I’m back in the swing of things, at long last! It has been a pretty hectic two months, which has meant very little in the way of new posts on the site. I’d apologize for it, except that I feel like I deserved the time off from closely following and reporting on the Tigers games and news.
This past weekend, though, I dove right back into the game, with three very different but equally interesting experiences. We start with Friday night.
One of our followers on Facebook, who is one of the heads of the Amagasaki International Association, approached me in July about the possibility of giving a talk at one of their gatherings. He also requested someone else to come and talk as well. Who better than my podcast co-host, Jake?
We were given two topics: (1) What makes the Hanshin Tigers such an attractive team to foreigners? and (2) What do the Tigers need to do to win?
The first topic, I covered solo. The second was a back-and-forth between Jake and me. You can hear an English summary of both topics in Episode 85 of the podcast.
I have to admit, standing in front of a group of 40 people, many of whom have followed the team for DECADES (with one guy even saying he got to watch Fumio Fujimura play back in the 1950s), is quite intimidating. Throw on top of that the fact that I had to speak in my second language, and that it was an open bar, and I figured there was a possibility of jeers or at least a partial breakdown.
Did I also mention that Jake and I were both on holiday (separate from each other, of course) for much of August, which meant precious little time to prepare?
In any case, it went off quite flawlessly, if I may say so myself. The chemistry that we have built up while doing the podcast paid off, and our talk bounced back and forth quite smoothly. There was one jeer in there when I mentioned that I thought the Tigers should bring in a manager from the outside: Atsuya Furuta (ex-Swallows catcher). “Zettai iran!” (I have no use for that guy at all!) But the guy came up to me afterwards and thanked me for my presentation and also said that he has reason for his thoughts, and that they were just that, his personal opinion.
Well, presenting about the Hanshin Tigers in Japanese in front of an all-Japanese audience of hardcore Tigers fans has given me confidence. And I would need it for what was coming up next. You’ll have to read this post to find that out.