The City of Niihama was all decked out in Ghost green & Grey and PEBA blues as fans from across Japan – and the globe, descended upon the southern part of Japan in celebration of the 2039 All-Star Game. Breweries and restaurants were filled; parks and temple grounds were bustling. Tourists boarded buses to visit historical sites, such as the self-proclaimed ‘Machu Picchu of the Orient’ – Tonaru, the remains of the Besshi Copper mining site that dates back to the 1600’s in the hills above Niihama – where many historians believe the city had its birth. Tall stone wall remnants of storage facilities remain, similar to those at the famed Peruvian site.
Around the city were Taiko drums pounding rhythmic beats at every turn. At the
Niihama Civic Cultural Hall, a fabulous
Taiko concert thrilled audiences for two performances – a matinee and an evening show – by the traditional Taiko group
KODO.
The highlight for many visitors to the All-Star game was the annual All-Star Competition that has seen excitement over the years, such as Cleve Douglas of Charleston taking home the
golf honors in Palm Springs or Rien Leeuwenburgh of the Arlington taking home the
frisbee golf championship in Manchester; Francisco Lucador of West Virginia being deemed the PEBA
bull riding champ in Reno or Claudio Hernandez and Dean Walden winning the
Paddle & Portage in Madison.
This year the event was held along the shores of the Kokuryo River at the Kokuryogawaryokuchi
Ground Golf Grounds, and it finds the PEBA stars having to show their manual dexterity through the children’s game of
Otedama. The object of the game is to
toss small bean bags in the air in a specific manner, and at the end, score a set number of points, until a winner has been declared.
The point total was set at five, and the all-stars lined up along a lengthy table that held 12-players. There were to be four groupings and the top four from each group would move on the second-round grouping of eight and then the top two in each group would move on to the finals.
The All-Stars knew they were in trouble right from the start. On the very first round, Gloucester’s Norishige Ito and Aurora’s Toshikuni Kichida scored a full five on their first attempts, while others – like Reno’s Jose Ojeda struggled just to pick up three and four bag tosses, and then repeatedly watched the bags roll off the back of his hand, as he would finish last in his group. The hometown hero – Fernando Valdez of the Ghosts, was cheered on as he managed to score five points after his second series of tosses – much to the dismay of the purple and black clad Shin Seiki fans who hissed and booed boisterously in protest of it being the local star Valdez and not the Evas veteran pitcher Alberto Flores having been named to the SL squad.
Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that most of the players who moved on to the second round were of Japanese heritage – aside from Ito and the ‘Werewolf’, there also were Yoritomo Maeda (TOY), Masami Sanu (CL), Yasuoka Seki (NJ) and Keiji Honda.
The second round provided some thrilling moments as Kentucky’s Dan Gore quickly scored four on his first toss – but then needed three more tosses to get just the one extra point – working furiously to get that one point as he saw Ito, Zach Osmond (LON) and Sanu close the gap – Ito qualifying first, and then Osmond and Gore traded drops on their third attempt – poor Sanu kept getting stuck on the ‘pick up four’ stage’. Osmund needed three to win, Gore just one, and it was Osmund who got to the last flip – and he had the three, the third teetering on the side of his hand… then falling off. That gave Gore the edge he needed – this time holding on to advance.
The final had Ito, Gore, Kichida and Bakersfield’s Julio Jaramillo and it was an anticlimactic finish, as the competition ended as it began - Norishige Ito nailing all five on his first try, giving the young Gloucester starting pitcher the PEBA Otedama title! Through an interpreter, he gave thanks to his older sister who ‘forced us to play Otedama for hours at a time’. When asked about her, Norishige replied, ‘Oh,
she just makes bean bags on Etsy now.’
