aNdReW

My cousin works in the front office of a professional baseball team in Japan. Every season, the team evaluates its foreign players on a standard form. Eight categories. The form was designed in 1987 and has never been changed. It was built to answer one question: will this American cause problems? This year's American is a catcher from Oklahoma. Thirty-three. Slightly wider than our dugout door. Let's call him Lane. My cousin let me translate his form. 1. PUNCTUALITY Arrives two hours before every game. Not to train. To learn the names of the stadium staff. All 140 of them. He knows the parking attendant's daughter is applying to nursing school. We did not know this. 2. RESPECT FOR SENIORITY Calls the 68-year-old groundskeeper "Mr. Enomoto, sir." Calls the team owner "Chief." Calls the owner's 91-year-old mother "young lady." She has attended every home game since. 3. TEAM HARMONY Started a barbecue in the players' parking lot after every home win. Our backup shortstop, 22, has not spoken in a team meeting in three seasons. He now runs the grill. He has opinions about ribs. He shares them. 4. EMOTIONAL RESTRAINT In August, our rookie hit his first walk-off home run. The first player out of the dugout was Lane. Crying. He was not involved in the play. He was involved emotionally. 5. LANGUAGE EFFORT Speaks 41 words of Japanese. 30 are food. Says "arigato" to the umpire after strike three. The umpires held a meeting about this. They have decided they like it. 6. FAN RELATIONS Signs every autograph. Every single one. After a loss in July, he stayed two hours in the rain. A security guard held an umbrella over him. A second guard held an umbrella over the first guard. A third guard went for coffee. 7. CONDUCT TOWARD OPPONENTS Tipped his cap to a pitcher who struck him out. The pitcher's mother wrote us a letter. We have no procedure for this letter. It is in a drawer. 8. ADDITIONAL REMARKS Our rookie is Kaisei. He is 20. His father had not missed a home game since Kaisei signed. Three hours each way. Section 14, row 3. He always brought the same banner, made from an old tablecloth, with Kaisei's name painted on it in big, shaky letters. In June, his father died suddenly. Lane does not understand Buddhist funerals. He went anyway. He bought a black suit that morning. It was the biggest one in the store, and it was still too small. He took the last seat in the last row. When it was his turn to offer incense, he froze. He didn't know how. Kaisei's little brother, who is nine, came down the aisle to the last row, took Lane's huge hand, and showed him. Pinch. Lift to the forehead. Drop. Bow. Lane did it exactly the way he was taught. Then he stayed for all three hours. At the end, he gave Kaisei his bat. The one he hit his first home run in Japan with. "Your dad's got a better view than any of us now," he said. "Every at-bat. Let's give him something to watch." The next home game, there was something new hanging in our dugout. An old tablecloth. Kaisei's name in big, shaky letters. Lane had asked the family if he could borrow it. He hung it himself before every game until the season ended. Nobody told him to. Kaisei batted .310 from June on. With that bat. The walk-off in August, the one Lane cried about? That was Kaisei. That was the bat. Rounding third, Kaisei pointed at the dugout. Not at the crowd. At the tablecloth. The form ends with one last box. RECOMMEND CONTRACT RENEWAL: YES / NO. For 39 years, the general manager has circled one word and filed it. This year, somebody turned the form over. Twenty-eight signatures. The entire roster. The backup shortstop. Kaisei, in very large letters. Mr. Enomoto, the groundskeeper, who is not on the roster and was not asked. A very careful pencil signature from a nine-year-old, who is also not on the roster. And Kaisei's mother, who mailed hers in a separate envelope and asked that it please be stapled on. Under all of them, one word in English, in the groundskeeper's handwriting: "PLEASE." Lane signed for two more years. The form has still never been changed. But my cousin says that next season, they're adding a ninth category. It doesn't have a name yet. They're calling it "the Lane thing." America, you sent us a catcher. You don't fit on any of our forms. Please keep sending people who don't.