Something might have gotten lost in translation after Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda was asked by his manager Dave Roberts to demonstrate his warm-up routine in the team clubhouse. Newspaper articles described Maeda¡¯s arm-waving motions as a ¡°dance¡± but, unless he has added some choreography since leaving the Hiroshima Carp last year, I would not call it that.
He does not move his legs and feet, and I tried to find a dance similar to what Maeda does before throwing practice pitches, but there does not seem to be any. It isn¡¯t the watusi or the mashed potatoes. Not the Macarena or the twist.
Furthermore, one article quoted Maeda describing how he felt doing it as saying he was ¡°ashamed¡± to perform the action in front of his teammates. I was not there, but my hunch is Maeda said he was ¡±hazukashii,¡± a word in Japanese that can mean ¡°ashamed,¡± ¡°embarrassed¡± or ¡°shy¡± in English.
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