A TV announcer screamed, "Today, on October 1 at 8:59 p.m., the winner of Nippon (Japan) Central League in the 1999 pennant race is the Chunichi Dragons professional baseball team. Now, manager Hoshino is being tossed in the air by his players!" Chunichi Dragons is the baseball team in my hometown, Nagoya. Actually, during the pennant race this year, the team was extremely strong, like the "king of the dragons." Although five other teams, like the Tokyo Giants, spent a bunch of money to recruit good players, the five dragon slayers were defeated by "the king of the dragons," my baseball team. One of the main reasons for the victory was that the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, Senichi Hoshino, was really aggressive. Indeed, as the head of the Chunichi Dragons, manager Hoshino, always spouted firebreath to the other teams. For example, once when a pitched ball hit a Chunichi Dragons batter, manager Hoshino dashed against the pitcher and punched him, and when he did not agree with an umpire's judgement, he rushed the umpire to argue the decision. Indeed, his aggressive behaviors reflect his nickname, in Japanese, we say, "the burning man." However, Hishino also has another side to his personality. When Chunichi Dragons won the pennant race, manager Hoshino was weeping because of delight. Hishino has shown he deeply loves his wife, who passed away from leukemia in 1997. Before her death, Hoshino's wife always told her family, " I really wish to see my husband being tossed in the air someday." Unfortunately, although she could not actually watch this happen to her husband, manager Hoshino had a picture of his wife in his pocket when he was being tossed in the air, so she was there with him. Therefore, he is not only an aggressive man, but also a tender man. After the victory of Chunichi Dragons, manager Hoshino and his players had a party in a hotel. There is a custom for Japanese professional baseball teams that members of the victorious team pour large amounts of beer on each other. Thus, as usual, manager Hoshino was delightfully engulfed in a flood of a thousand and one bottles of beer at the victory party because his name, "Senichi," means a thousand and one in Japanese. Thousands of people in Nagoya joyfully watched the party on TV. The rapturous wind of the victory blew, not only to manager Hoshino, but also throughout Nagoya. All people in Nagoya were waiting for the victory for eleven years; thus, we really looked up to the great work done by manager Hoshino. His extraordinarily respectable effort affected not only baseball enthusiasts, but also homemakesrs because numerous shops in Nagoya had fantastic bargain sales after each day of a Chunichi Dragons victory. The bargain sales were a chance for the people in Nagoya, who are usually quite stingy, to be like locusts descending to buy many necessities; actually, the shops benefitted too by making high profits. Thus, all people in Nagoya love manager Hoshino. I can say the victory might even be good for me personally because a recovering economic situation in Nagoya would bring a high rate of job offers. As it is, I can truly say I also respect manager Hoshino, both as a "burning man" and a tender man.

 

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