Spring Training

I saved the best for last as far as all the things I had planned for our anniversary. Every year all the professional Japanese and Korean teams come to warm Okinawa for their pre season training, or like Spring Training stateside. I found out where all the teams were practicing and took Ed to watch the Dragons at the Chatan ball park. It was fun and he seemed to really enjoy it. We’re going to one of the preseason games in a few weeks. It was fun to watch. I had to keep asking Ed dumb questions ‘cause it has been a LONG time since I’ve been to a game in America and I wasn’t sure if what the Okinawan’s did was what we did. Here is one example. When a homerun is hit the crowd claps, I believe I was the only one that hollered out in the stadium, oops, then everyone stops clapping, not because I hollered, just because it was time to stop and then they begin to clap when the batter has run across home plate. I had to ask Ed if we clapped both times in the States, ‘cause I just didn’t remember that. The Japanese also do absolutely NO butt grabbing! No matter how good the play was or the runner coming in to score, no behinds are slapped! I loved watching the fans! They had their bowls of noodles, brought their dogs, and the younger kids were there in their baseball uniforms. You could see the sparkle in their eyes as they knew their dreams of being a ball player were still tangible! All the newscasters were there and it was sooo cute to see the young kids with their gloves and pen and paper for autographs! I didn’t think to bring anything for autographs and Ed didn’t want any anyways, even after I bought a ball! But he did take a picture of me with one of the players. We were walking around later and #45 was just sitting out there on a bike, not a motorcycle, a bicycle! Only in Okinawa…..We watched them play each other and then do batting and infield practice and headed home. Oh, we did buy hot dogs, cause what is a baseball game without a hot dog??!!