From the Daily Sports Online column / デイリースポーツオンラインの連載コラムから
Ever feel like you didn’t belong somewhere? Like you were way out of your league? I bet the young Hanshin Tigers players are feeling just that as they head to spring training. I mean, they are standing alongside the champions of Nippon Professional Baseball and trying to show their worth despite having zero experience at this level. I almost feel sorry for them.
Moreso, I feel for them. I experienced exactly this sentiment over the weekend. On Sunday, January 28, I attended the 7th Annual Research Report and Symposium for The Forum for Researchers of Baseball Culture. It was held at Hosei University in Tokyo and had roughly 50 men in attendance. Few, if any, were younger than me. None (myself aside) were foreigners. And not only did I feel alone as an attendee, I was also slated to present my research to the crowd. In Japanese, naturally.
As I typically do when opportunities like this come up, I dove in without giving it too much thought. When they were looking for presenters, I was like, “Well, I can always apply and if they say no, ah well!” They said yes. So that lit a fire under me to get my presentation together. Which I barely did in time for the big day.
And once I got there, looked around, and listened to a few presentations, I knew I was screwed. I’m like a rookie straight out of high school trying to stand up beside Yusuke Ohyama, Koji Chikamoto, and Teruaki Sato. I should not be here. I definitely should not be presenting.
Think I’m just being modest? Look at this list of presentation topics and tell me which one feels out of place. I bet you choose mine.
- The process of convincing the local government to set up a memorial stone to recognize Sendai as the birthplace of pre-game bowing (as seen at the Koshien tournaments)
- Was there any truth to Babe Ruth’s claim that the sun was in his eyes when he faced Eiji Sawamura back in 1934 and couldn’t get a hit?
- What is the true story of how the Nishitetsu franchise settled on the name “Lions”?
- What to make of the trend towards the media describing baseball teams more often as “city-run” between 1980 and 2003?
- What are the similarities and differences between NPB and MLB translators?
- What are the unseen inherent dangers of taking sports teams/clubs out of schools and into the local community?
If you did not figure it out (or single mine out as an impostor presentation), I was fifth on the bill. Let me just begin by saying that the first four presentations in particular were deep in historical research as well as numerical (and in the case of #2, meteorological) data. Mine had very little in the way of concrete information that was dug out of ancient newspapers or encyclopedia stacks.
Nevertheless, I was on the bill, so I got up there and did my thing. Oh, I was nervous. And when I was done, I vowed I would never do this again.
But here’s the thing. At lunch, several of the men in attendance, including many who have been working in the game for longer than I have been alive, congratulated me on a great presentation. Words like, “Your content was impressive,” “The scales fell from my eyes,” “I was able to see foreign players in a new light,” and “I guess Ippei really does make Shohei the man he is” rang in my ears.
Wow. So you mean I can hang with these guys? Even the chairman of the society thanked me afterward and asked me to come back again next year and share any new advances I make in my research with everyone once again.
Some of the words that others spoke in their presentations really struck a chord with me, and reaffirmed to me that I did the right thing in joining this conference. The first presenter, when talking about getting the monument built, said, “If you don’t set anything in motion, nothing will just start moving on its own.” An award winner said in his speech, “My wife told me that all this information I had been gathering was useless unless I joined an academic society and shared it with others who had similar interests to my own.” Those words could not have come at a better time.
I have to admit, the people I met were amazing. I even got to meet my favorite Japanese baseball author, Professor Masaru Ikei. I exchanged way more business cards than I ever thought I would need, and one guy even said he wanted to feature me in an article he would write.
So the next time that voice in your head starts telling you that you don’t belong, you tell it to shut up. Just do something. Try. Fail. Learn from that failure. Do it better next time. Before you know it, you will be elite, and might even unconsciously be the one that makes others feel like they are out of their league. (As I say this, I’m looking at you, young Hanshin Tigers! Go into camp with bravery! Go get ‘em! Show them you belong!)