On baseball

I realized that I have not written about another sport that I enjoy watching and had an opportunity to play (very little) when I was studying in Japan. Aside from basketball, football, tennis and badminton, I also enjoy watching baseball. While I played basketball, football and volleyball in Physical Education classes during grade school and high school, I never got to play baseball until my time in Japan. I enjoyed baseball as a fan. And I learned about the rules from my father. Tatay played some baseball and softball when he was in high school in the province at a time the sports were still popular in the country. Fortunately, there was some Major League Baseball games that I got to watch on TV in the late 1980s. So I was able to watch the LA Dodgers win in 1988, when that city's team also won the NBA Championship.

There was an 8-university tournament among the transportation engineering and planning laboratories in the Kanto area. What was an annual tournament was held at the Tokyo Science University or Science University of Tokyo (Rikadai) spacious campus grounds in Noda, Chiba. Among the universities participating were the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology (where I was Visiting Scientist in 1996), Saitama University (where I was visiting Scientist there in 2001 and 2008), and my school, Yokohama National University. I don't recall us winning many games but it was all for fellowship among the students, research associates, and some of the faculty (mostly the young ones) who chose to participate.

This was held in the summers and I recall labmates practicing at the field near our building as well as during our summer seminar. I could catch the ball but I couldn't throw it like my Japanese friends. They played baseball when they were young and a couple played the equivalent of varsity when they were in high school. We had a really good pitcher and a few good hitters during my second year in Japan. I think that team was good enough to win the tournament but another lab had a better game. I sat out that one, content to watch the game with the other foreign students who also attended for the fellowship (read: after tournament party) part.

I have a few baseball caps in my cap collection. These I purchased myself and were not pasalubong.

More on baseball in future posts!

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