Japanese version written by me for Daily Sports can be seen here
Have you ever been doing something a little shady, and said to yourself, “You know, you really shouldn’t be doing this.” Or, “Aren’t you worried what people are going to say when they find out you’ve been hanging out with him/her?” You’re human, so the answer to those questions is yes, isn’t it? I’m not here to judge you or make you relive those moments. Rather, I’d like to share with you what I went through this past month.
Last time I shared with you, the Tigers had just been humiliated at home three straight times against the Yomiuri Giants. Don’t care to remember that, either? OK… let’s keep moving forward, then. The Tigers continued to struggle, and with that built-up frustration I felt as a fan and English blogger of the team, I blew a whole lot of steam off on my Twitter followers.
And you know how sometimes what your followers “like” shows up on their followers’ timelines? That’s what happened to some of my toxic fumes. And one of my follower’s followers was none other than Scott Mathieson. That’s right. Star reliever of Kansai’s most hated baseball team: the Yomiuri Giants.
He liked my negative tweet about the Tigers, and after a few open exchanges of words, he jokingly said he would bring me a Giants cap the next time they came to town. Then, he started following me!
Now, Mr. Mathieson is a fellow Canadian, and I had been following him on Twitter for about a year at this point. I had no reason to hate him as a person yet. I hated the orange he wore, but I also knew he bled maple syrup just like me. So anyhow, a few months earlier, I remembered he had tweeted about a delicious burger he’d eaten in Okinawa, and I reminded him of it by text, telling him I knew an awesome place in Nishinomiya, and that we should go out for a burger the next time he came to town, if he was so intent on getting me that cap.
And so we met this past Saturday. I was so nervous at first. What if I got “caught” “cheating on” the Tigers? Would I need to renounce my fan club membership? Could I still be “Hanshin Tigers English News” online and “thehanshintiger” on Twitter, or would I have to become “Yomiuri Giants English News” and “theyomiurigiant”? Did I have the nerve to burn my bridges and join the dark side?
Before I could settle down and size him up, he pulled out a cap from his bag. He was serious about the cap, after all!!! And get this: it was signed by some of his teammates. He told me that he gathered the guys around in the locker room, told them that he was heading out to meet a Hanshin fan, and that he needed their help to convert me to their cult: Yomiurism. Fourteen players lined up to sign the cap for him (or, for me).
Let me set the record straight once and for all. I am NOT a new, or closet, Giants fan! I never will be converted! My maple syrup blood has been tested, and it contains major traces of yellow and black feline, too. No signs of rabbit in there! But come on… the hat now in my possession passed through the hands of several future Hall of Fame players! Hard to hate a team with all your heart after something like that.
Anyhow, we ate some good food (the burger place was sold out, but we have promised to go there some other time), and talked for like three hours about everything under the sun. Among the topics of conversation was how much Shohei Ohtani’s hitting success in the majors surprises him. The pitching part, not so much. Mr. Mathieson asserted that Ohtani could go down as one of the greatest pitchers in history if he concentrated solely on that part of his game. He talked about his former mate, Miles Mikolas, and how he’s having himself a good season so far with the St. Louis Cardinals. He expressed a real excitement for the way their stories will have nothing but positive spins for professional baseball in Japan, as America sees the quality of players coming out of NPB. Clearly, Mr. Mathieson loves Japan as much as I do.
And as we kept talking, he kept mentioning how much he cared about his teammates. How a bunch of them came to the hospital the night his wife gave birth to their son, despite having played a long game that evening. “Player A sits next to me in the locker room, and it’s been a real honor getting to know him.” And, “If it weren’t for Player B, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today.” Another mate, he praised for his charity work, which he does in secret, away from reporters, cameras, and team PR crews.
I’ll say this: if a player of Scott Mathieson’s caliber is going to take the time to meet me, give me a cap, chat with me for several hours, extend an invitation to meet again, and talk very humbly about what a great time he is having in Japan as a member of the Yomiuri Giants, then my job as a Giants-hating Hanshin Tigers fan just got a lot tougher. I guess I learned that I don’t hate the men in orange so much as I hate the uniforms they wear. It’s truly one of the paradoxes of sports fandom, isn’t it? Change the color of a man’s clothes and he goes from villain to hero, or vice versa.
Still, I’m more than just a little glad we kicked their butts on the weekend.