East Coast Kahuna

Baseball

I recently attended a New York Mets game with a group of folks from the office. We took a chartered bus from Ithaca to and from Shea Stadium. It took pretty much all day - leaving early in the morning, seeing the game, then coming back home after 9 in the evening.

Baseball was popular for boys in the father's generation. It was also a popular sport when the Japanese-Americans were put into concentration camps (called "relocation" camps) during WWII. There's actually an incident where baseball may have saved my father's life. He was awaken early on Sunday morning December 7, 1941 by his baseball coach to play - that got him out of bed before the Japanese attach on Pearl Harbor. Later on, a bullet was found in his mattress from the attack (Ewa, where my Dad's family lived, was not far from Pearl Harbor - my dad described being able to see the pilots in the Japanese Zeros during the attack).

Nobody in my generation (my brother, sister or myself) is athletic. Maybe my Dad's athletic abilities skipped a generation and went to my daughter who is into softball (she plays for a 14 year and under travel softball team - and has gotten quite good at third base). I hadn't had a chance to really watch baseball or softball closely until my daughter started playing a lot. I have developed more of an appreciation for the game and a better idea of how to watch the game. I now also do the statistics for my daughter's team.

The Mets won, by the way, by 1 point - the hero for the team was their 3rd baseman who had three key plays which limited Philadelphia's scoring - the last one ended the game with a runner on third base. I had done a lot of watching of third base with my daughter's play, and knew that the Mets' third baseman, David Wright, was an exceptional player.

posted by tjh14850 @ 11:53 PM