My take on the Jim Joyce call

I'm sure most if not all of you that read my blog are at least vaguely aware of the Jim Joyce incident. If you aren't let me lay it out for you.



In Wednesday night's Detroit Tigers vs. Cleveland Indians game, pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from completing a perfect game. (For those unfamiliar with what a perfect game is, check out the Wikipedia page.) On what should have been the final out of the game, first base umpire Jim Joyce blew a call and called the runner safe when he was clearly out, thereby costing Galarraga the perfect game. It would have been the 21st perfect game in major league baseball history, the third this year, and the second this week. But now because of that call, it stands in the books as a one-hit shutout. Galarraga faced 28 batters and retired 27(+1) of them.



You can watch the play here.



I read about what happened before I saw it because I was at work when it happened. I watched the replay during my lunch break and couldn't believe it. I thought that it would at least be a close call -- a "bang-bang" play. But it wasn't. I can't imagine what Jim Joyce was looking at. The only thing I can imagine is that he was looking at Galarraga catching the ball rather than the base. I don't see how else he could have missed the fact that Galarraga clearly beat the runner to the base. It wasn't even close. And in that situation, with that much on the line, it needs to be a lot closer than that to even consider calling him safe.



As a lifelong baseball fan, every time I watch the play, it makes me want to cry. Though many people I know don't quite get it, I see baseball as an absolutely beautiful game. The design and the uniqueness of the game is amazing to me. I see beauty in a close call at first. The fact that the field is designed in a way that a slow grounder, if fielded properly will almost always result in an exciting close play at first base is just one of the things that I find to be wonderful about baseball. And a perfect game is one of the most amazing accomplishments that a baseball player can achieve. It's a once in a lifetime performance by a pitcher with amazing teamwork all around to preserve the perfection. To see it end on a mistake like that is heartbreaking.



I feel so bad for everyone involved in the situation. I feel bad for Galarraga. I feel bad for Jim Joyce. I feel bad for the batter Jason Donald, who knows that he was out, but will go down as the one who broke up the perfect game. It's a situation that is just so unfortunate. I have a great deal of respect, however, for Jim Joyce who, after watching the replay after the game, went and found Galarraga and tearfully apologized to him. He's been a big league umpire for 21 years and he openly admits that he just blew the biggest call of his career and cost Galarraga a perfect game. Umpires know they're human and that they make mistakes, so you won't hear one say something like that very often. You have to respect him for that.

Bud Selig won't reverse the call and give the perfect game to Galarraga. I don't like that decision, but I can understand it. If you go and start reversing calls the day after games that could open up a big can of worms for situations like that in the past and future. Although if there was ever a time to do it, this would be it. What I don't understand is why baseball is so reluctant to use instant replay. This is 2010. We have amazing technology at our disposal. To waste it is ridiculous. People say, "Oh baseball is a sport with so much tradition. We can't ruin the purity of the game and of the human nature of the game by resorting to technology." I find that argument pointless. We can't fight against the progression of our society and the tools at our disposal. Football and basketball use instant replay with great success. Calls are reversed that should be reversed and stand that should stand. Baseball needs desperately to join its counterparts in the 21st century and start using instant replay.

Armando Galaragga should have had a perfect game on Wednesday night because Jim Joyce should have been able to use technology to reverse his mistake, his human error. It's just such an unfortunate circumstance.

The Ends Have Come

After spending most of my Sunday writing a paper, I am now officially halfway finished with my first course for my Master's Degree in Education from ACU. This paper I wrote today was a challenge as my brain just wasn't having it, but I worked my way through it and produced what I would consider to be an acceptable essay.

The course has been quite a beast up to this point. For the degree program I'm basically taking one course at a time. There are 10 altogether. The one I'm taking now is called Negotiation and Mediation. It's been interesting. There was always a stigma in my mind about online degree programs. I think that's the same with most people. When I tell people I'm earning my Masters online the response is usually something like, "So...like Devry?" I can't speak for some of the online Bachelors degree programs like Devry and what not, but I can say this - judging from the first 4 weeks of this class, this ACU online degree is legit. I've worked extremely hard. Kelly can attest to that. I spend several hours reading and writing each night, and my Saturdays and Sundays are almost completely devoted to doing school work. I don't know what this will bring for me in the future, but I now know that once I get my M. Ed. degree it will be just as legit and hard-earned as one I could have gotten by going to school on campus. Maybe even more so because I have to balance a day job in the meantime. I'm feeling really good about it at this point.

One of the interesting things about it is that since we're not in a classroom, the professor has to be creative about how he teaches. There has been a lot of group work and a lot of videos. This past week, there was a podcast featuring a mediation simulation. I thought the voices of the actors sounded familiar. After a few minutes of trying to place them, I realized that it was Adam Hester and Gary Varner from ACU theatre. After all these years, those two are still contributing to my education.

Well it's series finale season in the world of TV. This year is going to be especially tough as my two all-time favorite shows will be having their series finales on back-to-back nights. Lost, as everyone in the world knows, has its finale Sunday night. We'll be cutting off all communication wih the outside world starting tomorrow morning so as not to be spoiled. We're going over to Dion's tomorrow night to watch the finale with a small group of devoted fans. I've been a dedicated follower of Lost ever since the very beginning. I remember being at the lakehouse and seeing a commercial for Lost and thinking, "That looks kind of interesting. And it's got the hobbit from The Lord of the Rings, so I guess I'll watch it." I watched the premiere with my mom a few weeks later, and I remember getting to the end of the Pilot episode and thinking, "Wow. That was awesome. And what the heck killed the pilot?" I can't believe it's coming to an end. It's going to be crazy.

In addition to that, 24 will have its finale on Monday night. Though I feel 24 has declined in quality drastically over the past few seasons, I've been a devoted fan for a long time. I didn't see the first season when it aired because I was still at ACU and a theatre major has no time for watching TV. But when I was living with Andy the next year, he recommended that I watch an episode of season 2. I did and I was hooked. After season 2 ended, Andy and I went back and watched all of season 1 on DVD that summer. I believe that season 1 of 24 remains to date one of the best all around seasons of television ever. They've jumped the shark a bit since then, but I'll watch the finale this week and bid farewell to a great series and an awesome character.

I've been having a lot of dreams about Lost and 24 lately because of these finales. There's going to be a big void when the Jacks in my life (Bauer and Shephard) are no longer around. I'm going to have to find some new TV to watch. Any recommendations?

In honor of the 24 finale, here is an example of how it is popular even here in Japan. You ever wondered what Jack Bauer eats during his 24-hour days? The answer: Calorie Mate.

Food and drinks

In my final few months in Japan I want to start posting some pictures of random things that I eat, drink, see, etc. regularly. Here are a few for this week:

First, here is a coffee drink that I bought from a machine at work. In Japan, you can buy all sorts of drinks from vending machines. It's not just cokes and sports drinks, but coffee, chocolate drinks, orange juice, tea, flavored tea, etc. This is Kilimanjaro Blend Coffee, or キリマンジャロブレンド. It's a sweet coffee that I get every once in a while when I'm feeling extra tired in the morning. During the winter, it came out of the machine hot.


This is one of my favorite items from the bread stand at work. It's a cheese bread puff thingy. When I get it I just point at it and say, "Kore." (This) It's pretty delicious and most definitely bad for you.


This is a new dessert they've started selling at the bread stand. I didn't know much about it, but I saw the strawberry icing and I was sold. It's a pastry and it had some type of cream cheese type substance inside. Very nice, but only a once a week indulgence.


This is one of my favorite drinks to get from the machine. It's mikan juice. Not 100% but still very good. Mikan is mandarine orange. This is what I buy when I want to be refreshed but need more sugar than water or tea can provide.


That's all the food and drink pics for this week.

Here's a funny picture though. I've been reading my textbooks for my first course in ACU's Higher Ed. Master's Degree program. Caspian decided one night that he might like to get his Master's degree too.


Happy weekend!

Spring has arrived! (finally)

Kelly has posted a bunch of Trailwalker pics on Flickr. Check 'em out if you haven't yet, and if you have, check 'em out again!

Almost two weeks removed from the Trailwalker I can look back on it as a really good experience. It almost kind of seems like the whole thing never happened. Like it was all one big dream. On of the most amazing things about the whole experience is how I never really felt tired the whole time. I was tired physically of course, but never sleepy. And my mind was completely alert the whole time. It wasn't until we crossed the finish line and went into the cabin and sat down that it really hit me. I was asleep shortly thereafter.

Physically I'm mostly recovered. There's still one spot on the back of my left heel, the achilles really, that hurts. But other than that, it's like it never happened. I've even gotten back into my regular running and working out routine. And it's very nice to have my weekends free from hiking and things like that. I feel like a normal person again.

We just finished up Golden Week. The weather was absolutely beautiful. By far the best weather we've had since probably October. No rain the whole time and warm. I even busted out my shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. It's funny because many people in Japan believe that you shouldn't start wearing short sleeve shirts until June, no matter how hot it is. It can be 80 degrees on a beautiful May day and if you're wearing short sleeves, they'll ask you, "Aren't you cold?" But we gaijin don't always adhere to these "rules," so on Sunday I was on the train going to Dion's house for a barbecue wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Everybody was sitting around in their long pants and light jackets and sun hats staring at me like I was crazy. And I just stared right back. It's springtime people! Enjoy it!

I didn't do much during Golden Week. As I said we had a barbecue at Dion's. Kelly and I rode around town one day taking advantage of the nice weather. We went to a really good sushi place on the other side of Fuji called にこにこ (Niko Niko.) And on Tuesday, John and I went to Tokyo for a Giants game. That was fun as always. The Giants won 5-1 over the visiting Swallows. Heroes of the game included 阿部 (Abe) the 1st baseman, ラ三レス (Ramirez) the left fielder and ゴンザレス (Gonzales) the starting pitcher. As you can see, the Giants are very multicultural.

Back at work now for a short 2-day post-Golden Week work week. It would be nice if they could make up another holiday and actually turn Golden Week into a week instead of a 5-day weekend. But it's Friday now, so we're almost finished. No major plans for this weekend. I think we're going to some sort of classical concert in Shizuoka tomorrow. Should be fun.

Well, back to grading diaries!

Brief Oxfam Trailwalker wrap-up

We did it! This will not be a very long blog post. I'll post more details about the hike later when I'm feeling a little less groggy, but I'll give the basic details now.

We started the hike Friday morning. The starter pistol went off at 9:05 (uncharacteristically late for Japan.) We finished the hike at 11:44pm on Saturday night. Altogether our time was 38 hours and 39 minutes. We came in 55th place overall out of about 160 teams. The first 20 to finish were trail runners. This means they basically run every part of the trail they can. So basically of the teams that didn't run the course, we came in 35th place. All four of finished, which we were really happy about. Many teams lost members along the way due to injury or exhaustion. Of the teams made up of people we know (ALTs from our prefecture) we were the 3rd team to finish and the 2nd to finish with all 4 members.

So that's the basic info. I want to write all about the hike, but just can't find the energy to do it right now. I can say this: I don't think words can give an accurate account of how difficult this was. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult thing I have ever done. There was a time in the middle of the night Friday night when I questioned if I could finish. We all did. The rain turned parts of the trail into a complete mess. One stretch that took us a little over 4 hours on our practice hikes took us over 7 hours because every step we took was into ankle deep mud. I laid down at checkpoint 5 for about 45 minutes but never went to sleep. So I ended up doing the whole hike without sleep. It was extremely challenging. But we made it. So, like I said, I'll write in more detail about all of it in the next few days.

What I can tell you now is that my body survived amazingly well. I actually made it through the hike without a single blister on my feet. I'm hurting all over, but the worst looking part of my body is my fingernails and the skin surrounding them. That's an accomplishment all on its own.

So anyway, the Fuji Crew did it! Thanks everybody for your support! It was a great accomplishment and we're very happy about our results.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

The big day is almost upon us. We've been training and fundraising and preparing for about 6 months now for the next two days of complete torture. Reading various thoughts and posts on Facebook from the many ALTs around the prefecture that are doing this hike, I find that most of us have the same feelings right about now. What were we thinking?

But at the same time I know everybody is also excited and full of nervous energy leading up to the start tomorrow morning. The weather forecast is calling for a good deal of rain and some pretty cold temperatures. Weather forecasts are notoriously bad in Japan, but I have a feeling this one is going to be accurate. It's pouring outside right now, at least. What I'm hoping for is to at least get started and get the first few hours under our belt before the rain kicks in. It'll be a lot easier to stay positive if we're not already soaked when the event begins. But, no matter what, we're all going to gambatte! We have no other choice. We can do it!

So for my last post before the hike, I'll give some final details so all of you back home can be thinking about us.

• Fuji Crew fundraising total (to date): 143,033yen (Thank you very much!)
• Start time: 9:00am (I was wrong in my last post.) 7pm CDT Thursday.
• Arrival at Checkpoint 4 (estimated): 7:00pm, 5am CDT Friday. This is the first place we will see our support crews made up of friends and family (including Kelly!) They'll have some positive energy, food, and changes of clothes for us.
• Arrival at Checkpoint 7 (estimated): 8:30am Saturday, 6:30pm CDT Friday. This is where we will take our longest break and possibly try to get a little bit of sleep.
• Finish (estimated): 8:00pm Saturday, 6am CDT Saturday This is where we pass out.

As you can see, we're shooting for a little less than 36 hours. It's going to be tough, but we feel like we can do it.

Well, keep us in your thoughts as we go and I can't wait to report back on how it went with pictures, stories, etc. Let the Oxfam Trailwalker Japan begin!

Kyoto, School, and Hiking - Busy Times!

A lot has happened since my last post, as usual. We had a great time in Kyoto. It was really nice the first few days we were there. The weather was nice and it was relatively warm. We were able to take lots of pictures and see some cool places. We went to a big market on the first day we were there and bought some household decoration type things. We also saw many temples like Kinkakuji and Kiyomizudera, and a really cool place called Fushimi shrine where there is a long, long pathway lined with thousands of torii gates. Kelly recorded a short video of it. It started to rain a few days into the trip which put a damper on the rest of our activities. Most of what you do when you are in Kyoto involves being outside, so we had to deal with it. Living in Japan, we have gotten very used to keeping an umbrella with us most of the time. I always used to prefer small, collapsible umbrellas, but now I like to use the bigger kind. They're more tedious to carry around, but when you spend a lot of time walking around outside in the rain, they're definitely more effective. We actually got into a good routine when we were sight-seeing and Kelly wanted to take a picture. I would go over to her and hold her umbrella over her while she took the picture. It worked out pretty well.

We ate a lot of really good food while we were there including what we both proclaimed to be the best sushi we have ever had at a place called Tomizushi. It was a very small restaurant, and we sat at the counter and just told the chef what we wanted when we were ready for something else, and he would make it right in front of us. It was so good and fresh and a great way to start our trip. Other interesting restaurants we ate at include a tofu restaurant where almost everything we ate was made from tofu and a delicious tempura restaurant where the tempura was cooked right in front of us. It was pretty amazing.

We put some pictures up on Flickr that we took with our iPhones during the trip and the rest will be up on Flickr eventually. I'm glad we got to go down there finally. It's one of the must-see places in Japan.

The new school year got rolling this past week. We had a big turnover of teachers, especially in the English department. We had 5 English teachers leave and 4 new ones come in plus one who returned from maternity leave (which can last years in Japan.) All of the new teachers seem very nice, so I'm looking forward to getting to teach with them. One of the teachers who left was Morita-sensei who was by far the most helpful person to the ALTs at our school. She was always willing to drop everything to help us even if she was in the middle of something. She even helped out Jeff and Gwynn when there was an unfortunate key incident during their visit. She will be missed greatly.

The new ichi-nensei are cute and small and nervous as usual. As well as extremely excited to be in high school. I'll have my first class with new students on Tuesday. Really looking forward to that. They are sure to make my last four months fun and exciting.

We had our last practice hike last night before the real deal in two weeks. Last night we did Checkpoint 7 to the Finish. Altogether it was only 20km, but it's a very difficult stretch. The people who designed this course decided it would be a good idea to put the most difficult sections right at the end. Why? I don't know. To be cruel, I guess. In the last 20 km there are three mountains that you have to climb up and then down. Basically it works like this. You start off from CP7 and walk along a gravel road for a while until you come to a mountain. You climb the mountain a long way. It's very steep in places and just an altogether long ascent. When you get to the top, you go back down the other side, as would be expected. A long, steep decline. At the bottom of the mountain is CP8. From CP8 you almost immediately start climbing another mountain. This mountain it extremely steep. There's even a section where there is a rope along the trail to hold on to to prevent falling backward. This was actually a nice change because it gives you a chance to use your arms for a bit rather than solely relying on your legs. You finally get to the top of the mountain and of course, you immediately go straight down. When you get to the bottom of the mountain, you cross a road and on the other side of the road? You guessed it! You start climbing another mountain. By the time we got to this mountain the sun had come up which made climbing it much easier. When we got to the top, there was a nice view of Mt. Fuji very nearby.

We made the descent to Lake Yamanaka where the finish is and then slowly made our way bus by bus, train by train back home. Altogether the hike took us about 7 hours which isn't bad. But it was definitely taxing on the old legs. My left knee started tightening up on this hike and the hike last weekend. I think my legs will definitely be happy when this is over.

This was our first hike to do with all 4 of us together since back in January, so it was good to get together and check on our pacing and strategy. I think we've got a good system worked out, and I have full confidence that we'll complete the hike. We've now all done every part of the course. We're taking next weekend off from practice hiking to give all our wounds a chance to heal. Then we do the real hike on April 23-25. Our starting time is 8:00am. That's 6pm CDT on April 22 for anybody back home who wants to know exactly when we're starting. I'm getting really excited about it. We've reached our fundraising goal, and now all we have to do is do it.

Here are some pictures from the hike:


This is from before obviously. These pictures (on my desk at work) are the step by step pictures of the trail that we use to make sure we don't get lost. They come from the Oxfam website on full pages but we decided to cut them out and put these booklets together to make them easier to carry around during the hike. It worked out well last night.


John and Ashley at the top of the third mountain of last night's hike. It was about 5:30 in the morning here. John, as you can see, is a self-proclaimed non-morning person.


Me at the same place. The shining area you see in the far right is Yamanaka-ko. It's one of the Fuji Five Lakes. You can also kind of see the base of Mt. Fuji in the background.


Fuji-san starting to peek out from behind the clouds with Yamanaka-ko in the foreground. This side of Mt. Fuji (the northern side in Yamanashi Prefecture) gets much more snow than the side we see all of the time.


John, Linton, and Ashley coming down the final mountain.