Hammering one home for amateur baseball
2007-06-23
Tokyo Hammers
From the Yankees' Hideki Matsui, the Red Sox's Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki, to the Yomiuri Giants and the Yakult Swallows, Japan may show baseball is not only a "great American pastime." But the Tokyo Hammers prove you don't have to be in the major leagues to passionately play ball in the metropolis.
This year marks the third season that the Tokyo Hammers take to the field in a league all their own - literally. The club doesn't play in an official league but weekly exhibition games and an average of four seasonal tournaments a year, combined with a serious competitive streak, give it the feel of a big-league up-and-comer.
The Hammers rank 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the best) in two annual amateur tournaments, including the GBN Road to Dome (sic) tournament, says manager Roark Stephens, 42. But he argues that given the team's pitching strength and overall number of recent wins against good teams, "I think we're actually a level-2 team."
Also the club co-founder and first baseman, Stephens takes his baseball very seriously - from the trading cards and uniforms he collects, to the pride he takes in boasting that when his wife was pregnant her water broke at a baseball game. "Growing up in Los Angeles, my love of baseball began at an early age," he says. "My mother played softball and at age 5 she took me to my first Dodgers game. From that point on I was in love with baseball." It's a passion that went into the making of the Tokyo Hammers.
After playing for a couple of other amateur teams that he thought focused too much on good times and beer and not enough on competitive baseball, Stephens says he enlisted three other serious players to start the Hammers nearly two years ago.
"I realized that the only way I would be happy is if I were to build a team around other serious players like myself," he says. "So the four of us talked over how we wanted to build the team" and got started. Like his beloved Dodgers, he adds, "My whole dream was to focus on building the team up around pitching."
Currently there are about 17 active club members, but the official roster is much bigger and membership fluctuates to meet changing times, Stephens says. He notes, for example, that the once 60/40 ex-pat-to-Japanese ratio is now reversed.
"I always say, 'once you're a hammer you're always a hammer,'" Stephens says. Players who have since left Japan are known to return for visits with their uniforms in hand to play a game or two, and the team is always scouting for new talent. "We're always trying to accept new players. It doesn't matter what country you come from or even if you speak English because baseball is such a universal game."
It's a sentiment shared by Po Hsun Song, 26. The marketing student from Taiwan was recruited by Stephens as the Hammers "star pitcher" in part for the curveball, forkball and slider he developed playing in high school back home and at a Japanese university. "One day I met Roark on the field and he invited me to join," says Song, who also plays outfielder. "The team is very international; you can meet people from different countries and cultures. You can practice Japanese, English and Chinese."
The team is currently scouting more players with high school or college experience. "We re looking for experienced to highly experienced players at this point," Stephens says. Players' skill levels vary from basic to even one member who has been scouted by the Florida Marlins, he adds, but the Hammers also value "good attendance and sportsmanship." Fortitude also comes in handy when playing for this ball club.
"We're not fair-weather baseball players; we try to book a field every Sunday year round," he says adding the club usually breaks for a three weeks around Christmas and New Year's. "We've played games that have been in some pretty cold weather."
For exhibition games the club squares off with other teams looking for opponents via venues or Web sites, and Stephens says the Hammers are starting to draw invitations from other like-minded competitive clubs. Competition is also stiff for the use of Tokyo baseball fields, which often employ a lottery system that makes it hard to know the venue and opposing team more than a few days in advance.
Under such circumstances Stephens says while he wants to get in as many games as possible, "as a level-3 team, I'd rather have a close game with a level-1 or level-2 team than an easy win with a level-4 or level-5 team." Circumstances also dictate that - contrary to baseball tradition - the Hammers have no home field. But like an ace pitcher the team manager applies the best possible spin: "When we say we're the 'Tokyo' Hammers, we truly are. We've played in all corners of Tokyo; I tell people these are all our home fields."
Stephens admits that as club manager he runs a tight ship that includes no smoking and limiting chat to the task at hand during game time. He describes the club as "100 percent serious" but adds that those don't have to drive home from games "are known to go for a few beers afterwards." But it's obvious where his heart is. "We try to do things that are off the field but the focus is very serious when the game is on," he says. "We encourage players to invite their friends and family to sit on the bench with us so they don't have to sit way up in the stands."
Club members share the cost of renting public fields, which can range from 500 to 2,000 yen per game. In addition, a team uniform cost about 20,000 yen. One-time and annual fees between 10,000 to 5,000 yen are currently being assessed to cover the cost of team-owned equipment, Stephens says.
For more info on the Tokyo Hammers visit: http://www.ballcharts.com/hammers or e-mail club manager Roark Stephens at: partywithroark@hotmail.com. Information (in Japanese) about the annual GBN Road to Dome baseball tournament is available at: http://www.gbn-sports.com.
