4.16.02
ROCHESTER RED WINGS vs
SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRES
RED BARONS
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Some of my wife’s Japanese colleagues are visiting Rochester now, so one
night after returning home we took them out for some yakyu, American-style.
Triple-A yakyu, anyway.
A glorious, summerlike, 80-degree evening made for an ideal setting to show
off the local product, and for me to get some questions answered. Our friend
Marata-san, something of a baseball guy himself—though, like most of
my wife’s Yokohama-based colleagues, a BayStars fan—was happy to
help.
That thing everyone was chanting, that sounded like “bako-wasai”?
It’s more like “kato-basei,” and it means, roughly, “hit
it hard.”
The DH does exist in Japan, but only in the Pacific League. Curiously, Marata-san
didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked him if there was such
thing in Japanese baseball as the designated hitter. When I started describing
how it works, though, his eyes lit up and he said, “Oh, you mean the
DH!” Well, yeah, the DH. Seems that’s what they call it, but hardly
anyone knows or cares what it stands for.
The balloon ritual is unique to Koshien Stadium. Except, of course, when
the Tigers are on the road and their fans bring it to whatever opposing team’s
ballpark they’re visiting, which they’ve done this season in such numbers
that it’s sometimes hard to tell which team is at home.
I told Marata-san that to me, the Hanshin Tigers are like the Japanese Chicago
Cubs: they play in a beautiful old ballpark, they’re always terrible,
and they’ve got ridiculously enthusiastic and undyingly loyal fans. Marata-san
considered this, and then asked, a bit of a twinkle in his eye, “The
Cubs, though, don’t they have a really good player?”
Sure, I replied, they’ve got Sammy Sosa.
“But the Tigers,” volleyed Marata-san, “they have no one!”
Georgie, I don’t think you should have to listen to that.
John Stephens got off to an uncharacteristically bad start tonight, struggling
mightily with his control in a three-run first before settling down and giving
up only a single and a walk over the next six innings. In fact, this was a
far tighter game than the final score would suggest, as the Red Wings managed
to close the gap to a run and keep the Barons grounded until the eighth. That
was when flamethrowing Kris Foster came in and, with two outs, loaded the
bases before striking out Scranton left fielder Dave Doster with a 97-mph
heater on the outside corner. Unfortunately for Foster, and to the surprise
of just about everyone assembled, plate umpire Neil Taylor deemed it ball
three, and Doster knocked the next pitch through the infield for a two-run
single.
At which point seasoned bullpen vet Yorkis Perez—who, and how’s this for shitty, if he hadn’t taken his mom’s advice last November and flown to Arizona for a Diamondbacks physical would have been on that Dominican-bound plane that crashed shortly after take-off in Queens; instead, he gave his ticket to his sister, and both she and his mother were killed—relieved Foster and promptly gave up a three-run homer to Barons third baseman Chad Utley. Ballgame.
FINAL SCORE: RED BARONS 9, RED WINGS 3
LIFE DURING WARTIME: Apparently no one at International League headquarters got the memo that you don’t have to sing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch anymore. Nor that they can take the American flag patches off the backs of the players’ jerseys, which, just because they look so great, I actually mind less than the ritualized jingoism that another patriotic song brings to the ballpark. The Ottawa Lynx should really be wearing Canadian ones, though.