Joe Posnanski

I’m not exactly sure how you are supposed to handle jet lag, but I’m pretty sure I’m doing it wrong.

– In my blessed sports writing life I have been at some insane sporting events outside the United States. I was in Scotland when Jean van de Velde lost his mind at the British Open. That was crazy. I was in Sydney when a Wyoming dairy farmer’s kid beat the unbeatable Russian in a wrestling match. I was in an Australian Aborigine village when Aborigine Cathy Freeman a gold medal at that same Olympics.

And just now I was in Japan and saw a Japan Series clinching perfect game thrown by two pitchers. Talk about a mouthful.

Here’s what I have learned from all that: Sports is a regional thing. It was Reggie Jackson who said in 1977, “I was reminded that when we lose and I strike out, a billion people in China don’t care.” He could not have been more right. The Japan Series perfect game is, perhaps, the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in sports. I had never even seen a no-hitter before in the thousands of games I had seen … not live.

Now, I saw a Japanese Don Larsen named Daisuke Yamai, who had never done anything especially interesting, pitch eight perfect innings in the most intense pressure. It was Game 5 of the Japan Series. His team, the Chunichi Dragons, led 3 games to 1. The Dragons had not won a championship since 1954. So put all together, this would be like, say, Cliff Lee throwing eight perfect innings in the fifth game of the World Series in Cleveland.

And then, of course, it got weirder. The crowd was chanting “Yamai! Yamai!” Crowds in Japan generally do not cheer for pitchers. They have all sorts of songs and chants for hitters but in this culture, when their own team is in the field, the fans mostly stay silent and allow the other team’s fans cheer for their hitters. It takes some getting used to. They don’t do it quite that way in, say, Philadelphia.

Anyway, they’re chanting “Yamai!” and they’re going crazy and nobody can believe that they might really see a pitcher throw a perfect game in the Japan Series … and then that crazy Dragons manager Hiromitsu Ochiai — sort of the Frank Robinson of Japan only quirkier — starts talking to the umpire. His pitching coach goes to the mound. This is how they make pitching changes in Japan. Nobody could believe it. I mean, nobody. It was open mouths everywhere. Our minds could not even get around what we were seeing. Was Yamai hurt? Was he sick? Had he thrown 150 pitches (no, he had only thrown 86). What the heck happened?

Still, nobody knows. The closer HItoki Iwase was brought in. He looked embarrassed. My first thought was that this had to be a cultural thing — maybe it’s a bad thing to throw a perfect game in Japan. But no, I’ve come to find that perfect games are, more or less, viewed the same way in Japan as they are here. When I told Royals manager (and the Nippon Ham Fighters manager who had the perfect game thrown against him) Trey Hillman that nobody in America would EVER pull a guy throwing a perfect game, he said: “Well there isn’t another manager in Japan who would do that either.”

Hitoki finished off the perfect game and Ochiai was thrown in up in the air by his players (as is customary when the team wins a championship). He never really explained why in God’s name he pulled a pitcher throwing a perfect game. He did say something about how it was better to have the perfect game shared. Whatever that means.

Craziest thing I ever saw. And I would say that back here in the States, exactly nobody cared. I mean, people cared for the brief, “Wow, that’s crazy” sort of way. But that was the extent of their caring. And you know what? That’s just the way sports are. That’s, I’m sure, how I would have been had I not been there to see it. We care locally. Nobody in Japan cares that the New England Patriots are having a season for the ages. Nobody in Indonesia cares that Navy beat Notre Dame. Nobody in Australia cares about A-Rod.

(By “nobody” I of course don’t really mean nobody. There are pockets of fans everywhere. There are some huge Premier League fans in America, and some huge NBA fans in Moscow, and some huge hockey fans in Rio. Not many. I’m using “nobody” in the more general sense).

It goes beyond distant coasts. Whenever I travel to Canada, I’m taken by their sports news. It’s about Canadian sports. Hockey. Motorsports. Canadian football. I mean, sure, there are American sports in there too, but it’s striking to be so close to the American border and have such a different outlook on American games.

Then again, when I travel 200 miles South in America, they don’t care that Kansas is No. 4 in the BCS Standings. Buy Globally. Watch sports locally.

It reminds me of a classic line by a newspaper editor: I was in Turin at the figure skating championships, watching the pairs competition, when I saw a Chinese skater throw his partner head first into the boards and then, in one of the more inspirational and bizarre things I’ve ever seen, come back and win a bronze medal.

It was inspirational, obviously, because he threw her HARD into the boards, I mean seriously it was like a World Wide Wrestling thing, and then after she was able to regain herself and they finished the routine and won a bronze. It was sort of Willis Reed meets Seabiscuit meets Priest Holmes.

And it was bizarre because, while I don’t claim to be any sort of figure skating expert, it does seem to me that propelling your partner head first into a wall might be one of those skating maneuvers that should eliminate you from medal consideration.

Anyway, when it ended, I was sure that I had just seen the moment of the Olympics. I could only imagine how NBC would play up that story, with piano music and flashbacks, it would be like a very special episode of Heroes or something. I was sure of it. And then a friend called home to his American editor to explain how amazing it all was, and the editor responded with three words that — while they sounded somewhat crass and myopic at the time, turned out to be 100 percent true.

The editor said: “They’re still Chinese.”

Sure enough nobody cared. Except a billion Chinese.