No, it's not punishment. See, the Kansas City Royals' new manager, Trey Hillman, is still the manager of Nippon Ham Fighters, who are playing in the Japan Series.
So the Kansas City Star sent their best reporter (and one of the best sportswriters in America), Joe Posnanski, to cover Hillman and the series.
His column today is filled with great stuff, and you ought to read it, but this was my favorite:
[In Japanese baseball] they have a halftime in the middle of the fifth inning, featuring dancing girls. Once, early in his time in Japan (this is his fifth season), Hillman was at a manager’s meeting, and a heated discussion began about how to speed up games. Hillman listened to the various ideas and then he finally said: “You know, if we really want to shorten games, how about we get rid of halftime?”
The looks on the faces of the other managers told him immediately that he was tromping on sacred ground.
“We’ve been doing halftime here for a very long time,” he was told coldly.
“And that,” Hillman says now, “was the last time I spoke at a manager’s meeting.”
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