In Japan, we use "san" to show respect for others.
In this title, I use "san" to show my respect to Mr. Ebisuya.
When I met Ebisuya-san again, he hit fungoes for me on concrete, on public roads.
Balls I failed to catch sometimes rolled behind me.
Bang!
Bang!!
Bang!!!
Like this, soft balls hit the business car of an electric shop behind me.
Even though I was in the 5th grade of elementary school, but I thought "It's tooooo bad", as expected, an angry man came out of the electric shop.
Of course, the angry man pointed his anger at Ebisuya-san who hit fungoes for me.
I was wondering, ”What will Ebisuya-san do?, he just apologized.
On that day, after fungoes, Ebisuya-san took me to a night duty room of the junior high school.
In the night duty room of a junior high school, he served me instant coffee and talked about various things he had experienced in his life, such as playing baseball as a member of company team, and going to Manchuria in the war.
Since then, it has become a pleasure for me, even though I'm an elementary school student, to enjoy fungoes Ebisuya-san hit for me on the ground of a junior high school and his talk while having a cup of coffee he poured me in the night duty room.
Instant coffee, which I drink while listening to his talk, was a treat for me.
It was very mild, it was very good for me.
Fortunately, my relationship with Ebisuya-san had been continued even after I stared junior high school.
With a friend of the baseball club in junior high school, I catched fungoes from 5 am, played an intrasquad game, played tag at an empty junior high school on Sunday and rode an electric bike in the school corridor, I had a lot of experiences owing to meeting Ebisuya-san.
After hitting fungoes, Ebisuya-san always gave us a 1,000 yen bill and said, "Let's buy your favorite juice!"
The juice we drank with Ebisuya-san was absolutely delicious.
I was soooo looking forward to this juice and I caught fungoes for this juice! haha
Even on a rainy day and when the ground wasn't available, I once went to the night duty room by myself to see Ebisuya-san.
"Many boys in the second year of junior high school, they get a girlfriend and stop practicing baseball. You, don't do that and keep on playing baseball when you will be a high school student.", Ebisuya-san often said.
His habit was "Study and practice three times as much as others."
I learned from him the importance of "continuing to do" and "dealing with a large number of experience".
I really respect Ebisuya-san, he is a great mentor for me.
to be continued...
