Mudville

There is no joy Chez Kamata today. After winning the quarterfinal game, my husband's team lost the semi-final. If they'd have won, they'd have been able to go to the All Shikoku tournament (not Koshien, as previously reported; you'd think I'd have that straight by now, having been a baseball widow for ten years or so). In this morning's newspaper, there was a photo of the scene immediately after the game - the victors, running forward with their arms raised; the losers and their coach standing in the background, heads drooping. Yoshi felt that the photo constituted harrassment of him and his players. I thought, from a journalistic point of view, that it was a great photo that told the whole story, but I managed to sympathize with him.

In somewhat related news, I finally got my contributor's copies of Skipping Stones, featuring my inspired-by-a-true-story story, "Baseball, Dad and Me." It was written from my son's point of view, about how his dad's team lost the prefectural championship a couple years ago by one lousy run in the tenth inning. Interestingly, the illustrations are of a little girl playing baseball with her dad. Politically correct, yes, but the story was actually about Jio.

Baseball Diaries Redux

We are well into the spring baseball tournament, the one that leads to Koshien. I haven't been to any of my husband's games, yet, because the stadium is not handicapped accessible and also because while my son loves hitting, kicking and throwing balls, he does not enjoy watching others do the same. Leave the kids with the mother-in-law you say! Well, she wants to go to the games, too, and does. So anyhow, Yoshi's team won its second game today, which puts them in the quarterfinals on Friday. He was very pleased with his pitcher and the 7-1 score. Only thing is, his team is currently plagued by the flu. Three or four players are sick. This evening, he got a call saying that his pitcher, the one who pitched today, his ace, now has the flu. Oh, dear.