Greetings from Japan

Hello from Japan. It’s been a pretty hectic five weeks since I arrived here in Tokyo. I’ve been wanting to keep in touch with everyone in the States and keep you all updated as to how I am doing, but it has just been so crazy. This past weekend was no different, but I’m pretty settled in now and wanted to take a bit of time to post my first blog.

It was a long weekend of softball in Toyota City, which is about four hours away from where I am staying in Tokyo. Toyota City, as the name implies, really is Toyota’s city. It’s where all of the Toyota facilities are located. They also have an athletic compound there. Toyota sponsors several sports teams in Japan; they have softball, baseball and some others. The company that sponsors my team, LeoPalace 21, is a real estate company that only sponsors a softball team.

We were in Toyota City to play in the Toyota Cup, which included maybe 15 teams – some from our division and some others from Division 2. It was a weekend of playing and practice that had us on the field as many as 10 or 11 hours on some days. We were there Thursday through Sunday and played two games each day, except Sunday, when we only played once. On a typical day we would practice in the morning from 9 until 11 and then have lunch before warming up for our first game of the day. Then we would play at 12:30 and 2:30 or 3:00. On one of the days we didn’t play so well and our coach made us practice for a while after the second game.

I pitched a complete game, and we won, the first day. Many of the coaches held their foreign pitchers back, so I guess that mine decided to do the same, because I only pitched two innings the second day, one the next and three the last day. I really did a lot more practicing than game pitching. When I’m not pitching and the team is practicing, since I don’t hit, there’s not much for me to do. Once I’ve taken some ground balls and pitched I might try to take a walk or keep busy doing something so my coach doesn’t get upset with me.

I ran into Monica Abbott and Natasha Whatley several times and was able to talk to them. They play for Toyota and were practicing and playing at the same complex as us most of the time. One of my teammates, Natalie Titcume, is a catcher from Australia, so we take every opportunity we can to be able to speak in English to the other foreign players. I also saw Katie Burkhart briefly as well as Kristen Butler and Megan Gibson, who I know pretty well. Kristen is a teammate of mine on the Akron Racers of the NPF, and I did a photo shoot for Nokona with Megan last year. It was great to see all of them and catch up – even if only for a short time.

I was really tired Sunday night, but Monday was a bit more relaxing as we were able to play tourist for a day and go the area surrounding the Tokyo Imperial Palace where the world-famous cherry blossoms are in bloom. Thousands of people from all over Japan flock to the parks to take in the sights and enjoy the festivals that offer food, souvenirs and other interesting stuff.

Our season gets underway next weekend when we play Toda H.P. at the Seibu Dome in Saitama on Sunday. I’m starting to get comfortable here. I’m able to sleep until 6 a.m. most days now after waking up at 4 or 4:30 many mornings. I tried to catch up on my sleep a little bit today and managed to “sleep in” until almost 7:30. I guess my body is just used to getting up early now, but that’s not such a bad thing.

Thanks for reading this. Check back here often. I’ll do my best to keep you updated about my progress and adventures here in Japan!