Sports in Japan

Japan's baseball season lasts from April to October. So why, in the dead of November, is the Kansai Gaidai team still swinging away? Devotion, my friends, devotion.

I had a conversation with a team member standing by the sideline. (Not the one in the picture.) The actual dialogue makes for an awful read, as it took several tries to get our ideas across the language barrier, but here is as accurate a paraphrase of the conversation as I can manage:

It's almost December. Baseball is a spring and summer sport, right?
Usually American teams will practice only during the regular season, right? So it's not so serious. We are a club, too, so we are more serious about it. Does your college's baseball team practice in the fall?
I don't know. In America, a team is just a team. Team mates aren't necessarily friends. It seems like lots of people want to do it as their job.
In Japan, a sports team is not just a team. We are all friends, too, so we go out and eat or drink together. Even if there isn't a practice, we will probably meet other members of the team. That's why we call it a club.
So it doesn't feel like a job?
We do our best at baseball, like a job, and it is difficult like a job, but everyone loves baseball and has a good time practicing and playing. So even when it's cold like this, we're happy to be here.

Many thanks to this gentleman (whose name I unfortunately forgot) for accomodating me and my shoddy third-language interview skills.


Nobody is warming the bench tonight. Devotion!