Game Time

Saturday, June 21, 2014 & Sunday, June 22, 2014

Hey, it's Zach again. I played 2 games in Osaka against the Tigers. The stadium is one of the most famous stadiums in the league. It sells out every night with 50,000 fans and about 48,000 are Tigers fans! The atmosphere is very different. After the 5th inning, there is halftime. The cheerleaders and mascots dance around for about 5 minutes.

On the day of the game, we get dressed in our hotel room in full uniform and then after lunch we have a hitting meeting in the hotel to go over the other teams pitching staff. After the meeting, we get on the bus and go to the stadium. When I get to the stadium, I do my hitting routine in the cage. I do tee work, one hand drills, and coach pitch. The coach pitch is really firm so it's almost game like. After the cage, we head outside for team stretch. After team stretch, we hit BP and get ground balls. When I finish everything, I relax and eat a little before we take infield/outfield.
In both games I was hitting 5th behind Andrew Jones. It's an honor to even be on the same team as this man. The knowledge he has about baseball is unbelievable! Oh, and Norimoto was pitching in the first game! If you don't know the name yet, you will. Just think of Tanaka and Darvish. The kid just wants to win and I loved playing defense behind him. I thought I would have been nervous playing, but I wasn't at all. It helped that the first ball of my first game was a ground ball to me at 3rd base. I finished the game going 2-4 with 2 doubles, an RBI, and a run scored. In my 2nd game, I went 3-4 with a HR, 2 RBI, and a run scored. I was player of the game! It was great to help the team win and now hopefully we can keep it going! Go Eagles! And no, not the Philadelphia Eagles.
After the game, we go back to the hotel in our uniform. We set our uniform outside of our door for the maids to clean.