野球オタク

greetings, and apologies for my tardiness. it won't happen again.

the title of the post today reads yakyuu otaku, which means "baseball freak." that's right. it's time to let my true baseball-loving colors shine through today. the twins are a half game out of the division lead and five and a half games in front for the wild card. oh, baby, baby, baby. i can smell the playoffs already. they kind of smell like dirty socks. wait. that's my room. whatever. i'm excited.

so, since baseball's on my brain these days, i thought, "hell, why not enlighten the starving masses to japanese baseball terms?" and when i acted upon this surging flash of brilliance, i was delighted to find a smorgasbord of juicy items that, in my opinion, would be good comedy material for the next time you and your friends/enemies are watching a baseball game together. you will either be complimented for being so worldly or be beaten for being the annoying kid who knows japanese words. good luck.

anyway, here we go. by recalling my days of watching the momentous high school baseball tournament and calling up "baseball" in my dictionary, i came up with some interesting findings (ordered in reverse order of hilarity):

1. ナイター (naitaa), which means a "night game." it's like americans calling a night game a "nighter." they don't have a special name for day games, but if they did, chances are it would sounds kind of stupid.

2. ストレート (sutore-to), fastball. the word is pronounced like english's "straight." i'm just waiting for the "gay" pitch to come out of the closet. sorry, that was lame.

3. 完封 (kanpuu), a shutout. this one's actually kind of cool. the first character means "perfect" or "complete" and the second one is "seal." in other contexts the word is used to mean "complete blockade," but in baseball, it's a shutout. i think it would be sweet if bert blyleven, at the end of a johan santana shutout, exclaimed "...and santana has imposed another complete blockade." very rad.

4. タイムリーヒット (taimuri- hitto), lit. "timely hit;" an rbi. this one just baffles me. instead of using the very pronounceable letters "R," "B," and "I," the japanese decide to get all subjective and deem a run-producing hit a "timely" one. isn't every hit "timely?" maybe it's just me. i think someone should start trying to get "untimely hits."

5. 死球 (shikyuu), a hit batsmen. now it gets ugly. the first character means "death" and the second one means "ball." THE DEATH BALL. that's what a HBP is in japan. now, what they really mean is a "dead ball," but reading the kanji literally is way more fun in this case. THE DEATH BALL.

6. 刺殺 (shisatsu), a putout. it gets uglier. that first character means "pierce" or "stab." the second character means "killing." so, in japanese baseball, a normal putout is actually a death by stabbing. so, when albert pujols pops up to second, he is actually being thrust mercilessly with a sword. a routine grounder to third results not only in an out, but also in a samurai slashfest. much more thrilling than the tamer "he's out" or "he's gone" used in america, japanese baseball's "he's been stabbed to death" or "a sword-brandishing murderer has rendered the batter lifeless" show us just how much the japanese appreciate violence. to the right, kaz matsui commits murder at second base.

7. ガッツポーズ (gattsu po-zu), lit. "guts pose;" hot-dogging, showboating. i guess this one is just wacky in english, too. how the hell did we get "hot-dogging?" whatever. it's just hilarious in japanese. if a guy hits a home run and flings his bat, watching the ball sail into the stands, that's his "guts pose." to the left, you see a young japanese lad diligently working on said "guts pose." to me, a child of 1990s nickelodeon programming, this word brings me back to the glory days of "guts," the show that pitted little kids competing in faux-sports against each other and culminating in a race up the aggro-crag. it's messed up. just think of barry bonds' "guts pose," and milk will shoot out of your nose. even if you're not drinking milk.

well, i hope you enjoyed those. i enjoyed writing them. here's a tom update:

tom
status: living
location: new apartment outside of tokyo
agenda: start school on oct. 2
inventory: everything except a washing machine.
hit points: 99 (diabetes prevents full health)
weapons: computer, insulin
condition: pleased as punch

take care, fools.