Oddities about baseball and softball in Japan

Before I came here, I heard that a bunch of the teachers at my school were on a baseball team called "The Bombers." So I asked my supervisor if I could join the team. Lucky for me, they were happy to have me. And about two weeks after I arrived, we had our first games. Even though that day we were just playing softball, and co-ed softball at that, I was happy to be on a ball field again.

The tournament was held at the G-park (which is presumably short for Gokase-park), a pretty nice athletic facility right across the street from the school. I got quite a dose of Japanese baseball/softball culture that day, starting with the field itself. Some of what I experienced: Most fields in Japan have an all-dirt infield; the players on the opposing teams bow to each other before the game starts; the quality of play isn't as high as I expected for a baseball-mad country like Japan; and we had to wear pin-on jersey numbers, which is apparently not a rarity. Anyway, I just did my best to go with the flow.

A couple weeks later, I finally got my first taste of Japanese baseball, starting with a nighttime practice in preparation for our first game. The first thing I noticed was that we played with "Kenko" balls, a type of rubber baseball. I had heard about them and perhaps even seen them before, but this was the first time that I was actually playing with them. What a weird feeling that was! I was so psyched to play "real" baseball only to find out that I was reduced to playing "rubber" baseball. But within ten seconds or so, I accepted my fate and decided to make the most of it. (If there's one thing I learned from all the years I spent playing and coaching baseball in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, it's that the best way to deal with cultural differences is to accept them as quickly as possible rather than fight them.)

After a few minutes, I even began to enjoy using the rubber balls, at least on defense, because they took true hops (at least in the infield!), they were easier to throw than a baseball since they were a bit smaller and lighter, and the chance of getting injured was pretty low. But when I came up to hit, I realized that unless you hit the ball square, you weren't going to do much more than hit a weak grounder or pop-up, or put a bunch of wicked backspin on the ball. It was then clear to me that games would go pretty fast. Kenko baseball is therefore kind of like softball, in that the game goes faster than a baseball game.

Oh, and batters don't wear helmets! That rule kind of stinks, but again, there's nothing I can do about it. But it's definitely no fun when a guy is throwing 60-70 mph fastballs and you're not wearing a helmet, even if the balls are made of rubber. I swear in my first game I was getting the gaijin treatment. Guess where the first pitch of every one of my plate appearances was? That's right, they went whizzing by my head!

Another thing I find odd about Japanese baseball is the spikes that many of the players wear. They have these totally old-school spikes, the kind that players wore in the United States in the 50's. And those shoes are expensive. They cost anywhere from about (the equivalent of) $70-125! That's unbelievable! Lucky for me I brought a great pair with me!

And we have four(!) (player-)umpires for our games. How ridiculous is that?

Oh, and here's one final interesting tidbit about baseball over here, at least for now: They make bats especially for the "rubber" game that have rubber barrels! My team has two such bats, and since they look like any ol' other aluminum baseball bat, it took me quite a while before I discovered that they were indeed different. All I know is, I wasn't exactly crushing the ball so I kept switching bats in order to find the "perfect" one. And at some point I put one of the specialized ones in my hands. Shazam! Guess which bat I've been using ever since? And yes, I am hitting much better. Coincidence?