Road Trip!!! (April 2009)

Four games into the season, we play the Nippon Ham Fighters (yes, that is there real name) at the Tokyo Dome. The Tokyo Dome is the Japanese equivalent to Yankee Stadium. It is the home field of the Tokyo Giants who have won dozens of Championships. Anyway, our starting Short Stop had tweaked his hamstring the day before, so I got the nod to start at Short Stop! I was pumped! We were facing a pretty good pitcher, so I just tried to relax and play my game, but I was WAY to fired up. To say I was a little anxious would be an understatement. I think I saw nine pitches the entire game, and swung at eight of them! Resulting in two strikeouts and a groundout. Bummer! Oh well, it felt good to get my feet wet, and get the first game jitters out of the way. I played good D, but we ended up losing the game. Bummer again.

After playing in the Tokyo Dome. We went on the road to play the Orix Buffalo (Ichiro‘s old team). They have two stadiums, a dome in Osaka (third largest city in the country), and an outdoor stadium in Kobe (sister city to Osaka). Why they have two stadiums I don’t know. Anyway, I decided Sara should come on the road with us to see more of the country. We ended up having a blast. She got to ride with the team on the Shinkonsen (bullet train that goes 160 mph). We sorta jumped into this trip without really figuring out all the details. For example, we hadn’t thought out the logistics of getting Sara to and from the stadiums each day from the hotel. We of course have a team bus, but she was left to fend for herself. The other wives just take taxi’s, but they were 40 bucks each way! These cheap newlyweds weren’t goin for that! So I left for the park, gave her a pat on the ass, wished her luck and she braved the Japanese train system. She somehow figured out when to take the hotel shuttle to the station, how to buy a ticket, what train to get on, when to get on it, and where to get off, all by herself. She is braver then I am. I was worried sick she would end up in Okinawa or something. Well once she safely got to the Dome, we had failed to ask where the dang “will call” is for her to get her ticket to enter the game. I guess no one understands “will call”, “Family tickets“, or “pass list” in Japan, because she ended up walking around the dome for an hour, and finally got so frustrated, she tried to just buy a dang ticket! Luckily someone finally understood her and said, “invitation!”, Sara “Yes!, invitation, whatever that is, give me one!”

The two games in Osaka were pretty uneventful, I only came in for three innings as a defensive replacement in centerfield (yes, you heard that right). I didn’t have any plays, but still had fun. After the two games in Osaka, we went straight from the Dome to a different hotel in Kobe, once again leaving Sara to fend for herself and get her butt to Kobe (which was no easy feat) . She had to take a subway train from the Dome to the station with the Shinkonsen, take the Shinkonsen to another subway station, then another subway train to a station by the hotel in Kobe. How she pulled it off, I have no idea. I was worried sick AGAIN, wondering if I’d ever see my wife again. Sara, “Yay!, I made it!!“ We celebrated with a beer($8) in our hotel room on the 24th floor while the sun set behind the mountains! She is such a trooper, she makes me so damn proud.

Another problem we had on the road trip was finding affordable food for us to eat. The team provides the players with buffet style meals in the banquet halls of the hotel, but that is for the players only. So I tried to take Sara to breakfast one morning, but the hotels we stay in are so nice, the prices are out of control. Our breakfast was $50!! (Two eggs-$7, oatmeal-$8, one coffee-$8!!! ) We decided I would eat the team meals, and she would eat at the hotel restaurants, which sucked because we would have liked to eat together, but you gotta do whatcha gotta do. To her credit, she brought her own coffee from the room to breakfast the next two days! Ha. That’s my girl!

That’s about it for now….To be continued…

Chase