First Game in the books
It is Friday night here in Tokyo. I have been here since Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t do anything Wednesday. Thursday, on the other hand, was an eventful off-the-field day.
In the morning the international umpires who had arrived were taken to the Meiji Jingu Stadium, which is the main stadium for the ball games. There was light rain at the time but we still were able to go onto the field to see what it was like. The stadium seats over 35,000 people. The field itself a field turf similar to what is at Mosaic Stadium. The main building itself is old – built in 1926, like Mosaic Stadium……
In the afternoon we went to get fitted for umpire clothes. We got one pair of pants – to use for plate or base – two shirts, one sized for plate and one for base (kind of backwards from what we do at home), two caps (one shorter peak for plate and one longer peak for base) and two ball bags – grey in colour. This is not Baseball Canada approved but when they give it to you and tell you to wear it, you do it.
Later in the afternoon we had our umpire’s meeting. There are 17 umpires being used in the event, which is a little more than what I would have guessed. 11 are from Japan. The others are from Chinese Taipei, Korea, China, Sri Lanka (who really is Japanese because he lives in southern Japan and is a Japanese trained umpire), United States and myself. The American umpire is a former pro umpire who now does a lot of instruction and evaluations. He told me this morning that he hasn’t worked a game for about 8 weeks – and he has the plate Friday night.
Thursday night was the opening banquet. It was something different. The food was a buffet – good food. There were cheerleading performances. I was selected to give the Official’s Oath at the ceremony. This is something similar to what is done at the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.
My game on Friday was between Korea and Japan. I worked at second base. Japan’s pitcher is quite well known and was expected to do well. He did not disappoint. The Japanese won 4-0, on two, 2-run homers. The crowd was not as big as we were lead to believe. I would guess about 5,000 people.
On Saturday I work the plate on the China – Japan game. I am looking forward to that even though the Chinese may get beat quite bad.
Elemer
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Sounds very interesting and you have lots of fun. Look forward to read more of your blogs.
Bruno