Day 5: Chinese Taipei vs Japan

Now, we're talkin'! Tonight's game between Chinese Taipei and Japan was the kind of experience I was hoping for when I made this trip. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our day started with a "Come to Jesus" meeting this morning. Caesar, Runch's equivalent here in Taichung, was unhappy with some of the things that have been going on on the field. In particular, there are apparently some umpires leaving the infield in coverage and then coming back during the play. There was also the call in our game last night where the second base umpire failed to call anything on a rundown. The problem is we've got a wide range of languages to deal with: Spanish, English, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. It's very difficult to communicate and make sure everyone's on the same page. In any case, it was stressed to us the importance of this tournament, particularly in light of baseball's precarious situation regarding future Olympics. We need to put the best face possible on the entire event, and I certainly can understand that.

After that meeting, I had lunch with Willie (from Puerto Rico) and Nelson (from Cuba). Then Willie and I went for a little walk. I took some pictures and some video, and we went to this computer/electronics store that would make a Best Buy employee jealous. This place had everything related to computers and any tangential things you could think of. I bought a little USB travel mouse that only cost about $9 US.

Our game was at Intercon, the nicer stadium of the two in Taichung. When we walked out on the field, it was a much different sensation from the first two games. The stadium was completely full, and it was rocking. There was an energy and level of excitement in the crowd that I rarely remember seeing at any level I've ever worked. The fans all had "thunder sticks" made of some kind of plastic, that they banged together in rhythm. The noise it created was unique to my baseball experience and at times almost deafening. Some fans also had little megaphones and kazoos. There were one or two people with whistles, whose job apparently was to give instruction on what rhythmic chant/beat to use in a particular situation. They were also yelling quite a bit, and again much of the time it seemed that they were doing it in unison. It seemed to be a very partisan Chinese Taipei crowd, but I'm guessing that Japan being the opponent was part of what accounted for the full stadium. They were quite taken with their designated hitter, saving the loudest chants for him. It was so loud that for many of my called strikes and called third strikes that I didn't even bother to use any voice. No one could have possibly heard me anyway. The game was close for much of the early going, but Chinese Taipei ended up opening it up a little and ended up winning the game 6-1. Although certainly not perfect, I felt pretty good about my balls and strikes and the way I managed the game. This brings up an interesting philosophical question: if you kick a pitch in Taichung, Taiwan at 6:00 in the morning EDT, and none of your friends or fellow umpires are there to see it, did you really kick it? (I vote no, by the way!)

We had one interesting play at first base. The batter attempted a bunt with a runner on first, and the ball blooped in the air toward first base. The first baseman short-hopped the ball just fair, and I signaled both the fair/foul and the catch/no catch. The runner on first stayed there, but when the throw went to first, it removed the force. Japan very easily could have gotten a double play if they would have thought to tag the runner before touching the bag. Our first base umpire was one of the Mexican umpires we almost gave up on a couple of days ago. He finally was able to get out of Los Angeles after his Visa problems and is now here. In any case, he made a great call on this play. Fred, from the Netherlands, was the second and base umpire, and Jeong Chang from Korea was at third. There were no issues in the game, except that Jeong kept sweeping off the pitcher's plate between innings. Apparently this is something they do regularly in this part of the world. Runch specifically mentioned this to the group in our pre-tournament meeting (stressing NOT doing it) but apparently it got lost in translation. I tried to tell Jeong that we we're not to do this between innings a couple of times, but I don't think he understood, because he did it throughout. Perhaps he has worked some American softball with Bruce Keeling and feels very strongly about this mechanic!

The game was a long one, lasting just over three hours. Thankfully, the weather was not nearly as hot as it could have been, so I didn't completely sweat through my clothes. I am pretty tired from two straight plate jobs, and have the noon game tomorrow, so I'm going to hit the sack. We've got an all English speaking crew on the bases tomorrow, which should make communication refreshingly easy. We've got Chinese Taipei again, this time vs Spain.