H2
	 Volume 21
	  Chapter 8 (207)
	   Wasn't Lucky?

 - Page 137 -

(Ch. 8) Wasn't Lucky?

 - Page 138 -

 - Page 139 -

Scoreboard: Senkawa
	    Ibasho

Mr. Tsukigata: My dad,
	wasn't lucky?

Mr. Shimizu: Yeah,
	we were just too young to understand it at the time.

 - Page 140 -

Mr. Shimizu: There was something wrong with that coach from the start...
	Over thirty kids on that team, and he made you leadoff hitter and play third base right off the bat.
	In an important game, too.
	And he never took you out, no matter how errors you made.

Mr. Tsukigata: Because my dad was pressuring him.

 - Page 141 -

Mr. Shimizu: We thought that too,
	since he was such a local celebrity.
	Even after that, they still treated you special,
	with only half the practice the others had to do, no cleaning up afterwards, and so on...

Mr. Tsukigata: And so I never got any better, and I never made any friends.

Mr. Shimizu: But you were always a starting player in the games.

 - Page 142 -

 - Page 143 -

Nishimura: Excellent!
	Your son is so talented.

Mr. Tsukigata: My doting father was so happy that his son was a starting player,
	that he told the entire town about it.

Mr. Shimizu: But there was one time you didn't play.

Mr. Tsukigata: Yes.
	A large group of my relatives who were in town for a wedding came to see one of my games.

Mr. Shimizu: And that's when he hit the coach...

Mr. Tsukigata: Saying that he had been shamed before his entire family.

 - Page 144 -

Mr. Shimizu: ...and then after that, you were a starting player once again.
	No matter how many errors you made.

Mr. Tsukigata: And because of that, I grew to hate baseball.
	No matter how many times I asked him, my father refused to let me quit.

 - Page 145 -

Mr. Tsukigata: And then, one day...

<<Grandpa: We're leaving, Shoichiro!
	There's no need for you to play on this team!
	We'll find you a better team!
	Come!

<<Tsukigata: D-Dad!

Mr. Tsukigata: What an irresponsible father.

Mr. Shimizu: I told you, it was the coach who was irresponsible.

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Mr. Tsukigata: What do you mean?

Mr. Shimizu: You remember a few years later, when the team you moved to played ours?
	When you got hit by a pitch, your dad jumped onto the field and starting going wild...

Mr. Tsukigata: I remember.

 - Page 147 -

Mr. Tsukigata: It was the fall of 6th grade.
	That was when I quit baseball for good.
	On my new team, they didn't treat me specially.  I was still a poor player, but I was getting to be friends with the other boys.
	And then it was all ruined.

Mr. Shimizu: It was intentional.
	That coach ordered the pitcher to hit you.

Mr. Tsukigata: To get back at my father for hitting him?

 - Page 148 -

Mr. Shimizu: I hear he was just some little restaurant owner who liked baseball.
	The coach, that is.
	A restaurant that went out of business when your grandpa opened a bigger one nearby.
	It didn't have a great reputation to start with, though.
	But it was owned by the family for generations, and he was quite upset.
	After his wife left him and took the kids, he tried finding other work,
	and eventually started coaching boys' baseball for fun.
	And that's when the son of the great Tsukigata family landed in his lap.

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Mr. Shimizu: And your short-tempered but friendly dad never realized that he was the target of this man's revenge.
	He entrusted the coach with his son's starting point in baseball.
	Under the impression that this was a talented coach who would treat his son well.

Mr. Tsukigata: He was always easy to fool.

Mr. Shimizu: Your dad always regretted that.
	Everyone who drank with him said he brought the subject up whenever he got drunk.
	So you really never heard
	the story?

Mr. Tsukigata: No.

 - Page 150 -

Mr. Tsukigata: I've never drank with my father.

Grandpa: Hmph!
	Wonderful son, indeed!
	He left for America after middle school,
	and never came home after graduating college in Tokyo.
	And when he DID come back, he was busy with business and politics,
	too busy to bother being close to his family.

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Mrs. Amamiya: But he did make a successful life for himself.  You could say that made you a successful parent.

Grandpa: Hmph!
	Well, true,
	he always had an affinity for business over baseball.

Bugs: (bzz)(bzz)

Grandpa: ...it all turned out the way it was destined to.
	Aaah!
	Thank goodness.

Bugs: (bzz)(bzz)

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 - Page 153 -

<<Grandpa: When you grow up, we'll spend a night drinking together like men.
	That's a promise, Shoichiro.

Mr. Tsukigata: I'd better make sure the doctor doesn't find out...

Mr. Shimizu: Huh?

 - Page 154 -

Mr. Tsukigata: ...no, nothing.

Scoreboard: Senkawa
	    Ibasho

 - Chapter 8 End -