The Okajima Family

Friday, June 28, 2019

2019 Japan

Luke and Mommy left America in June 15th and Isaac and Daddy left in June 27 because Isaac was selected for SOLL (South Oakland Little League) All Stars Team for State Championships in U11 category. Isaac had to leave the team after the 2nd game, but he had priceless experiences with the All Stars team. Luke entered the local elementary school, Tsukushino-Elementary school, as a 1st grader and this is Isaac's last year with this Elementary school.

Cup noodle Museum in Yokohama and Cosmo Yokohama

Tsukushino Field Athletics

Machida Junior Jodo Tournament

Luke's match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVYjMesnUZ8
Isaac's match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxmi9TRzx9E

Batting cages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXdwGaet1As
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcaVj64oszk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZNCtQ3vTKQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBcCOobvP8A

Baseball Practice with Tsukushino Phoenix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLNG78JkDHA

Bike Ride

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95jw1OI2Rdc

Goodbye Tsukushino-Elementary school

Goodbye Tsukushno Phoenix!

Farewell Batting Battle vs. Keishi Kawaguchi and Kiho Motohashi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZhlnjANz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jpLCbrvJkw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRYw0BJCyrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQb61AU6z54

Friday, June 7, 2019

SOLL All Stars - 11 year-olds Team

The regular season ended about 2 weeks ago, but not for Isaac. Isaac has been selected for All Stars Team, 11U Division. He did well enough to get attention from other teams during the regular season! Although the coaches for All Stars did not plan to use Isaac as a pitcher, he became the starting catcher for the team. We did not anticipate Isaac being in the All Stars team this year, thus we had arranged airplane tickets to Japan in June 15th. We had a family conference for this issue and decided to delay the trip just for Isaac and Daddy. Mommy and Luke left to Japan in June 15th as planed, but Isaac and Daddy changed the flight to June 27th. We decided to stay with the team until the 2nd game of the tournament.

The team won the 1st game and will go to the 2nd round in June 26th. Isaac played the catcher throughout the 1st game and had 2 single hits. This is a double elimination tournament. The team is going to keep playing until 2nd loss, which means that Isaac has to leave the team, even though the season is not over yet. But this is the best decision we could made. He ended up producing .600 batting average (3 hits out of 5 opportunities) for the 2 games he played.

1st Game against East County All Stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5_JwwnuI1c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8KrTWB06mw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1GvJWOWGo

Sunday, April 28, 2019

2019 City Colleage San Francisco Judo Tournamnt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz2P4sJSDE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkNTC_r-LvM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynlzQTrDCz8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpwjkIFqYtA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcg0kWALK1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAti9QeChIk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTqOH9yVVnk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyaL3vhDxC0

Sunday, February 24, 2019

2019 NOLL/SOLL (North Oakland/South Oakland Little League) Opening Day

The season of 2019 for NOLL/SOLL (North Oakland/South Oakland Little League) finally opened up and we had a parade in Oakland Skyline High school. Luke continues playing baseball in the highest recreational level, Farm B with his team, Colosseum Dogs. Daddy decided to coach Isaac in the Major s as Head coach this year and earned his own team with Coach Jeff, the Cubs.

Isaac was skipping the higher level of Minor, AAA, but I was pretty confident that he would do fine in Majors, even though many people warned us that many kids struggle in Majors when skipping AAA. Isaac had outstanding records while in AA, about 0.800 batting average and only a few batters hitting his ball when he was pitching. He was also in coach freeze, which means that he was unable to be drafted by AAA coaches last year.

Anyway, Isaac ended up the best hitter in the team, above 0.600 batting average throughout the season /playoffs, became one of the pitchers who threw the fastest ball and a one of the best catchers in the league. The Cubs ended 5th place in the division in the regular season, but beat the team in the 4th place in the playoffs 1st round. Isaac was the closer in the game and closed the game in the 6th inning with 3 strikeouts with 13 pitches for to 3 top hitters. Unfortunately, we lost the 2nd round against the team in the 1st place and went to the losers' division. In the losers' division, we have a game against the team in the 2nd place against which we had 1-1 record during the regular season. It was really exciting game, but we lost by 1 run. That was the end of the season for the Cubs.

Luke continued playing games until June and made great progress. He was unable to catch a ball a little over a year ago, but mow he is one of the best pitcher and hitters in his team. He is one of the youngest players in his division too, but he might be ready for AA, in which Isaac played last year.