Thursday, August 14, 2014

Figuring out the next steps

As those of you who are reading this are noticing, I have had to make apologies for not being able to stay awake through all the games of the day.  As you may have inferred from that remark, I do all my coverage not from Japan, but from the US.

In years past this wouldn't be an issue, I could manage to stay awake, get 3 hours of sleep a night and repeat the process for the entire tournament.

But much like those teams you see where there is a slow implosion in progress, I knew that lately - even before this Koushien tournament, that it was getting harder and harder to do that.  Unfortunately, it has come back and hit me hard this year.  Today I was able to cover the first two games, then despite my best efforts, by body basically forced me to sleep/nap and as a result I missed basically the 2nd half of the last 2 games.

And it's really frustrating because despite the fact that the first 2 days were primarily blowouts, the last 2 days were for the most part really competitive.  And I wish I could just stay awake to be able to cover them.

Because there's only so much you can get from the boxscore. You aren't able to see the player's reactions to things on the field - cues that can tell you how the next chapter in the game might go.

And that's the reason why I did this blog, was so that I could perhaps share that with everyone - with people who may not be able to watch the games.

But now I'm one of those people who may just not be able to watch all the games anymore. And I'm not sure what to do next...

6 comments:

JH said...

Thank you very much for everything. This blog has been the source of my love for kokoyakyu.

While I would be visiting this blog every day for your wonderful coverages, please take care of your health as well. We readers very well understand (and are grateful of) how much effort you are putting into this and how much pressure it could impose on your body.

JH said...

Maybe I could provide some coverages of the afternoon games which you might have trouble watching.

I will post them on this blog via comments, and you could edit/reproduce them in the later postings.

micchi said...

Hi Goro-san! I'm a young lady that recently found herself really intrigued by Japanese Baseball. This is my first year watching the Kokoyakyuu live. Being myself a non native japanese speaker(and only knowing few words let alone) Your blog is a blessing. And I follow you both here and on twitter, doing all I can to get a better understanding of this wonderful game!

But aside from this, I don't know you personally or anything, but I want to tell you one thing only: you're doing this for passion, for fun, but most of all, for free.
Nothing is more valuable than your time or your health, that you are gifting to the internet.

So if you need to rest or you need time to do your thing, you shouldn't feel so bad! The people that are mature enough will understand!
Well damn!! I can watch two or three games enjoing only the actual game! Even if I don't grasp the names or the type of pitch or whatever technical thing!

If you have to worry so much for people who cannot watch the entire game live, you will never see the end of it.

So, rest plenty and don't worry so much! There are a lot of games to do yet!! The Koushien just began!

You are the best!

micchi

westbaystars said...

Hey, it happens to everyone. Exhaustion eventually takes over. Don't worry yourself about it.

An alternative might be just to review the highlight real from the Asahi site. Giving people context to that would go a long way to your goal of helping others experience what is not covered in the box scores.

Relax. Get some rest.

Anonymous said...

I'm with the other commentators. I love your coverage here and on twitter (don't speak Japanese, and last year was the first year I started watching) but your health is way more important. I hope you take care of yourself, even if that means only being able to cover half of the games or whatever. Or yeah there are those suggestions made by others, like, you could watch the highlight reel, or maybe recordings of the game later when you have slept. (I don't know if any of the sites put up full recordings for the summer like MBS does for Spring, ahhh MBS is the best.)

Anyway yeah, please take care of yourself first and foremost, and do whatever amount of coverage isn't stressing you out too much. :)

Mike DeJong said...

Goro, thanks so much for your work. It is much appreciated.