| February 11th
The Sunday crowd in Miyazaki was incredible. More than 45,000 fans came to watch us practice. That made the weekend total nearly 90,000. I am pretty sure there is no team in the States that gets that many people to come watch a spring training workout. The irony is the Yahoo! Japan Dome, our regular-season home, holds only 35,000.
Considering I’ve been in camp with the small-market Pirates and Twins my past two spring trainings, this has really been a different experience. When we walk from the main stadium to the side fields, we pass through barricaded walkways that are lined with fans. I feel like I am in a parade waving to people. Fans of all ages enjoy it if you wave or shake their hand. It’s somewhat typical to see children and young girls react excitedly, but I am still getting used to waving to adult men. That’s a little different than what I am used to.
Our workout on the sub field was standard for a spring training day. We played catch, worked on run-down drills, played pepper and then did PFP, which is the baseball term for pitchers’ fielding practice (think Detroit Tigers 2006 World Series). With all the people gathered behind the fences staring at us, Rick said he felt as if he was a monkey at the zoo.
I had a two-hour break after we finished our work at the sub field, which is an unusually long amount of time to be off. I took the time to sign autographs for fans on the parade route. It had to be the most autographs I have ever signed at one time, so much so I burned through an entire two-ended marker. It became a workout of its own -- I must have signed at least 500 autographs in about 30 minutes and I was actually breathing a little heavy by the end. (Some shape I’m in, huh?)
I headed back to the main clubhouse to kill the rest of my free time and ran into two kids around the ages of 8 and 10 who were considered special guests of the team. They spoke practically no English, but were able to ask for an autograph. With the basketball in my bag, I took them to the eight-foot rim to shoot around for 45 minutes. Playing with these kids made me realize how much I miss my own children. I really miss my wife, too, but she doesn’t allow me to substitute that need in my life while we’re apart. Of course I asked, like any loving husband would do, but she just went silent. After eight years of marriage, I know what that silent streak meant. “Try it, and you’re dead.”
Fresh from the basketball court, I returned to the field to continue my daily workout. Rick and I had to do what the coaches call, “special fungo.” Every day different pitchers do the drill, which is no joke. You stand at second base and field grounders that Sugimoto San hits from behind the pitcher’s mound. This went on for 30 minutes, so you can imagine the amount of bending over that was involved. My legs will be pretty sore when I wake up tomorrow. Sugimoto San really enjoyed when we booted a ball. And he had this rule that said if you miss one grounder, you have to catch three in a row before the next guy goes. And he had us moving all over the diamond; I’m pretty sure he was already in the process of hitting the second grounder before we caught the first one. He let out a real good laugh whenever we missed one -- or fell down. I am glad I could provide his entertainment for the day.
Our day lasted into the night, as there was a team meeting at 8 p.m. to discuss Nippon Professional Baseball’s drug policy. But I just about fell asleep. The only thing that really jumped out to me was the penalty for a first offense. If convicted, a player has to write a letter of apology and is subject to an evaluation. I already have mine drawn up, you know, just in case:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am sorry that you caught me trying to enhance my play illegally. I am also sorry that your drug testing system is so effective. Congratulations on catching me, even if it is at my expense.
Best wishes,
CJ Nitkowski
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks # 35
PS – I promise not to do it again.
Oh, one other thing from the meeting. They said only oral steroids would result in a positive test. So I think that means I can use the “clear.” I guess I should have never deleted Victor Conte’s (BALCO) contact information from my cell phone after all.
After the meeting I stopped in at the hotel bar for about an hour, and it was packed with fans. I think I’m pretty fan friendly but I get very uncomfortable being approached by fans at a hotel bar, especially if I am having a drink. This bar allowed smoking, so you can imagine my surprise when an adult couple brought their 2 young children to the bar. One of children was in a stroller and couldn’t have been more than 1-year-old. It reminded me of that moment in the movie “Sweet Home Alabama” when Reese Witherspoon’s character says to one of her friends that she hasn’t seen in a long time, “Look at you, you have baby … in a bar.”
It was really awkward sitting in a bar with young fans around watching you have a drink. I couldn’t relax at all. We even had fans standing on the second floor looking down at our table of four American ballplayers enjoying a beverage. Once they started waving away at us, we had that zoo feeling again. I always try to look at my interaction with fans as an opportunity to influence someone else’s life in a positive way. But I have to admit I was having a really hard time figuring out how I was going to accomplish that on this night.
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February 13th
The start to this week has a hangover feel to it. The record crowds over the weekend have thinned out. It’s like going from playing the Yankees or Red Sox and then to Tampa to play the Devil Rays. It’s still big-league ball, but it just doesn’t have the same feel.
This week we started simulated games. It’s an inter-squad game except the coaches control the variables. For example, each time a batter steps up to the plate, a runner is placed on second base. He could hit a single, a home run or he strikes out, but when the next batter comes up a runner is on second. The coaches decide how many outs there are.
This is the first time pitchers face live hitters without telling them what pitch is coming, like we’ve done in live batting practice. So the games have a real feel for the pitchers.
I was looking forward to my first sim game because it’s an opportunity to be in a game situation and show what I can do. Each pitcher faced six hitters. I didn’t allow a ball out of the infield, but I did walk a hitter, a problem that’s plagued me throughout my career.
It is always a little awkward facing your own hitters, but there was one guy I really wanted to face. Naoyuki Ohmura is our starting centerfielder and he is the only guy I have run across in this camp who needs an attitude adjustment. He has been playing in the major leagues over here since 1995. From his stats it looks as if he has been a respectable hitter – he has a .280 career average – with very little power.
This guy has stuck out like a sore thumb ever since the first workout. The first thing we do everyday is take one-and-a-half laps around the field in two perfectly straight lines. But he has been the only guy who does not line up with everyone else. When we do our stretching and other warm-up running, he lazily makes his way through it, bitching and moaning the whole way. Still, that is not why I wanted to face him.
In passing, I caught the end of a conversation with one of my American teammates, outfielder Adam Hyzdu. Apparently he had heard through a translator that Ohmura insinuate that the reason Adam has spent most of his career in the minor leagues is because he couldn’t get it done in the major leagues. That really struck a cord with me. It pissed me off. I’m not even sure if I got the story completely accurate, but I just know this guy is a weak link. And his attitude, especially toward foreigners, has worn me out.
Ohmura was the fourth hitter I faced, and I badly wanted to put one in this guy’s ribs. I knew it was the wrong thing to do. He’s only 5-8 and weighs 154 pounds, so I could have broken a bone. So my conscience got the better of me, but I still gained a personal victory. I threw a curveball on a 2-and-2 pitch and he hit a dribbler back to me.
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February 14th
Today’s our third day off of spring training, and I’m not getting tired of this. One of teammates, Kazuhiro “Take” Takeoka, invited me to play golf with him at the Phoenix Country Club. Our bullpen catcher, Mori San, and a mutual friend of theirs, also played. I only knew him as ‘Yuki.’ Getting Japanese names right when you hear them for the first time is tough, so I was thankful for the pass on the shortened version of his first name.
I was glad Take asked me to play golf with him. It has been difficult to socialize with the Japanese players because of the language barrier. I really like these guys so far, even with the communication issues. You can get a pretty good idea of people just by watching them, and this is a good group. I was surprised to see how strong Take was off the tee box.. He launched it pretty good. I am an average driver at best, maybe 235-to-245 yards on a decent day. He was out-driving me by 30-to-40 yards on some holes. But he didn’t score very well though, eclipsing 100. The short game wasn’t quite there. He even five-putted once.
Something else stuck out. These guys putted everything, and I mean everything. If the ball was two-feet from the hole – an honest gimme – they still marked their ball and waited their turn to putt again. It was remarkable. I play golf by the rules, especially if there is some minor betting going on, but I have no problem picking up a tap-in putt.
It turned out to be a good day of golf. I scored a 91 with a pretty brutal short game. Using rental clubs, I’ll take it. The day was complete, as a complete day always is in Miyazaki, with a trip to the onsen. Every time I leave that place I fantasize about having one in my backyard. I’m pretty sure it is impossible, or ridiculously expensive, but it’s fun to dream.
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February 15thI crashed pretty early after playing golf yesterday, so my body clock woke me up at 5:30, more than three hours before the buses leave for the park. I thought about heading to the onsen, but I was too lazy to walk. So I used to time to make some phone calls back home. At 6:00 a.m. in Miyazaki, it’s 4:00 p.m. on the east coast -- a good time to talk.
After a few calls and a shower, I went downstairs for breakfast and bumped into Lee Tunnell. Lee was my pitching coach at Oklahoma City in 2002, and now he works for the Hawks in international scouting. He was instrumental getting me this opportunity. Lee is a really great guy and a friend. He was my first solid Christian pitching coach and he helped me tie my baseball and faith together that season, which was my first season as a believer. The Hawks have him here for about 10 days before he goes back to the States.
In today’s workout we focused on bunt plays and certain defensive schemes to use when runners are on base. One of the drills included working on pickoff throws and we actually had umpires present for the work. When it was my turn to pick off to first base, I heard “Balk!” from the first-base umpire. The four-man screw converged for a quick private discussion, then asked me to throw over to first again. And once again, I heard it: “Balk!” The umpire’s slight Japanese accent came ringing out, this time louder than the first.
After we finished the workout, one of the interpreters and I asked for an explanation on the balk rule, and learned that – this is a treat – that the rules are different in Japan. A pitcher here cannot make any pickoff throw look like a potential pitch. Which is odd, considering a good pickoff throw is when you make the runner think you are throwing a pitch. So the umpire basically told me it’s against the rules to have a good pickoff move. This makes absolutely no sense. Why bother throwing to first if you are not trying to trick the runner? I thanked the umpire and reached the conclusion that I am much better off simply not making an attempt to pick runners off of first. I will throw over there every once in a while just to make the runner aware that I have no good move to first base.
After the pickoff debacle, we had to do some pitcher running and it kicked my ass. I was warned that the running here would be tough, but I was happy that so far it had been very manageable. Today, however, I walked away totally wiped out. Give me credit, though. I hung in there for the whole thing when I could have used my American Get-Out-of-Work-Card. They give us an unlimited supply of those here.
Before I left for the day, my interpreter, Teppei, received a call saying Sugimoto San, my pitching coach, wanted to see me in the bullpen to talk about the balk situation. The umpires were already gone by the time I got there, but I was treated to something else. Tsuyoshi Wada was working on a bullpen session and the first pitch I saw him throw flew over the catcher by about 10 feet. I immediately looked over at Wada and he looked as if he was in the last round of a heavyweight boxing fight with Mike Tyson in his prime. He was sweating pretty heavily and looked to be wavering a bit.
When I saw Wada later, I just had to ask how many pitches he threw in his bullpen session. His response? 234 pitches! That may or may not register with you, but believe me, a 234 pitch bullpen is a jaw-dropping number. If you tell a pitching coach in the States you want to throw a 200-plus-pitch bullpen session, he’ll laugh at you. The average American starter probably throws 75-to-85 pitches in a normal session. Amazing.
In the evening the first-time foreigners (three of us) attended a brief meeting with the Japanese Baseball Players Association. The players’ union here doesn’t have the same power of its counterpart in the U.S., but it is organized. Foreigners are not actually considered members of the union here, but we participate in the group-licensing revenue-sharing program. Basically the compensation received from video game rights, baseball card contracts, etc., is divided equally among all of the players. We had to sign off on agreement and that was that.
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February 16th
Today turned out to be quite interesting for me, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The schedule was pretty much the same: stretch, throw, pitcher’s fielding practice and, for me, a bullpen. I had a really good bullpen session today and I’m looking forward my first inter-squad game in two days. Shin Mizumori, the international scout who signed me, stood right behind the catcher and watched my bullpen. He seemed pleased.
And now to the interesting part of my day: The field where pitchers do their running is a few hundred yards from the main stadium and there always is a small crowd watching us. The fans are mostly women, and the majority of them are between 15 and 25 years old.
I’m a people watcher, so I like the big crowds in Miyazaki. They give me something to look at it when I should be working. I am always curious about people and their story, especially here in Japan. I innocently made eye contact with two young Japanese ladies, probably about 24 years old, just before my running. They stuck out in the crowd because they were a little taller than your average Japanese woman. One was about 5-7 and the other was maybe an inch or two taller. I’d say that most men would have found them attractive.
(See how I covered my ass by saying “most men” instead of saying “I” found them attractive? That is a free tip from me that may save you an argument one day.)
Anyway, after I finished my running, I stopped to sign some autographs. A couple of minutes later, I noticed the two tall girls making their way toward me. I figured they were probably going to ask for an autograph, but they only wanted to shake my hand, which is not uncommon. It got a little weird, though, when one of them asked to make out. I didn’t want to be rude, of course, so I obliged. Just kidding, honey. After the handshake, they smiled and giggled, which also isn’t unusual. And then I continued signing autographs.
About a minute later, I noticed the girls talking to the interpreter and then saw them hand him something. When I finished signing, he gave me the note. It was completely written in Kanji, the Chinese characters used in Japanese writing. It also had a phone number.
Here’s how interpreter translated the note for me:
090-7476-XXXX If you would like please call me. Good luck in practice... Lisa
Now, as you might imagine, I was digging myself for a couple of minutes. But then I suddenly felt sorry for Lisa. I can’t blame her. She is just a human being and cannot be faulted for being attracted to me. It is a natural reaction many women have experienced. Of course, in all reality, I am well aware that if it weren’t for the Hawks uniform I was wearing, this day would have ended like all my other days out of uniform, without any woman’s number. Especially a woman that, “most men” would find attractive.
I want to be perfectly clear here: I am a happily married man who has a beautiful, intelligent, athletic wife who is a tremendous mother with a sense of humor that matches mine. She is out of my league and I am over my skis. I would never do anything to jeopardize what I have at home. She knows I am madly in love with her, and only her, so I get a short leash to joke around in this area. Of course you could say I’m just covering my ass again in case she reads this, although everything I just said is completely true.
Getting back to the note, most people in my shoes would have just thrown it away. Not me. I carried it around and showed it off like a first-place ribbon for best pig at the county fair. I apologized to my teammates for being so handsome and drawing the Japanese women’s attention away from them. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am an idiot. Just ask my adoring wife of 8 years. Lisa’s note surely will become part of my Japanese memorabilia and will probably be in a scrapbook or a small picture frame hung in our master bedroom. Believe me now? When you have a gorgeous wife, you have to take moments like these and treasure them so you can feel her equal, even though you’re not.
I can’t help but wonder where Lisa thought this relationship might have gone. I assume she speaks no English, considering she wrote her note in Japanese. How would we have communicated? Would one of the translators have to go on all of our dates? Was this only a spring-training romance, or was she looking for something beyond Miyazaki? Unfortunately we will never find out. Did I say unfortunately? I meant fortunately.
Even being 7,000 miles away, I just heard my wife say, “All right, enough.”
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February 17th
It rained hard for the first time today, but they have a really nice indoor facility here. It is about 40,000 square feet of artificial turf with a full infield in one corner. There are four batting cages surrounded by nets. Today we practiced bunt defenses. In true Pollock fashion I messed up one sign, but I am back on the right page with everyone else.
I continue to be amazed by the fan support here. There was no place for fans to sit or stand in the indoor facility, but every window had a face peering through it. There were even 2,000 fans with umbrellas lining the walkway I took to the main stadium after I finished. I was on my way to ride the stationary bike, so I didn’t have time to sign.
But as I neared the end of the line, Lisa and her tall friend stood there.
I knew it was time to let her down easy. I asked one of the interpreters to dictate a note for me in Japanese. I told her I was appreciative of her note and although she seemed like a lovely woman, I was unfortunately, uh, sorry to say, I mean, lucky to still be married.
I also said I may not remain married if this book ever gets to print, so I may eventually one day contact her. I asked a security guard to deliver the note to her, so I believe our relationship is over. It was a good 24 hours for us but like any good relationship with a member of the opposite sex outside of your marriage, it had to end. It was just good to know I still have it.
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