Kä-wä-ˈsä-kē !

Once upon a time Munenori Kawasaki hit a home run.

Frank Gunn, AP/The Canadian Press

Once upon a time Munenori Kawasaki hit a home run. Yes, it really happened. Go to his baseball reference page and you can see it there for yourself, immortalized in the annals of MLB history. Six hundred and fifteen career at bats, a Mendoza-straddling slash line of .234/.315/.285, one hundred and fourty –four hits, fifty runs batted in and..wait for it…one home run.

In my mind the home run should have at least two asterisks beside in order to denote it’s awesomeness. As I’m writing this I’m fantasizing that five hundred years from now, when a team of archaeologists find my smartphone and meticulously go through my browser history, they will see this article and their curiosity will spark an investigation. The investigation then turns into something they will dub “The Legend of Kawasaki” and becomes a case study that’s held up as a yard stick for centuries as a way to measure how great sports can make people feel. Wow.. I barely got out of the gate here and I’m digressing. That’s okay. Let’s continue.

Muni’s standalone long ball occurred on sunny midsummer evening. The Blue Jays were riding an eight game wave of winning baseball and each passing day became the new high water mark for the season. The fans were loving it and so were the players.

It was Friday and it was the first of game of a weekend series against the first place Orioles. The game didn’t disappoint at all. Like great sporting events often do, the momentum swung back and forth from inning to inning like an emotional pendulum, collecting and engaging people as it went and as fans settled back into their seats after seventh inning stretch, the Orioles had a 6–4 advantage.

The home half of the inning started with promise. Maicer Izturis shot a leadoff single into the outfield and as he stood on first, and the tying run coming to the plate,a nervous excitement started to circulate through the park like a psychic wave. However, after a Thole flyout and a Bonafacio strikeout, the rally, along with the winning streak,seem destined to die on the vine.

But it didn’t.

Kawasaki stepped into the box and heroically deposited Tommy Hunter’s 1–1 pitch into the right field bullpen and in doing so, brought fourty five thousand people to their feet in a moment of sheer unexpected ecstasy.

The background to his moment is as essential to this story as the home run itself. In the winter of 2012, Jays GM Alex Anthopolous pulled off a string of moves that no one had anticipated.He upgraded the core of the roster in one sweeping motion and had seemingly set the franchise onto a new and exciting course.

Toronto acquired 2012 CY Young award winner R.A Dickey from the Mets and a whole slew of players from the Marlins in a twelve player deal that was highlighted by the addition of iron man lefty Mark Buehrle and All -Star shortstop Jose Reyes. Anthopolous managed all of this without without giving up anyone who was presently valuable at the major league level. They were great trades. Suddenly, a team that had limped to a 2012 record of 73–89 were Vegas favorites to win the World Series. There was a ton of room for optimism and that space was filling up quickly.

As the beginning of the season approached, a palpable buzz began to surround the team and people were talking about the Jays again. It was safe for people to make statements like “this is the year!” because for the first time in a long time, there was a compelling argument to back it up. It felt great to be a fan again. Around the holidays, Sportnet even ran the 92″ and 93″ World Series in their entirety in an attempt to introduce or rekindle that feeling that surrounded the team during those years. It worked.

The Jays saw an unprecedented resurgence in interest which translated into new fans coming to the yard, old fans returning and a sold out home opening series. Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last very long. The losses started to stack up and restless enthusiasm quickly turned into concern. That concern then mutated into just plain sadness on April 12thwhen Jose Reyes slid awkwardly and late into second base and broke his ankle. Enter Kawasaki stage right.

Munenori arrived virtually anonymously into Blue Jays land but it didn’t stay that way for long. It was really for me to find the specific moment that he won the hearts and minds of fans so I approached it more like a puzzle. The outer pieces were things like the weird calisthenics routine that he went through before games or the traditional Japanese bow that his teammates had adopted. By the time you get to his early June two out walk off hit and subsequent interview where he proclaimed “I am Munenori Kawasaki! I am from Japan! I am Japanese!”, the picture becomes pretty clear. Toronto baseball hadn’t seen anything like it in quite some time, if ever.

It’s really difficult to articulate exactly why the memory of his homerun feels so sacred to me. Sometimes I think (I was drinking a lot during that time) that it could have been a feverish craft beer induced fantasy that eventually became true because I told and retold the story so many times (It’s not a lie if you truly believe it) but whenever this suspicion sneaks in all I have to do is dial up this clip and I get the wonderful reminder that ordinary people sometimes do extraordinary things. Which brings us back to the night in question.

All 75 kg of Munenori Kawasaki squared up that pitch from Hunter and it really was an against all odds kind of home run. I have so many memories of that night. I remember the crack of the bat suddenly snapping everyone into the moment and the guy in front of me with the road grey Bautista jersey jumping out of his seat. In my minds eye I can actually still see rainbow trajectory of the ball and how it felt like the crowd was willing it over the fence. I also remember having the realization that it could actually be a home run as Markakis kept looking up and then back towards the fence until he finally ran out of warning track. I remember how I gave a high five to anyone and everyone within arms reach and some that weren’t. And as Muni was rounding the bases I remember turning to my brother, and with a stupid smile on my face

saying “Fuck! Did that just happen?”. I also remember being one of the first to join the Ka-Wa-Sa-Ki chant and continuing long after it was appropriate. Two innings later Rajai Davis walked the Orioles off with a 2 out single to left centre field and the Jays were the owners of a 9 game winning streak.

In retrospect, the best synopsis for Kawasaki’s tenure with the Blue Jays is the understanding that his persona(and most likely real personality) was so likable that he managed to transcend the fact that most athletes are cheered when they succeed and run out of town when they don’t perform. For Muni, trying was good enough. He might go down as just an MLB footnote, a lovable mascot of sorts, but to a lot of people, including myself, he will always be much more than that. The reason to go to the yard and cheer on Muni was embedded in his effort. The rational baseball fan who prides themselves on assessing players value by analyzing their statistics suddenly found himself or herself standing out of excitement every time a play involved Kawasaki. Even mundane things such as slapping a routine grounder to short or being on the receiving end of an infield fly became a piece of performance art that left you walking towards the exit with a little more bounce in your step and the wish that there had been one more curtain call.

Cheering for Muni is easy and the sentiment I have for him will always be completely void of irony. I want him to succeed because, in many ways, he is me. He is the majority of us. He is the 14 year old me grinding out at bats during tryouts for the travelling baseball team I so desperately wanted to make. He’s me when I made the team and couldn’t hit so I had to make myself a valuable teammate in other ways. When I watch Kawasaki step into the box, I’m also holding the bat. And together, late on the fastball, we chop it down the third baseline and run like hell. And every once in a while, together, we square one up.

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