"That's not the infield fly rule," I said to my teammate, a Korean doctoral student in Baoding's Hebei University. "If just man on first, no...this. If man first, second, or man first, second, third," I said pointing to the now-empty bases, "then, yes. Otherwise, 'ma yo' (not have)."
My teammate looked at me, shaking his head, '.Okay.' He had been on first base with no one else on base when there was a pop up on the infield. No one caught it, but still he stood there, not trying to run, just pointing to the sky that there should have been an infield fly rule called. He was wrong, which I explained. Well, which I tried to explain.
A moment later, after talking with the umpire, he ran back to first base and took over the poisition of the batter who hit the pop fly, who rightly should have occupied first now. With that, I stood behind home plate and realized the great folly of my explanation:
1.) I'm an American in China and my teammates (Korean and japanese students) speak little to no English.
2.) No one can really understand the infield fly rule to begin with...
At one point, I started realizing the weight of this truth and cheered for my teammates in English:
"Hey, baby, no one can understand me anyway so I'm just gonna yell a lot!" I said while being the third base coach. There was a runner on second who simply shook his head 'Yes' and tapped the brim of his helmet.
It's cold. We're playing hard, and not just baseball and soccer, either. Battle onward, dear brothers.
