The Navy W

When I hear people talk about baseball, something in me still aches a little.

It is not because I am a devoted fan.
I never was.
Then or now, I have almost no real interest in professional baseball itself.

My childhood memories of it are not especially good ones.

When I was in elementary school, there was some kind of outing organized by the neighborhood association.
We were told to wear a cap.

I think my parents took me to buy one a few days before the trip.

At the store, there were baseball team caps lined up in a row.
At that age, I had no interest in baseball at all.

So I chose one simply because I liked how it looked.

It was a navy cap with a white W on it.

At the time, I did not even know which team it belonged to.

On the day of the outing, I felt that something was slightly off as soon as I reached the meeting place.

The other children were all wearing caps that looked more or less the same.

Yellow and black.
Even I could tell those were Hanshin Tigers caps.

Mine was the only one that looked a little different.

I do not remember where we were going.
I only remember that we traveled by train.

The carriage was mostly empty, and the children naturally settled into groups.
I was sitting by myself a little apart from them.

I did not really understand why I was set apart.
I could not think of any particular reason.

At the same time, I did not feel like making my way into the group either.

Somehow, I knew it had something to do with the cap.

While I was sitting alone on the train, one of the adults in charge came over.
He had probably noticed that I was the only one sitting off by myself.

"You're the only one wearing a Taiyo Whales cap. Are you a fan?"

I did not really understand the question, so I shook my head and said no.

He named a few players, but I could only keep shaking my head.

I suppose he realized there was nowhere to go from there.
Before long, he drifted away.

To me, it was just a cap.
Something I had bought because I needed one for the outing.

But I do not think it looked that way to everyone else.

This reminds me of an uncle of mine, the kind of relative who liked to look after people.
He was a Hanshin fan.

He used to tell me that once I became a working adult, baseball would definitely come up in conversation,
so I ought to learn enough to talk about it.

I took that advice seriously and tried to watch baseball on TV.

But when something fails to interest you, it simply refuses to stay in your head.
Which is only natural, I suppose.

I have never had especially good associations with professional baseball.
Games would go into extra innings, and the programs I had wanted to watch would get pushed back.
For the child I was, that too was part of the reason.

It was not so much baseball itself.
It was the feeling that everyone was simply expected to share it.

I used to think not being able to talk about baseball would be a problem.
But once I actually became an adult, it turned out not to matter that much.

These days I live a reasonably satisfying life.
No one sorts me by the cap I am wearing.
They look at whether I can do the work.

I suppose it is a better time now.

It was probably never really about baseball.