This Trip Is Open to Interpretation

Going to a job in Japan can take a lot out of a guy. Take, for example, Richie Scheinblum.

Back when he was playing baseball for the Hiroshima Carp, 20 years ago, Scheinblum wanted to tell a Japanese umpire what he thought of his strike zone. Richie asked a fellow Carp to give him an insult in Japanese, something that would really irk the ump. So, the friend did. He taught Scheinblum a phrase that meant: “You lousy Korean.”

Other Americans on business in Japan had other ways of getting through their days there.

Daryl Spencer was so disgusted by being benched for a Hankyu Brave game, he stepped out onto the on-deck circle, dressed in nothing but his undershorts and his shower clogs. Reggie Smith, now a Dodger coach, once got so hot under the collar, he turned it backward. Reggie took the field with every stitch of his Yomiuri Giant uniform reversed--pants, shirt, cap, even his underwear--and ran backward, with his shoes on the wrong feet.

“You can’t take batting practice that way,” the manager said.

“Then I’ll take batting practice in my mind,” Reggie replied, and returned to the dugout.

Ah, Japan.

I have business there myself. I am on my way to Nagano for the Winter Olympics, the first winter site other than Europe or North America since the Sapporo Games of 1972. Nishukan dake Nihon ni orimasu, which either means, “We will be in Japan for just two weeks,” or, if my Japanese is rusty, “Hideo Nomo will hit a homer.”

My last trip to Japan was a wonderful experience. I attended a show at the Kabuki Za classical theater in central Tokyo, took a bullet train to Kyoto to make a visit to the famed Kinkaku Ji temple of the golden pavilion, saw “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in a crowded theater that cheered every minute of it, then slept on the floor of a bed and breakfast, after watching Larry Parrish play first base on a grass-free infield for the Seibu Lions on my TV.

At the foreign correspondents’ club in Tokyo, I caught the guest speaker, Ralph Nader. He was quite complimentary about Japan’s automotive industry, and never once mentioned a Chevrolet Corvair.

I am looking forward to going back.

Nagano is new to me. I know very little about it, except that it is 120 miles from Tokyo, that foreigners travel there frequently to stay at the onsen (hot springs) and that the managers of the Iwa no Yu inn say if you call in advance, you can make a reservation, between 1 and 3 p.m., to use the mixed men’s and women’s bath.

I never think of Japan when I think of winter sports. Japan didn’t win a single gold medal at Innsbruck in 1976, at Lake Placid in 1980, at Sarajevo in 1984 or at Calgary in 1988. (Japan won exactly the same number of medals in 1988 as Liechtenstein. I thought any nation with a skate sharpener and a snow blower could win more medals than Liechtenstein.)

Japanese athletes have had a lot of bad luck.

For example, between 1992 and 1994, Kenji Ogiwara dominated his event everywhere he went. His event was that one with the oxymoronic name, Nordic “combined individual.” Yet even though he was the world champion, Ogiwara did not win a medal of any color at either Albertville or Lillehammer in his best event.

Then there was Midori Ito. She was a very short and very skillful skater, a fan favorite since she was 12. By the time Ito went to Albertville, she was 22 years old and 4 feet 9 inches tall. I am talking small here. This woman made Kerri Strug look like Uma Thurman.

But unlucky?

At a world championships once, Ito was slammed into by another skater during her warmup. Then she did a double toe loop . . . and crashed through a gate, right out of the rink, like Wile E. Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon. For a year thereafter, poor Ito became a star in every “blooper” video. She got more air time than Jose Canseco when he caught that fly ball off his head.

At Albertville in practice, right in Ito’s path, a skater did a back flip. Ito looked as if she had just seen a flying saucer land and drop off Jamaica’s bobsled team. She was totally distracted. She obviously wasn’t able to take batting practice in her mind.

In the end, America’s Kristi Yamaguchi got the gold medal. Ito got a silver, but fell on her lutz.

I never saw a skater with such bad luck, not counting those stalked by Tonya Harding.

For the past few weeks, I have been studying up on Japan’s winter sport, and I think I’m ready. In the mountains, for example, if the word san is tacked on, it means “Mount.” (In other words, my reference guide wants me to get through my thick skull, Fuji-san stands for Mount Fuji. It doesn’t mean Mister Fuji.)

Well, anyway, I am on my way.

Yuhan wo taberu mae ni O’furo ni hairitai desu.

It either means, “I would like to bathe before eating dinner,” or it means, “I would like to bathe during dinner.” Just like Reggie Smith, I sometimes get everything backward.