Nice article from Brian McTaggart on Tommy Manzella's Japanese lessons, to better communicate with Kaz.
"I've been picking up on it pretty good, but just the basic stuff..."[Valentine] said it goes a long way as far as your relationship if they see you, not only them trying to make an effort to learn your language, but you making an effort to learn their language. That's the kind of people they are. They show that as a sign of respect. He said take a couple of words every day and, by the time you realize it, you have a vocabulary of 50, 60 words."
Matsui's translator, Yoshitaka Ono:
"He obviously tries to communicate with Kaz. I don't know if he's going to do it with Japanese on the field, but it's good enough, and to see the effort to try to communicate makes Kaz feel more comfortable. He learned how to say little general words and count one through 50 and some baseball terms. The basic stuff."
First class.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
