Cross-cultural communication （36）　

36） Celebrities from overseas on Rokko Island
For the past 30 years or so, I have been living on the man-made island of Rokko Island in Kobe. One of the features of this island is that it is home to many English-speaking foreigners. So, on holiday mornings, when I go into the nearby Tully's Coffee, I see several groups of foreign customers chatting away in English. One reason for this is that the Canadian Academy, an international school with facilities from kindergarten to high school, is located on the island. I will introduce this school in the near future.

Well, the most famous of the many foreigners living here are, without a doubt, the foreign players of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team. Traditionally, the foreign players of the Hanshin Tigers have been living in the luxury rental apartments in Rokko Island. If you go back to a legend,Randy Bass, Rokko Island was not yet developed, so I think they probably didn't live on the island, but from around 1990, O'Malley, Paciorek, Arias, Brazel... they all lived on the island. Of course, almost all the islanders knew about this, and out of respect for their privacy and that of their families, they would not talk to them unnecessarily. However, it seems that they would sometimes call out to them and give them high-fives or handshakes when they passed each other on the island, such as on the weekend immediately after a game in which they had played.

George Arias was a player who was active with Hanshin as a home run hitter. He had a lot of home runs, but because he hit a home run to make the score 10-1 in a game that was already won, he was called “Muda-Uchi George” (useless homerun hitter) by fans with sharp tongues. The day after George hit a priceless game-winning home run at Tokyo Dome, I ran into him by chance at the Rokko Island movie theater (which had closed down due to poor business a long time ago). I called out to him, “Hi, George,” and said, “Nice homerun in Tokyo last night,” and he raised his right hand high in reply.

Brazel was also a strong hitter who had a high batting average and hit many home runs at one time, but he was fired in the middle of the 2012 season. Thi

s was just before the nine-game series at the beginning of the Golden Week holiday season. He was struggling with his poor performance, but he was still appearing as a pinch hitter. On a holiday morning, I went to McDonald's on the island with my third son to have breakfast. When we entered the restaurant, Brazel and his family were sitting at a seat in the corner that was not very noticeable. We finished eating before them, and when we were leaving, our eyes met. So I went over to his seat and said, “Hi, Mr. Brazel, I'm a fan of the Hanshin Tigers. I pray for nine consecutive wins of the Tigers during the Golden Week,” and held out my right hand, and he shook it firmly. The next day, when I was watching the game on TV, Brazel came on as a pinch hitter at a good point in the game. However, Hanshin lost the game due to a poor hit. If he had hit a game-winning hit and won the game, he might have talked about the previous day's events in the post-game interview. What a shame!?

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