Day 12: Australia vs Japan

After having very few problems in our bracket of the tournament for the first seven games, I had my first experience with a team from the Taipei bracket today (Australia). They reminded me of why umpires are such a necessary part of baseball to begin with. Baseball players and coaches are, by the very nature of what they do, almost incapable of rational, unbiased reactions. It takes a very disciplined team to manage their emotions through the ups and downs of a baseball game without acting like spoiled children. In this part of the world, the teams seem to have figured out how to do it very well. Japan was very respectful and business-like, as usual. Australia, on the other hand, was not. Our crew today consisted of Fabrizio Chirici from Italy on the plate, myself, Hsieh Liang-Kuei from Taipei at second, and Juan Cuevas from Cuba at third. Right away, in the bottom of the first inning, Fabrizio called an Australian batter out on a check swing with a runner on second base. You'd have thought he'd just killed Crocodile Dundee. The batter, both base coaches, and several players in the dugout came completely unglued. This led to a discussion between the first base coach and I. I'm fairly certain we didn't have a meeting of the minds.

The game was close and fairly well played. I had not seen Fabrizio work the plate before and I thought he did a really nice job. Japan hit a home run to go up 1-0, and added a run late to make it 2-0. In the top of the ninth, I called a balk on the Australian pitcher for breaking his front knee before throwing to first base. While the reaction to this call did not rival that of the check swing, I did hear from the manager, second baseman, pitcher and first baseman. The balk did not end up coming in to play, but Japan did tack on another run. When the first base coach came out for the bottom of the ninth, he showed his true colors again. We have a little more flexibility to "manage" a game here then we do currently in college baseball, so I was able to express myself as to his lack of class without fearing any issues down the road. Japan quickly closed out the game and won 3-0.

Tonight was a pretty quiet night. Dits, Willie, Carlos (Mexico) and I had dinner in the dining room. The food is not as good here as it was at our hotel in Taichung. I got a phone call while in the room later that one of the Taiwan umpires wanted me to meet me in the lobby. Turns out it was one of the umpires from Taichung -- I had given him much of the umpire gear we received for working the tournament a couple of days ago. I primarily did it because I had no room for it in my luggage, and thought he or another umpire in his group could benefit from having it. He was very appreciative, and came by with a golf shirt, a necklace from his wife to Vicki, and some sort of decorative storage device for tea. We had a nice conversation through an interpreter. The local people (umpires, hotel staff, tournament administrators and just the local people) have all been so friendly and kind to us that its been unbelievable.

Around 10:30 PM, assignments were posted for tomorrow. I've got the plate for Cuba vs Japan, which will send one of the two to the championship game. The other winners from today were USA and the Netherlands. I felt very fortunate to get that assignment and am really looking forward to the game. Although it's a 6:00 PM start tomorrow, I had eaten not long before and am running a little short of money, so I decided to stay in. Some of the others went out for a bite and some cocktails. After finishing this update, I'm just going to relax and try and get a good night's sleep. We've been running pretty hard lately and I want to be sharp tomorrow.