[Bilge_Rat]

it's almost poetry, if you are a baseball fan...

Entering the ninth inning, Saibi is losing 5-3. The Kyoto-Gaidai West players are shouting joyously in their dugout, and Anraku looks far from the tallest boy on the field.

Then his manager, Joko, makes some vague, almost invisible gesture, and Anraku releases his customary acceptance of command -- a chest-thumping shout that starts deep in his gut -- bowing to his manager before he sprints to the mound.

And while this might sound like mythmaking, like some hinterland baseball legend that's told by scouts to their children to explain why they are never home, this is a true account of what happens next:

The entire field goes silent. Not quiet. Quiet is not a strong enough word to describe this instant temple. It goes dead silent. What had been a consistent, heavy chatter just stops. Anraku's teammates, the opposing players in their dugout, the umpires, the mothers and fathers and tea-brewing booster club up on the hill -- nobody says a word. Nobody claps or chants or boos. An opposing player noiselessly pulls out a radar gun, but nobody else moves. Even the two girls, gripped tight against the rightfield fence, stop their lovesick parade.

Suddenly, there is a monster in their midst. He nods at his catcher, a tiny, brave boy built like a whippet. Anraku's huge hands lift slowly over his head, and he starts his big, leggy delivery, classically Japanese, a full-body unwinding that culminates in a fastball thrown right down the throats of every last person here.

The radar gun is in metric: 148 kilometers an hour. 92.

Anraku throws another pitch, and then another, and then another. He throws nine pitches in total, fastballs, sliders and curves. He hits 94. There is one foul ball. Otherwise there are only untouched strikes, called and swinging.

Nine pitches. Nine strikes. Three up, three down.

And then there is so much noise, a symphony rising up around Tomohiro Anraku once again