Excerpt from THE BASEBALL WIDOW

Excerpt from The Baseball Widow

By Suzanne Kamata

Hideki stood at home plate, forty boys at attention before him. It was a perfect spring day, an in-between afternoon of sun and breeze, blue-winged dragonflies, and cherry blossoms swirling as if stirred by ghosts. It was the kind of afternoon, just after the chill of late March and before the damp discomfort of the rainy season, that his wife, Christine, would while away sitting on the verandah in a floaty print dress, sipping sweetened iced tea and reading a book. He imagined his children learning how to hold pencils and sit still, eager for the bell that would signal their release. In Japan, this was a season of beginnings – the first shoots of rice poking up through the flooded paddies, newly minted workers showing up for their first days on the job, the start of a new school year, and a new baseball team.

Here they were, his boys, in all of their pimple-faced, gangly-limbed, glory, gathered hopefully on the red dirt infield. They wore their Tokushima Kita High School uniforms – white shirts, green jackets, neckties, pants with a subtle plaid – but by next week, they’d be in baseball practice uniforms, unless he scared them off today. He took a long look at them, these boys in all shapes and sizes. There were one or two slouchers, a couple still carrying pouches of fat in their cheeks and guts, but he’d whip them into shape. Give him a few months, and they’d be as sharp as cut glass. And courteous. His boys were as polite as Citadel cadets, Christine had said.

“Good afternoon.” His voice boomed all the way to the cherry trees at the edge of school property. The boys responded and bowed in unison.

Hideki nodded in approval. Manners were important. “If you are here today, that must mean that you want to play baseball. If you come back tomorrow, when we hold our first official practice, then I will take it to mean that you love baseball.” He paused for a moment to look them over again, to absorb their unwavering gazes. “And I hope you love it more than sleeping in on weekend mornings, more than playing games at the video arcade, more than making out with your girlfriend.”

At this last part, Toshiya Miki, his assistant coach, snickered behind him.

Miki wasn’t a teacher at Kita High. He and Hideki had played on the same team back in high school, although Miki had been a year ahead. After graduating, Miki had taken over his father’s trucking business, helping out with a local Little League team in his free time. Hideki had gone on to play college ball, and to get a degree in education. They hadn’t kept in contact all that much in the intervening years, but when Hideki had become a coach, Miki had volunteered his services and he’d been happy to take him up on it. Miki had been a big help, especially in the days of Christine’s difficult pregnancy, and later, when the twins always seemed to be in and out of the ICU. However, they didn’t always agree on how to get things done. And Miki was sometimes disrespectful in front of the players.

Annoyed, Hideki went on. “You must be prepared to devote yourself to this game.” Hell if he was going to put up with slackers, after all the work that had gone into making this team. He turned to the blackboard set up on an easel at his side. This was where he wrote out the practice schedules. Today he grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote in English: “Dream big. Work hard.” An image of his wife Christine flashed through his mind. These were her words, after all, now printed up on the team towels as their slogan.

“I want to tell you a little story. Six years ago, there was another boy standing here. A boy who had sat on the bench throughout most of his junior high school baseball career.”

Just then, he felt a humming, as if his pocket were full of bees. Damn. He’d forgotten to turn off his phone. He angled away from them, and reached into his pocket, fumbling for the button that would turn it off. A few heads turned. “He wasn’t very big,” Hideki went on, louder than before, “but he had a big dream and he was willing to work hard. He went from being a second-string shortstop in junior high school to an ace pitcher on this very team. He’s the one who helped bring us to the quarterfinals for the first time. And now that kid is playing for the Tokushima Indigo Socks.”

The Indigo Socks were a minor league team, part of the recently formed Shikoku League. An upstart organization, a little bit desperate: The Kochi Fighting Dogs were recruiting in Burundi, of all places. Also, the pay was low; in the off-season, Takehara, the boy he’d mentioned worked as a firefighter, and he lived with his parents, so he didn’t have to pay rent. Still, to be able to play baseball and get paid for it was a dream come true, and Takehara’s rise made for a good story. It gave him street cred, showed that he knew what he was doing. If they followed his advice, they could grab onto bright shiny futures.

“Of course, he didn’t win all of those games all by himself,” Hideki said. “This is a team, and we will all work together to reach our dream.”

It went without saying that the dream was to win the prefectural championship and participate in the national tournament at Koshien. This had been Hideki’s dream since he was a small boy. It had been his father’s dream before that. And it was the dream of every kid in Japan who’d ever tucked his hand into a baseball glove. Koshien was a special place, more cathedral than stadium. All the greats had played there – Sadahuru Oh, Masumi Kuwata, winning pitcher in the high school tournament twice, Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka – even Babe Ruth on his visit to Japan, where he’d been struck out by Eiji Sawamura. And any high school graduate who could boast of having helped his team get to Koshien, was pretty much assured a job in the company of his choice, even if he wasn’t pro material. Everyone knew the kind of effort required to get that far.

“You are all equals.” An electronic melody eeped out of his pants pocket – the theme to “Rocky.” A few kids ducked their heads and snickered. Damn. He thought he’d turned it off.  He pulled it out and silenced it, then continued with his spiel, even louder than before. “You will help each other out. And I am your coach. Remember that I know more about baseball than you do. You will do what I tell you to, or you won’t play. Got that?”

“Hai.”

He introduced Assistant Coach Miki, and the three girls who’d signed up as managers. They stepped forward and bowed.

“All right, then. See you tomorrow. Same time, same place.”

As he watched them at ease, milling about, he felt a surge of hope. What a different feeling that was from six years ago when he’d founded this team. He’d started out with three aluminum bats, ten dozen balls, and eleven kids. Six of them were new to baseball, hadn’t even played on their junior high teams. Most of them were college-bound. The ones who lives for the sport went to Tokushima Commercial – a.k.a. Tokusho – or Seiko, or Naruto Tech. Maybe they were aces in the classroom, but they were a sorry bunch out on the field. Ground balls went bouncing through their outspread legs. They batted at air, never connecting with the red-seamed ball, and at first, a simple dash to first base left most of them winded.

Hideki had thrown himself into the job, determined to whip them into shape. He gave them intensive tutorials in batting and fielding, video-taped them and conducted team critiques. He spent hours on the phone with former teammates-turned-high-school-coaches, begging for practice games, in which his boys were routinely humiliated. Massacred. Every week he had to come up with a new pep talk, and he spent half of his time trying to talk wannabe quitters into sticking with him. He no longer had time for golf or fishing or going to movies with his wife. There were no more romantic excursions to Singapore or Phuket. There was only baseball. He and his players had slogged through six years of trials and errors, but finally, all of that hard work was about to pay off. Hideki had snared himself a pitcher.

He remembered the first time he’d seen Kikawa throw, as a junior high school student.  The kid had grown up in a fishing village outside of Naruto, a city famous for its huge natural whirlpools and tasty wakame.  Hideki could smell the sea from the baseball diamond, could almost hear the water lapping against the pilings.　The kid was quiet, polite.  Simple.  Hideki could picture him threading a worm onto a hook, or hauling in nets full of seaweed with his dad, hanging the wakame out to dry in the sun.  But he was meant for more than that.  This kid had pure, raw talent, and already he was better than just about any high school pitcher in the prefecture.

He sidled up to the kid’s coach. “You clocked him?”

The Coach grinned. “His fast ball’s about 95 kilometers an hour.”

Hideki nodded slightly. He was trying to play it cool, but he could hardly keep still. His mind was racing. What could he promise this kid? How would he convince him to choose Kita High School over all the other schools that were no doubt after him? He wondered what kinds of gifts were being lavished on the family. Bribes were against the rules, of course, but that didn’t stop some coaches from being a little generous.

When the kid came off the field, he took off his cap and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. A girl in school uniform rushed up to him with a tray and offered a cup of cold, barley tea.

He was a good-looking boy, with big eyes and broad shoulders, the kind that girls liked. Hideki expected to see arrogance but, no, Kikawa looked the girl in the eyes, smiled shyly, and took the cup with a slight bow. He downed the tea in a couple of gulps and bowed again when he returned the cup to the tray.

“Kikawa,” the junior high school coach shouted. “Come here.”

The boy bounded over, his face blank.

“This is Coach Yamada from Tokushima Kita High School.”

“Hajimemashite.” He doffed his cap.

“I’d like you to think about coming to our high school to play baseball,” he said.

Was it his imagination, or did the kid’s face brighten a watt or two?

“Thank you, sir.”

“We’d love to have you.” And that was it.

He followed up a couple weeks later with a visit to the boy’s house. 

He’d knelt at a low table with the kid’s parents. His father’s face was nut-brown and creased with wrinkles from all those days and months and years out on the sea. His mother, who wore a spotless white apron over a dun-colored house dress, brought out dishes of rice crackers and poured cup after cup of green tea.

“Those other coaches were all talking nasty about each other,” the father said. He lit a cigarette and watched the plumes of smoke rise to the stained ceiling. “They said some rude things about you, as well.”

Hideki grunted. He felt a flicker of annoyance, but tried not to show it.  He knew how some of his colleagues operated. Ichihara, the coach of Naruto Tech, for one, was relentless. His wife had divorced him a few years ago, and now he had nothing but baseball. He could be cutthroat.

“Our son is a good boy. He studies hard.”

“Well,” Hideki said, gearing up for his pitch. “Our school has a reputation for helping students get into some of the best universities in the country.”

The man nodded. “Last year, one of yours went on to Todai. I heard about that.”

Hideki was surprised that the fisherman knew about the student who’d been accepted to Tokyo University, let alone cared. He’d thought this man might want to keep his son close to home to work on the boat. He’d thought he’d have to argue about the benefits of traveling a few extra kilometers to go to an academic high school. After all, Naruto High School was within cycling distance of home. 

“We want him to go to a good college,” the man went on, “and you seem like a gentleman. We’d like our son to go to your school.”

And then they’d called Kikawa himself into the room, and he’d entered, head bowed, and Hideki was suddenly so happy that he almost cried. He looked at the boy and thought, “With the proper training, this kid can take us all the way to Koshien.”

Way back in the beginning, when Hideki had been unsure of whether Christine would stay in Japan or not, when he’d still been thinking of her as a flight risk, he’d brought her to the baseball stadium at Koshien. It was a test, of sorts. She already knew that he’d been the star of his high school and college teams, that he’d been almost good enough to play professionally, that he’d become a high school teacher in order to be a baseball coach. And if he became a baseball coach and his team won the prefectural championship, they would be able to participate in the national tournament on this very field. Koshien. It wasn’t just any baseball stadium. It wasn’t just the home of the Hanshin Tigers. This place was hallowed. After each game in the spring and summer tournaments, the losing players would drop to their knees and scoop up dirt to take home with them, dirt that they would enshrine and keep forever as a memory of fleeting youth and dreams attained or thwarted. And Hideki wanted to make sure that Christine understood all that before things went any further.

At the time, Hideki had been teaching at a night school—one of those hardcore assignments that were given as a sort of hazing to young, freshly licensed teachers in the public school system—or to veterans who turned out to be oddballs, those who didn’t quite fit into the system. His students were the underprivileged, the unsupported. Some of them had fathers in prison, mothers who worked late at night in hostess bars. One girl had dropped out of day school to have a baby.

Christine had a job as an assistant English teacher up the coast in Naruto, on a one-year government program. She could renew her contract a couple of times if she wanted to, but she seemed restless. She talked about going to Thailand to teach English in a Cambodian refugee camp. Or traveling through India with a backpack, and maybe helping out Mother Theresa for a few months.

“I don’t feel like anyone really needs me here in Japan,” she said. The high school students that she taught wore Chanel watches and toted Louis Vuitton purses. Back then, people were talking about how the U.S. was in decline, how Japan was set to conquer the world. Hawaii, MGM, the Rockefeller Center – all of it belonged to them now. The students that Christine taught were, she said, slightly contemptuous of the United States. What did they need her for?

I need you, Hideki had wanted to say. But he wasn’t given to pouring out his heart. I love you. Please stay.

He invited her to go with him to the opening game of the summer tournament at Koshien. They arrived at the stadium early enough to get seats behind home base. The bleachers quickly filled, over 57,000 spectators in all, there to cheer on their hometown heroes. The nervous energy radiating through the stands was contagious. Hideki’s stomach was awhirl. Beside him, Christine sat with her back perfectly straight, her fingers knotted together. She could feel it, too.

They watched as teams from as far away as Hokkaido and Okinawa marched in lockstep once around the field, then to the center where they lined up in rows. During the opening ceremony they remained statue-still in spite of the blazing sun and the sweat dribbling down their faces. When they spotted the team from Tokushima, they clapped harder. They’d beat out thirty-two other teams in the prefecture to make it to the national level. Only one team from Tokushima had ever won the national championship—that had been Ikeda High School back in 1980—but just getting to Koshien was an accomplishment worth celebrating. For the rest of their lives, they would be honored and anointed by their time on the field. On a more practical level, it looked good on a college application or a resume.

Hideki translated for Christine while the captain from the previous year’s winning team issued remarks, and then the Crown Prince delivered his greeting from high up – the highest! – in the bleachers, reminiscing about past games. They watched the teams file off the grounds with military precision, and then the two teams matched up in the first game took to the field for preliminary practice. Finally, a brand new baseball was dropped from a helicopter and the starting pitcher stepped up to the mound.

As they sat in the bleachers, Hideki watched Christine in profile. Her lightly freckled face was shaded by a straw boater and her hair, gathered into a French braid and hanging down her back, glimmered in the sun like spun gold. Whenever a player stepped up to bat, she leaned forward on the bench, biting down so hard on her lower lip that he worried she’d split the skin.

“Someday I’m coming back here with my team,” Hideki said.

Christine turned to him and smiled. They both knew that he didn’t have a team—not yet—and that schools with winning teams did their best to hold on to their coaches for as long as possible. There weren’t many openings for new coaches, and when there were, they were usually at the schools with the worst teams. If his wish were granted, if he were made baseball coach at a high school in Tokushima, he would have a lot of work to do.

“It’s good to have a dream,” she said.

They heard the ping of struck aluminum, and turned back to the game in time to see the ball flying over the fence. Home run.

“Dream big,” Christine said.

American Suzanne Kamata went to Japan to teach English “for one year,” and wound up falling in love with a Japanese high school baseball coach and staying. She has written and/or edited several books for various age groups, including the award-winning middle grade novel Pop Flies, Robo-pets and Other Disasters (One Elm Books, 2020). She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and currently teaches academic writing to students from all over the world at Naruto University of Education on the island of Shikoku.

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