Day 11: Bombers Baseball

Like yesterday, I didn't do very much today, since I had the day off. However, there was one big event on the calendar: The first baseball game of the spring season.

I'd be willing to bet that the good majority of junior-high and high schools in Japan have baseball teams. My school counts as one of those, but not in the traditional sense. See, we don't have a team for the students. Instead, we have a team for the teachers.

When I first arrived in Japan, in August 2007, the baseball team, known as the Bombers (why the uniforms say "Bombs" is beyond me), was pretty darn good. We had fairly solid players at every position and, despite all of my experience, I felt a bit of pressure to perform. I did really well, however, and quickly established myself as one of the best players on the team. I had a blast playing and we won most of the (very few) games we had.

Unfortunately, the following spring our catcher was transferred to another school, and the team was never the same. We were still pretty good and we still won some games, but the magic of the previous year was gone. It's not even like the catcher was Yogi Berra or Johnny Bench, but as soon as he left, well, the whole composition of the team changed, for the worse.

A year later, about five more players were transferred, leaving the team pretty much decimated. Sure, we got new players (the new teachers!) in their place, but their level of talent just didn't match what we lost. I don't think we even won a single game that year.

The next year, last year, we lost a few more teachers as well as almost every game. I know we won at least once, however, and yes, that was reason to celebrate. I had completely forgotten what is was like to win.

This year, well, we just lost three more players and got pretty much nothing in return, I'm afraid, so it's not looking very good.

We lost tonight, something like 6-4 (or was it 7-4?), and I really can't see us winning another game for a long, long time.

Our defense simply sucks and won't be getting better any time soon.

Even I made an error.

I made up for that, however, by pitching a pretty good game. I think we played about 5 innings (we have a 1:10 time limit) and I struck out about 7 batters, including the final three that I faced!

The game got off to a horrible start when the very first batter hit a relatively easy fly to left that got turned into a home run. The worst part of that and all the errors that followed is that I had to keep pitching through it. I have no idea how many pitches I threw, but it was surely too many for the first time out. But that's just how it goes in this league, and I knew what I was getting myself into from the beginning, so it wasn't a big deal.

We have another game on Friday and I'll be pitching that one, too, unless my arm falls off. I'm really the only pitcher we have left. (Our ace was transferred two years ago, but because he moved to a neighboring school, he could still come play with us most of the time. He was just transferred again, though, and now he's nowhere close.)

Wish us luck!