Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Celebrity Commentary" (coming soon)
This is a "small" (小) post—click here for an explanation of Round and Square post lengths.
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One year ago on Round and Square (8 June 2012)—The Accidental Ethnographer: Melbourne Revival (b)Two years ago on Round and Square (8 June 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: The Bootleg
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| [a] Individual and Society RF |
可飛ばせ, すずき!
Let 'er rip, Suzuki! OR
Fly to base, Suzuki!
Fly to base, Suzuki!
—Common Japanese baseball chant
(Suzuki is a common surname, like "Jones")
(Suzuki is a common surname, like "Jones")
And one thing that flies over the outfield (even the little stubby ones) like a golf ball hit by a three-wood is the Japanese professional baseball.
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| [b] Tightly wound (youth version) RF |
I mean the baseball itself. It's tightly wound—far more so than the American equivalent.
Whether or not the players are tightly wound is another story that connects in all sorts of fascinating ways with social and cultural theory. You see, American major league baseball has more than a few bench-clearing brawls. They would seem to tip the balance toward uncontrolled anger on the part of American big-leaguers.
But wait. Are we talking about anger...or "uncontrolled" anger?
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| [c] Focused...but wound? RF |
There are no brawls—ever—in Japanese baseball.
Um, never.
It just would not do.
Does that mean that the players are less tightly wound...or more?
Chew on that, and we'll chew on a little concessions stand squid-n-beer tomorrow.
[If you don't read Japanese, but want to have some sense of the Japanese kana and kanji in these posts, just copy the phrases and paste them into translation software such as Babylon or Google Translate].
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