Minges Spartans J.H. Doshisha International Jr/Sr High School, Kyoto, Japan

I stood there on the huge baseball field alone. It was already five minutes after the meeting time. There was nobody in the field except some of the small chipmunks that was running around the place. I could hear them squeaking in the woods. Because it was the very first day of the practice, I was scared to death just to come to this place. Not only could I not speak English, but also had no knowledge about the people involved in this baseball club. My parents put me into this little league, thinking that I would learn English naturally. However, at the age of 12 years, I could not imagine myself of speaking a language other than Japanese. I just thought that Japanese is all I needed to survive in the world. As the time ticks by, I started fearing that I had come to a wrong meeting place. I became anxious about the rest of life in this country. It seemed like forever and I felt like I was stranded on a deserted island. In Japan, it was a tacit understanding to get to the place fifteen minutes before the meeting time. It was all ready about 30 minutes after the meeting time that two people came into my sight. One guy was obviously a coach because of his very tall height. He was touching his beard that was all over his face as he walked toward the ground. As soon as he saw me holding a bat and a glove, he trotted in the direction of where I was standing. He shook my hands tightly and smiling he said. "I am John Peterson. Call me John or Coach Peterson. " I had no idea what he said after he introduced his name but I introduced myself anyway. He kept on smiling while I was talking to him. That made me relax a little. In about another ten minutes, I found many little kids about the same age coming to the ground. After a little conversation with the coach, I found out that our team name was Minges Spartans. It was already 40 minutes after the meeting time. I felt it weird that the coach did not get mad at the kids. If it were in Japan, we would have been ass-whipped as if we stole something from the store or sometimes, we ran forever until dark. I could not believe that here in the United States people would allow us to be late this much. Later on, I could not believe it was a real manner to get to the party a little later than the appointed time. It was one of the culture shocks that I experienced from playing baseball.

Of the kids who were coming toward the ground, I saw black, brown, yellow, and white skinned people. They were astonishing because that some of them had blond, red, brown, and hairs. I was a little disappointed because there were no blue nor green hairs as I expected. When I looked around, an African-American kid came into my sight because he stood out from the crowd because of height. Not only was he tall, but also he had an afro-hair at the age of 7th grade. He was so intimidating to me that I could not really look at him. When we gathered around the coach and started introducing ourselves, we were told to say our name with the position we wanted to play. The African-American kid introduced himself as Charles Cooper. He tried to make me pronounce his name, but all I could hear was "Chahhs" , so he told me to call him "Coop". This was a lot easier, because it sounded like "Kuppa" from Nintendo Super Mario Coop was a lanky, fat-lipped, big brown eye with afro-hair that could almost hide his big, brown first baseman's glove in the hair. While I was looking up at him, I realized I was one of the smallest of the kids and also the only Japanese kid, who could not speak English. Talking to Coop and other American people, I begun to understand that I was in America. Honestly, I felt very weird, talking to all the different looking people. It was not Japan where almost all people had same types of clothing, same hairstyle, and same language. Here, there were people from all kind of races with different color of skin and hair, different hairstyle from buzz to longhaired to Afro. In my career of playing baseball, I had never played with people so distinct as this. It simply was a culture shock just to see these people around. The first practice of the Minges Spartans was kind of an aptitude test of the positions. I volunteered for the catcher position, since I played catcher since fourth grade. I soon found out that the catcher was not really a popular position for a kid that I got a fixed position easily without a competition. Looking at the fielding of the kids, I was relieved because they were not as good as my teammates from Nagoya, Japan. With a coach throwing, we did some batting test after fielding. Luckily, I was able to hit some home runs off the coach. I had a big self-confidence inside of me for hitting from this day in America. I think this self-confidence was very important thing that I got from playing baseball. Even though I mentioned it as "test", I learned that it was not really a serious test for the other kids. They seemed to be having fun, enjoy cheering each other. I just wished that I could speak better English, so that I could communicate with them.

Of about 15 kids of our team, I was self-convinced to be a starting catcher and a batter in third. We only had two practices before the tournament begun. I thought the aim of the little league is good because nobody is truly a benchwarmer of the team. It was for fun. Everybody gets to have chanced to hit and only the better guys do the fielding most of time. In Japan, it was a different story. If you were not able to be in the bench, you will never have chanced to play in the game. I felt sorry for twelve members of my team who had never had a chance to play in a game. When I think about it now, I feel it very strange that elementary school baseball team in Japan has a system like professional where it was like the law of the jungle. The ace pitcher, Jerry Peterson, tall, white, blond-haired, with marine blue eyes, became a real close friend with me. Knowing that I was not able to communicate, he kept on talking to me in English, whether I understood him or not. Maybe because I was a catcher who has to be a good partner to the pitcher, I was surprised by the generosity of Jerry, how he stuck with me whole day in the practice and taught me everything I did not know in English. The hardest thing to remember in English was how to keep track of counts in America. In Japan we called "two strikes and three balls" while in America, they called "three balls and two strikes". Jerry kept on reminding me that it was opposite and it helped a lot in the games. As a team, we were one of the strongest teams in the league, that we were 8 wins with no loss before the final game. I can not forget this game, because it was a great game, and also the last game to play the Minges Spartans. In this game, the coach told me to play a pitcher in the inning Jerry's not pitching. Even though I was not a pitcher of the team, He thought that I could throw fastballs because I was good at forcing out the first runner. I pitched the second, fourth and sixth inning of the game losing only one run to a huge kid with the buzz who hit a home run off my best pitch that just grazed the outside lower corner. Jerry did not pitch well in this game and lost three runs before the last inning, the seventh. We were down 2-4. Top of the seventh inning, the first batter walked. Then, the second batter, Coop singled to the right after hitting a bunch of fouls. The third batter, Jerry, did a safety bunt and succeeded. Here it came, the best of my life. On a two-two count with no outs, I full swung the fastball that came just above my waistline in the outside.

I knew I had a big one. The ball flew over the center fielder, it rolled like an omusubi, rice ball, that falls from a mountain in the Japanese fairy tale, Omusubi Kororin. It was a triple and I drove in three runs. The bench and the bystanders jumped around, the place, screaming to express their emotions convinced that we got this game. I was happy that I was the one that made the difference in the game. I could not stop cheering for the batters after me, hoping to get some more runs for Jerry. However, three batters after me got out quickly. It was 6-4, winning only by two runs At the bottom of the seventh, with an error of the right fielder, a single and a double, they got closer and closer with 6-5 with two outs and runner on second. It seemed that Jerry's ball never came into my dirty and old catcher's mitt. I called a timeout and went up to Jerry to cheer him up. However, he seemed to be so tired, he was breathing in his shoulders. I could only say, "let's go". I was not sure if he heard what I said because he was sweating like a waterfall and eyes were looking at the air. The next pitch, was a very slow ball, right in the middle. The batter swung it with a sound of a bat of home run. It went way over the fence. I was stunned that we lost and just stood there for a while. More than the fact that we lost the game, I was sad that we could no longer play baseball with Minges Spartans again with this same teammates. I never wanted think that this was the last. Maybe I could play baseball later in my life, but I could never play baseball with this teammate again. The Sunday after this game, we had a party at a family restaurant for celebrating the second place in the little league. After eating a dinner there, the coach went up to the front stage and started talking about how Minges Spartans came along in the course of the season. At this time, I was able to understand most of what coach was saying, even though it was only two months after I joined this team. After a long talk, the coach then started giving out the awards to each members of Minges Spartans, such as, best pitcher of the team, best hitter of the team, mood maker of the team . . . etc. When my turn came, he held a big trophy and screamed "Junji Hattori, the great catcher who hit outstanding in the final game receives . . . . . MVP!" My teammates and their parents applauded very loudly as I went up to receive the award. When I got the trophy, I said "Thank you". Big drops of tears started dropping from my eyes with mixed feelings, both happy and sad. Happy for getting MVP award, sad for the end of the team that was with me for two months. The MVP award gave me all the confidence I need to survive in the harsh world of America. Because of the baseball and Minges Spartans, I was able to get into the school easily and made some good friends. I will never forget the days I played baseball with Minges Spartans.

Hattori, Junji (2000). Minges Spartans. Retrieved March 25, 2001, from the Doshisha International Jr/Sr High School web site: http://www.intnl.doshisha.ac.jp/projects/3sa/2000/memoir/sa1/b8-junji.html

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