Am I really that crazy (again)?

A few weeks ago, I saw on social media that two pitchers in the Seattle Mariners system were selected for TeamUSA and were off to the Premier12 qualifying rounds for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. 

Hey, cool! 

Um, wait. What does that even mean? 

Does it even matter whether I know what it means?  

At the core of Kristin’s baseball [near] obsession, being on this Premier12 bandwagon is not just about the prospect of Olympic awesomeness for the nation in which I live. It’s baseball. It’s TeamUSA. It’s Wyatt Mills and Penn Murfee. Oh, by the way... I met both the aforementioned players when they were with the Everett AquaSox. I have pictures to prove it. I’m the short one. 

 

In the Premier12 opening round (hosted in Mexico), TeamUSA defeated the Netherlands, lost to Mexico, and defeated the Dominican Republic. I was able to watch the latter two games, and even though I had no idea how wins and losses played into the results, USA won the #2 seed to the “Super Round” in Japan. 

Hey, cool! 

Um, wait. What does that even mean?

I searched the internet in pursuit of clarity on the implications of next week’s games in the context of Olympic qualification. The more I saw, the more confused I got. I consistently read that the six teams in the Super Round are vying for “potentially” two Olympic berths. 

No one is telling me the meaning of “potentially.” [Insert melodramatic gesture of frustration]

I guess I’ll find out what’s going on over the course of the next week. In the meantime, I get to watch November baseball, albeit in relative ignorance of the big picture. 

And that brings me to the “this” part of “I told you all that to tell you this.” 

The first two games that the USA is playing in Japan are at 7pm Tokyo time. I am terrible at figuring out world time zones (it involves math, after all), but I have some experience in US-Japan time difference.  

Back in March of this year, the Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s opened the MLB season in Japan. That is when I learned that 7pm in Japan 19 hours ago on the US west coast. And yes, I was crazy enough to get up that early to watch those two games (and go to work afterward), but that’s a different blog post. 

So, on Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be setting my alarm for a time that most people who work a first shift job (including farmers) don’t know exists. 

On Wednesday and Friday (in Japan), the games start at 12pm, which puts first pitch at a more normal baseball time in my area (7pm the previous day). “The previous day” is an important statement here. Not only does it make the math more difficult for me, but it raises my perceived insanity to the next level. 

TeamUSA will be playing in Japan on Tuesday at 7pm and Wednesday at 12pm. In my time zone, that schedule translates into Tuesday at 2am and 7pm. Yes, two games on the same day, with approximately 20 hours between the first pitch of the first game and the last out of the second game. With an 8-hour work shift and a medical appointment on my Tuesday agenda, I see no nap gap. 

Yes, I’m crazy.

But am I that crazy?

Ask me Wednesday morning. 

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