Zamami Baseball

I joined the baseball team last year prior to the annual November tournament, but had a terrible showing and didn't blog about it.  This year I was able to play in more games and while things didn't go much better at the plate, they went well in the field.

[not a very large cheering section for either team]

For the first two games I went 1-7 in batting, including at least three strikeouts (one I strongly disagreed with).  I did do well playing second base, though, committing zero errors.  The team had high hopes for my batting because I routinely hit the ball further than everybody during batting practice, but I think only I noticed that I had less fielding errors than anyone else on the team.  

['Santa' owns a restaurant under the same name. He has three kids: GenTA, KanTA, and UTA, hence "san" "ta" (san = 3 in Japanese)]

In the semi-final game I was relegated to eighth in the batting order and right field (where I had two flawless plays!).  One run had scored on an error and there were runners on 2nd and 3rd when I came up the first time, facing the principal of Geruma school on the mound.  On the first pitch I cranked the ball over the center fielder and to that wall visible in the upper left of that picture above.  It was a very solid double, knocking in both runs.  The next runner walked, then I stole third (on my own!) then he stole second, then we both got knocked in on a single.  On my second at-bat I again cranked the ball to center on the first pitch, but this time it was caught.  I struck out the third time.

Unfortunately we lost the game 7-5 because our pitchers walk almost everybody, but I was very glad to finally exhibit some of my power, and off a school principal no less!

[I have no idea what the name of our team means]