Su-po-tsu

I've been playing soccer with my friend Naoya and his team for the past couple months. As with most other things, playing soccer in Japan has quite a different feel than playing in America.

When I first practiced with the team, Naoya explained to them that I used to play for the USA's national team. Although meant as a joke, every last one of them believed him. And with none of them able to speak English in the least, they could not directly question me on his claims.
However, after a few practices, some (yes, only some) of them stopped believing Naoya, as my performance was below their national team expectations. Our practices take place Wednesday and Friday nights, after I've spent anywhere from 8-10 hours with the screaming, crying, laughing, crotch-poking little English learners. Even on the best of days, finding a reserve tank of energy to play soccer for 2-3 hours after work is a very tall order. So I would tire out after an hour or hour and a half of practice. Hence some of the players begun to doubt Naoya's claim.
Until...
we had a game last Sunday. Without expending energy on the kids, and having the added excitement of playing in a real game, I had my 'A' game with me. After a couple decent saves in the game, some of our teammates commented, "Oh, now I know he played for the USA national team."

During a practice a few weeks ago, the player with the biggest ego on the team was trying to get me to back up for a demonstration. Naoya, the only bilingual one amongst us, was nowhere to be seen. The player, who has the nickname "Kitty-chan" (his last name is Kitta, and when you add "chan" to someone's name, it's basically calling them a little girl. So instead of Kitta-chan, it was changed to Kitty-chan, which is the name of the cat from Hello Kitty), approached me and grabbed each of my upper arms and started to lightly push me backwards. Having been in this position with many guys before, I recognized the situation as the start of a male-bonding wrestle, so I grabbed his arms in the same manner, and pushed back against him.
Kitty-chan then looked pretty terrified... and that's when Naoya emerged and explained to me that they wanted me to back up. When Kitty-chan returned to the rest of the team with me "safely" back in goal, someone asked him why he didn't act as his normal alpha-male self, instead taking the sheepish route. He responded that he thought I was going to lift him by his face with one hand clear off the ground. So much for being the alpha, and for any decent attempt at losing his nickname. And so much for me scaring only kids.

The night of the aforementioned game, when we arrived at the field, there were disbelieving grumblings from the other team: "They have an American?!" "He's a keeper?!" "How'd they get an American?" "He's too tall!"
Yes, at six feet, I was easily the tallest on the field that night. The "ooohs" when they saw I could touch the crossbar of the goal without jumping were hilarious.
Also, having been not indoctrinated in all the "necessary" pleasantries surrounding a soccer match, I did not bow with everyone else before the game, nor did I provide the slew of polite greetings to the other team. Being used to staring the opposing team down and sizing them up, their "holy shit" feeling was only furthered.

This past Sunday, I played for a different team in a tournament. We made it to the finals, and were down 3-2 at the start of the second half. A tripping call somehow escalated into two of my teammates being given red cards before play resumed. The trip was a legitimate foul, and a yellow card certainly was warranted. But a red? Definitely not. I am pretty sure our second player was ejected for yelling at the ref.
But that didn't discourage me, because I was the only one on the field who spoke English. So I enjoyed myself. Here's a sampling:
"Are you out of your fucking mind, ref?"
"What game are you watching?"
"Get your head out of your ass."
"That call was total bullshit!" (I did give a short English lesson to my entire team. Everyone now knows the word "bullshit.")
A little while later there was another foul called, and I said, "Hey ref, where's the red card?" He was all of 15 feet from me, and had no idea what was coming out of my mouth. Being down two players, the game was essentially over (both teams thought what had happened was a joke), we lost 6-4. But speaking English has never been that fun for me.

On a different note, I made it to the batting cages this past weekend for the first time since arriving in Japan. Nothing that different from the cages I have been in for years, except for one thing. The pitching machines were not visible. So how did you know when each pitch was coming? you might be wondering. Well, there was a giant TV screen for each cage which showed a pitcher going into his motion. The ball was pitched at the moment and from the location shown the video.

Soccer in the land of the easily-intimidated and baseball in the land of the future. So goes my sports experience in Japan.