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Thanks for Beating Me

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I am standing on the side of a hard dirt baseball field with my old Rawlings baseball glove hanging off my left hand.

As this Northern Japanese town\'s gaijin English teacher, I have taken it upon myself to get to know my students on an interest based level at a High School softball team practice. Shibuya sensei, the team\'s slight and timid 23 year old faculty advisor stands next to me and laughs when I call him "coach." We are having a dynamic conversation about the high price of fruit in Japan as we watch a few girls carry a water jug from the opposite side of school grounds under the blistering sun and haze.

Way back in the green suburbs I called home, our High School softball team liked to go to the water fountain mid-practice. Why lug a big jug all the way to the field when you could much more feasibly take a break to go and get the water as needed. The athlete could thereby avoid transport of hefty jug, and simultaneously create a water break which, carefully orchestrated, could last as long as 10 minutes.

But these girls obviously don\'t know the tricks.

Everyone is wearing school-issued sweatsuits; polyester light blue jackets or team T-shirts with torturously black polyester sweatpants. Towels wrapped like scarves around necks are this country\'s defense against 100% humidity. Sporting some cotton might be a better bet, but when in Japan

Water jug in place, I join the 12 girls as they form a large circle. We used to warm up and stretch in a circle when I played sports in high school.

This is just like America.

We rotate around the circle, everyone takes her turn counting to ten, ju, during a stretch. No one\'s talking about their boyfriends. No one\'s laughing. Everyone\'s participating. No one\'s being lazy.

This is nothing like America.

And Shibuya sensei is picking weeds.

We finish stretching and the girls spread out in two lines facing each other. The team captain Yokie, pairs up with me. She\'s petite, wearing a black visor, a worn in Mizuno baseball glove over an even more tattered batting glove, and a T-shirt that says, "We are swimmer, we can win!"

Now, I\'m no slouch. Back in Little League, they used to make me bat lefty because they were afraid I would hurt someone batting righty. Yet here on top of this mountain in Northern Honshu, everyone is throwing hard, no one is catching like a girl. I find myself surprised that most of these young ladies are better than I ever was.

I\'m thinking so much about how sinfully immodest and ethnocentric I am, how could I be so that I don\'t notice the buzz. What\'s this?? No. I must be hearing wrong. I listen closely. Yes. After every single throw, the girl catching says, "NICE TRO!" After every single catch, the girl throwing says, "NICE CATCH!" The most dynamic verbal exchange during warm-ups in my school days contained the very occasional "Nice throw," but the much more regularly occurrent, "Uccccch," when a ball would get past and we would have to run 20 feet to retrieve it.

Here, I see two lines of girls who are not only throwing and catching for 15 minutes straight, but who are also screaming, NICE TRO, NICE CATCH!!! every single time. A spirited barrage of complimentary throwing and catching for 15 minutes. They never tire of it. It\'s second nature; a spirited barrage of complimentary throwing and catching for 15 minutes. Estimating about two throws every 20 seconds at one yelp per throw, per player, that means every girl is yelping three times per minute, for 15 minutes, that\'s 45 yelps just during warm-up for practice.

I don\'t think I said "nice throw, nice catch" 45 times all season, counting championships, back in the glowing days of my youth.

The girls bring it in and sip cold teawater from the jug. They ask me about a famous American softball player who I\'ve never heard of. We talk for about five minutes and four girls move the 300 pound pitching machine to the center of the field. Shibuya-sensei and I watch.

Teawater goes down smooth and the cups are placed in a neat stack next to the jug. Not scattered on the ground.

The girls take the field of their own volition, no prodding from the coach, who is observing Kesennuma\'s skyline. Shibuya-sensei finally turns around and sees a pitching machine in the middle of a baseball field and 12 girls spread around it, remembers where he is, and joins me in the outfield to gather balls.

A 16 year old named Chie, who wears red sweatbands on her wrists and her pants rolled up to her knees, is the first to come up to bat. She stands at the plate and shouts, "Dozo Yoroshiku," and bows to the players in the field. Every single one of them bows and yells dozo yoroshiku back to her, and now everyone playing has said the Japanese version of "pleased to see you."

Chie takes the stance of Mike Piazza and smacks some hard line drives. The fielders get mud-stains, they don\'t let many pass. Shibuya and I play with the grass.

Every single play features a smattering of NICE TRO\'S and NICE CATCH\'S from all around the field. Chie smacks one more hard to third base and when the play is made, she bows again and says "Arigato gozaimashta." Every single fielder bows back and says the same in response. Now everyone has said, "thank you very much."

I have never seen the likes of it on any playing field anywhere, and finally, I am aghast. "Thank you very much?????"

Suddenly, I feel so far from home. Sweet home, where we say "You stink" in lieu of gratuities. I am so alone in my universe of colossal crass.

But if I stick with poor Shibuya sensei, picking the weeds, shagging the balls, and keeping quiet, no one has to know.

The pattern continues for 12 batters. Same bows, same exact verbal exchanges. Through the entire three and a half hours of practice, the

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