Japanese fill Brazil’s lineup
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Among the teams the U.S. women’s softball team is dominating at the Pan American Games is Brazil. Or Japan in the guise of Brazil.
Yeah, it’s true, Brazil does have a national softball team. The uniform is green, yellow, blue and white, the colors of the Brazilian flag. But the players wearing them have last names like Takahashi, Murazawa, Tanaka and Morimoto – all of Japanese descent.
The Brazilians made their Pan Ams debut in Rio this week, with 16 of the 17 players on the roster coming from a community of Japanese immigrants. Pitcher Elayne Cristina Simon is the team’s only player not a descendant of Japanese, but she plays professionally in Japan.
“I’m the only outsider, but maybe I count as Japanese, too, because I play there. I don’t know,” she said.
Softball is one of the least popular sports in soccer-mad Brazil. Few people even know the game exists, and to find someone who understands the rules is almost impossible.
Brazil’s team never played in the Olympics and didn’t even make it to the Santo Domingo Pan Ams four years ago.
But thanks to a huge community of Japanese immigrants – the largest outside Japan – Brazil was able to put together a team for the Rio games. The sport, along with baseball, is huge within the community, which in Sao Paulo alone reaches about 1.5 million people out of a population of about 10 million.
The Brazilian team, with players mostly in their early 20s, didn’t do too well on the field – losing its first three games without scoring a run. They were no-hit by the United States, which is nothing new here, because the world champions have been untouchable.
In front of a crowd that had mostly fans of Japanese descent, the team was eliminated in the first round after losing 7-0 to six-time champion United States in five innings, 1-0 to Cuba and 2-0 to Colombia.
The team won its final match on Friday, beating Puerto Rico 1-0 to finish seventh among the eight teams participating.
But the bad results meant little to the Brazilians, whose baseball team is also mostly of Japanese descent.