When GB came to Japan in 1969 he didn’t know anything at all about baseball. Very fortunately, one of his first students at Reitaku University, Masayuki Okada, introduced him to the senior members of the Baseball Club in late 1969, and for several years after that GB attended many of the club’s matches in the Kanto area, and sometimes took 8mm film of them. This film footage is available on DVD from GB or at www.gb-library.com


GB has enjoyed close friendship with those members (now OBs) of the Baseball Club for many years and sometimes attends their reunion parties in various parts of Japan. When GB retired from Reitaku in 1994, the Baseball Club OBs held a special farewell party for him, and presented him with a beautiful fountain pen. Back in 1970, when senior member Nakamoto graduated from the university he gave to GB his old personal pen stand (with one corner chipped off!). He and his fellow members also presented to GB a wonderful gold sake cup in a special box. This cup has been used again and and again by many people at drinking parties over the years, so much so that the gold plating is beginning to wear off at the edges! When Okada and his fellow Baseball members graduated in 1973, they presented GB with ‘something different’ – a beautiful Hakata doll of a girl with a teacup.


Because of his connection with the Reitaku Baseball Club, GB has become fascinated by the sport and learned much about it, nowadays enjoying the Koshien High School baseball tournaments and the careers of great players such as Sadaharu Oh and Ichiro Suzuki.


THANK YOU VERY MUCH, REITAKU BASEBALL CLUB MEMBERS!



 

Good Friends for Over Forty Years!