The Travels of Tru – Part IV

A dear friend of the RSC and frequent commenter here, “Tru” is making the trip to Japan to see both Red Sox games versus the Oakland A’s. Tru was kind enough to offer to contribute his observations on his trip, Japan, and the games.

Here is the fourth in what will be a few installments of “The Travels of Tru”:

Note from Cyn: It’s 4:18am – there has been no editing of this post. Blame me for any typos.

Epilogue to Ticket Fandango

Yes, lucky indeed!

I got a few emails from the company based in Arizona that had the tickets. They were all over themselves with apologies, and saying they’d make it right. You now know that we were going to get tickets, but where in the Dome was the questions. I mean Brenda can probably see really well, and knowing we were having this 11th hour temple pulsing issue, it would be my luck to be up a few rows above the nose bleed section.

The final email was from a guy named Patrick who gave me his number in Tokyo, along with assurances that he’d have tickets in hand and ready to truck them over to the Keio Plaza Hotel whenever I was willing to meet him there. So, while I was listening to the manufacturing group discuss the issue of power supplies and why we were slipping from 4 months delivery to six, I kind of lost track of the time/space continuum and didn’t seem to care. Despite the contractual obligations I had negotiated with our single largest client back in the States, my priorities immediately shifted to getting the hell out of the office as quickly as possible.

Patrick and I agreed upon 3 PM, and typical to most Japanese people, Paddy was right on time; not a second late and not too early. I’d just gotten in a few minutes before him and was in the process of getting “geared” up in my room when the phone rang.

Patrick: “Mr. Thomas?”

Me: Yes?

Patrick: Mr. Thomas. I am now in the hotel lobby. If it is convenient, can you come to meet me?

Me: I’ll be right down.

Short of a Bruce Willis move with a fire hose and bare feet, I did not pull a Nakatomi crash through a window to move from one floor to the next 30. If only they kept fire hoses in the room, I was clearly tempted.

Patrick is a guy who speaks excellent English and divides his time between Los Angeles and Tokyo. He works only for one client and handles their executives need for sporting and other events in both Japan and the USA. Patrick was all excited to present the tickets, and promptly explained that he worked with the Red Sox on a piece of the junket the Sox marketers had promoted. He was allotted fifty seats, but he explained that too many people would not be able to make the trip, due primarily to the recent imbalance between the Dollar and the Yen. Understanding that the Japanese older style of business places a lot of emphasis on patience and careful listening, I had to repress my anxiousness to let him explain it all.

“Mr. Thomas, the seats in the Tokyo Dome have netting all the way around from foul pole to foul pole. Please understand about being careful to avoid hit with a baseball.”

After several minutes, he presented me with an envelope, which held the gold. The seats, in comparison to what Brenda and I purchased were light years apart. It turns out that vision will not be a difficulty, nor will our places. We landed behind the Sox bench, approximately 4 rows back, if I understood Patrick correctly. I’ll know more soon enough.

So the other seats for tomorrow night were presented to Mitsuharu Takahashi, a guy I’ve known for about 17 years. He has a son who is home from college and wotrks in one of the MLB shops on the perimeter of the Tokyo Dome. Takahashi-san says that typically, the shop he works in deals only with MLB goods, and they rack up sales of roughly 75,000 yen per night. Since the Sox arrived, their sales have eclipsed 5 million per night. You think Hank Steinbrenner knows this? Shit, in the spirit of one John Henry, I’ll be more than happy to buy him an autographed Sox baseball and send it to him, free of charge!

Brenda will be here in less than thirty minutes. I have our subway route in hand… approximately 18 minutes from Shinjuku station to Kasuga on the Oeda line. Seven stops in all. I read Beazer’s email and blog about going to Game On to watch with KellyO and others. Beazer, I’m sorry, but I cannot text you during the game. Oh, and it’s nice to know Brenken has issued a hit on me.