going to take some sort of sexy bitch owner cardboard strip tease to save this season.