Respect Rewarded

A fantastic morning of baseball thanks to Matsusho Gakuen Junior College. Their twelve points to three victory over Tsuchiura Nichidai was well deserved. Right from the first innings Matsusho played an incredibly daring game, taking lots of risks which always seemed to pay off. Their daring seemed to increase as the game went on, even when they were so far ahead that they could have rested on their laurels. For example, in the eighth inning, one fielder fell backwards into the TV camera pit to catch a high ball, then clambered out with the ball in his hand. Respect to that player indeed! Tsuchiura did finally start to play a more daring game in the seventh inning but, at eight points to one, the distance was insurmountable.

Two more reasons why I am pleased that Matsusho won. One is because every time their players came out to field, they removed their caps and bowed to the spectators. Tsuchiura never did this at all. The other is because when they came out to bat in the ninth inning, their support band played this. I clapped along to that with great gusto.

This afternoon's game between Yamagata JHS and Meitoku was very different from this morning's game. These two teams were both very strong and evenly matched. It was obvious very early on the game that this would be a close fight. The final statistics say it all; thirteen hits each, with just one error by Meitoku and two by Yamagata. After the second inning, Yamagata were ahead by two points to one. Meitoku equalised in the sixth inning, and the score remained three all until the twelfth inning when Meitoku scored three points. That looked unassailable until, with two men out, Yamagata got two men on the field. Could the third batter score three points to equalise again? The answer was no, but the possibility of it happening made for a very exciting finish to an extremely tough fought match between two extremely strong teams who simply refused to yield.