From the Archive: C’Mon, Spill It
By Ryan Spilborghs
(This story was originally published in the September 2013 issue of Rockies Magazine.)
Former Rockies outfielder and fan favorite Ryan Spilborghs, a key member of the Rockies playoff teams in 2007 and 2009, is playing for the Saitama Seibu Lions in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League this season. Spilly has embraced playing and living in a different culture, and he shares some of his observations of Japanese food, music and more.
There are many rites of passage within a baseball team, even more so when you are immersed in a new culture. The obvious things I’ve done so far have been speaking to the team (“Spilly desu, Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu,” which is asking for your respect), eating some Japanese food (nanto is fermented beans, smells like feet, but with soy sauce and seaweed paper, becomes more than tolerable) and participating in any and all drills or gestures.
More than anything, like in any culture or new group you’re trying to assimilate to, showing an interest and attempting to participate in all that is new is a great way to earn your place among the natives. When I started the season in the Minors, I was forced to learn, participating without a translator. It was difficult at first, but very rewarding — it was the quickest way to learn the language and get to know my new teammates and environment.
On a baseball field, being at the same position and speaking some English were my simple criteria for finding my new best friend, Yoneno-san. We are about the same age and he reminded me a lot of my professional basketball buddy Kyle Korver (shooting guard who looks like Ashton Kutcher — kind of a stretch, but they have similar haircuts).
Yoneno was traded to my team, the Saitama Seibu Lions, a couple years ago from Orix Buffaloes, so, similarly, is a bit of an outsider. There is something about being homegrown in one organization that does that to new guys coming into a new team. He’s a really good hitter, he’s funny, he stretches all the time and we bonded right away. On off days, he would take me to the beach or a river for a BBQ with the guys. He would always take me to try new restaurants — I literally will eat anything, or try something at least once. One night after one of our day-off adventures, he took me to a karaoke bar.
I’ve always been given the moniker of being a good teammate. That concept can be a little deceiving, in my opinion, after spending years in professional baseball. “Good teammate” is code, like how “charming” means “small” in real estate. A “good teammate” is far from just a clubhouse term; you earn that distinction by being someone that is good company, on and off the field. Now, I don’t want you thinking a “good teammate” means the guy is causing problems, out every night at a bar. He may, but most likely he’s the guy that will go to dinner with you, have libations with you and make the evening outside of a hotel room enjoyable.
This karaoke bar is hidden in Shinjuku, a neighborhood in western Tokyo, behind a Starbucks. It is no bigger than a living room and it is “charming.” There is nothing pretentious about it. It feels like an old worn-in hat and smells like it too.
Yoneno was instantly greeted as we walked in. The owner Hokaji is a baldheaded man with a hilarious and contagious laugh that instantly reminds me of Statler, one of the old hecklers from the “Muppet Show.” We sat down at one of the tables and Yoneno ordered us dinner and some “nama biiru” (draft beer). (Since I’ve been in Japan, I only consume alcohol when I have an offday the next day. With the amount of work we do and knowing how quickly I get dehydrated, the last thing I want is to get hurt — I don’t want any distractions.)
As we ate the food, the small bar started to fill up (there was really only room for about 20 people to begin with) and many of the patrons knew each other, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. People started getting me to try all the different foods and “Neno” let me fend for myself because he’d seen me in action before. I will say, the more stuff you try, especially food, the greater your appreciation for certain things you know you like.
I’ve been asked a couple times how I order food in Japan, which is “point and pray.” Usually my guide is my eyes. Most menus have the picture of what you’re going to order. If I recognize it, I’ll order it. If I’m with someone I know, I’ll let them order for me. But if I don’t know what I’m ordering, I usually just brace for the worst — and believe me, I’ve had some things I wish never entered or left my body.
Music in Japan is embraced and loved. Pretty much everyone knows every Japanese song ever made — it honestly feels that way. Right now, boy bands are big here, like ’N Sync and Backstreet Boys, times a thousand. All music on MTV here is of some type of girl or boy band (AKB 48!!!!). Luckily, people at karaoke bars don’t sing those too often, and as much as they love it, even they have to take breaks from it.
Just like in the States, people who sing karaoke like to sing ballads. The entire time people were singing, I kept getting egged on to sing myself. I do like to sing. In fact, if I had any other talent besides baseball, I wish singing would be it. Sadly my voice sounds like Bob Dylan with a head cold. I do like to dance, too, but I’m not Shakira or MJ. The obvious choice was going to be singing something in English.
And most people in the world that don’t speak English and want an English song will pick something by Michael Jackson. Luckily, I love MJ. When the “MJ Experience” video game came out on Wii, which teaches you to dance like him to his songs, I picked it up right away and I still remember being in a separate room away from my family and sleeping kids to try it. You can imagine my wife’s face when she saw me dancing in the dark.
So when Hokaji pushed the mic into my hands and the famous “Billie Jean” bass line started to kick in, I couldn’t help but start using those moves that Wii controller taught me years before. For those five minutes, I don’t know if I was in heaven or…somewhere else. I think it was somewhere in between heaven and that somewhere else, but closer to heaven. Luckily, the reverb helped my voice quite a bit because I’m far from capable of hitting the notes MJ hit.
I think the people got what they asked for. Yoneno’s face was bright red from laughing and when it was all said and done, I got grand applause from the bar and was graciously welcomed after completing (well, kinda) another rite of passage. I’ve been back a couple times since with Yoneno. They let me serve food and drinks now, but they keep the mic far away.
Speaking of music, anyone who experiences live baseball knows a player’s entrance or “walk-up” song is extremely important to both the player and the fans. It stirs emotions for the moments that follow. When you hear “Enter Sandman,” you know Mariano Rivera is about to slam the door. When you hear the laugh of Ozzy Osbourne to start “Crazy Train,” Chipper Jones is strutting towards the plate. Walk-up songs are baseball’s way of programming a fan’s mind — much like making Pavlov’s dogs start drooling — when a certain player is about to play.
Baseball is funny. It’s a team sport where players have individual battles. Much of the time, a player feels like he’s on his own island, stranded and left to fight for himself. Players choose songs for different reasons: they like the song, it pumps them up, it’s a joke, maybe it says something in the lyrics they want you to hear or they simply want fan participation. I always picked my songs according to very simple criteria: it had to be known and catchy. I always shied away from rap, country and heavy metal, not because I didn’t like it, but because it was too easy to pick one. I loved fan participation. If I could find a song that got people to sing when I came up to hit, I felt like it pushed people’s eyes on me and, believe it or not, when you feel the crowd behind you, there is a shot of adrenaline that helps you compete.
So coming to Japan this year, I always had in the back of my mind a song to pump me up and pump up the crowd. I was leaning towards Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget about Me);” I figured Japanese people liked ’80s rock and it had a nice hook they could sing to. In the States, I think it would have been a great song. But here, crickets. Japanese players’ songs are a stark contrast to the States.
By the way, a side note: riding the train up north is beautiful, but much of the time, people on trains fail to look around. We are too busy reading a paper or playing with a tablet to notice anything around us and it makes me sad that checking our Twitter or Facebook — things that make us feel connected to the world — actually disconnect us from the simplest of all our senses: sight, and the important things that are actually, physically happening around us.
Anyway, Japanese players pick slow songs, I’ve heard a couple ballads by relief pitchers, but the thing here is that the Japanese love their native music. All songs are sung. But the other difference is that a walk-up song isn’t needed to spur the attention of the crowd; teams’ cheering sections are involved in every player’s at-bat. Some players even have their own song and dance. I wish this concept would be adopted in the States, but it takes effort and, honestly, American baseball fans are far more reserved and they would find cheering sections annoying, like someone talking too loudly on their cell phone.
The Chiba Lotte Marines have by far the best cheering section in Japan. Apparently the fans were soccer fans who adopted the Marines. They are all in from the first pitch. They are animated and loud — the antithesis of MLB fans. They have almost a cult or gang-like presence and it’s cool and rebellious to be a Marines fan. Many wear bandanas over their faces and hold up flags of Che Guevara in a Chiba uniform. The point I’m getting at is that a walk-up song here is much more personal for the crowd. It’s why, after one of the many times I failed to get a two-out RBI, I was approached by a coach to change my song.
During the first day of Spring Training in Nango, a small town south of Tokyo, the first song I heard over the loud speakers at the stadium was some space-pop song with a very high pitched female singer repeating the chorus “fashion monster!” The song was extremely annoying. But it was also on continuous repeat and it saturated my mind. It’s like when “Mambo #5” by Lou Bega or “Whoomp! There It Is” by Tag Team gets planted in your head and you can’t help but repeat it. Your brain tells your mouth to sing it and your subconscious self wakes up and says, “Hey! Stop singing that!”
So after a brief attempt at getting Simple Minds popular again in Japan (I’m assuming a lot right here), I was asked prior to the season, “What Japanese walk-up song would you like?” Of course, the way my mind works is by blurting out the first stupid thought that comes to mind, “Fashion Monster!” And now, to the dismay of my teammates, coaches and myself, every time I waltz toward the plate, the voice of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu blurts those damn words.
The worst/best part is that the fans love the song, I’m always approached on trains and other places where I get recognized, “Hey! Spilly-San! Fashion Monster!” usually with great enthusiasm that I would choose a Japanese song. I smile, nod and say to myself, “Nice choice, nerd.”
Like I mentioned earlier, it was during BP a couple weeks ago, the day after I failed to get that two-out RBI, when the coach asked me to change my song because he felt it lacked “fighting spirit,” meaning, “You stink and maybe changing your walk-up song would make you less stinky.” I told him that I really don’t care about my song and to go ahead and change it for me. So that night he did, and I walked up to the plate to the song from the movie Over the Top, a classic in my opinion, starring Sylvester Stallone as an arm-wrestling truck driver. Honestly, I hated the song. It actually made me upset when I walked to the plate, so I guess it served its purpose. But after a couple days, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I’d been listening to Macklemore of late and went against my usual rule of thumb and changed to a newer song, “Thrift Shop.” The start of the song has a cool beat and I like how it repeats “what, what, what.” The problem was that my waltz to the plate takes about 20 seconds and gives the song plenty of time to drop quite a few expletives, none of which really matter in Japan since I’ve heard worse at other parks. But Randy Williams (a former Rockie himself) asked if there was a cleaner version, since his three kids come to the games. I apologized and told him, Honestly, I couldn’t give a rat’s behind about my dang song this year.” So, I’ve come full circle, back to “Fashion Monster.” It is what it is. Maybe it lacks “fighting spirit,” but that all changes with an RBI, which it did after my first at-bat back with that darn song playing again. Go figure.
As you can see, I’ve had some very interesting and eye-opening experiences here in Japan, and this commentary on music is just scratching the surface. So, Rockies fans, thanks for all your support over the years!
And until next time…
— ROCKIES —
