You know what the hardest part with this sort of series for me is?  You just want someone, anyone, to give him a hug – and no one does.  Seeing a gentle soul like Daigo suffer like this is one of the brutal parts of a good sports anime about kids. Yes, we will talk about his father, believe me – but in a minute.  There are plenty of people who had the chance (Toshiya would have meant the most to Daigo, but I can’t really blame him for being elsewhere emotionally).  I know it’s not the Japanese way, but some good old-fashioned warmth when a kid is suffering like that would really be the ticket.

Major wouldn’t be Major if it didn’t have some childhood suffering, but it hits pretty hard to see Daigo like this.  As I said last week the mind certainly went straight to “neck injury” after the collision with Hikaru, and sure enough the story went there too.  Goro went through a lot – losing both his parents as a young child for starters.  Plus arm injury, then (when older) the yips.  But Goro was such a ferocious beast when it came to baseball, even as a little bozu, that it never really felt as if he was in jeopardy of crashing out.  In life terms things have been a lot more privileged and stable for Daigo than they were for his dad, but in baseball terms the poor kid has already suffered so much that this almost feels gratuitous.

I’m not going to knock Tashiro for lying to Daigo – I understand why he did it – but one could tell it was trouble right away.  The trip to Gunma for a surprise visit had disaster written all over it (though Sakura’s dad insisting on driving when he heard a boy was involved was pretty amusing).  And indeed, it was a debacle – what a way for Daigo to have to learn the truth.  I’m telling you as a baseball junkie, that accident was 100% not his fault – not only does stuff just happen in sports, but that was absolutely the catcher’s ball.  But how are you going to sell that to a grief-stricken child?

Under the circumstances, Daigo shying away from anything baseball is IMHO more than understandable.  But for two months he seems to be shying away from almost everything, including human contact.  Of course he doesn’t participate in the Dolphins’ farewell game for the 6th graders (those statuettes were pretty cool), but there’s clearly no joy in him whatsoever.  Understandable as it is somebody really should have done something – Sakura does try, but she lacks the delicacy or sophistication to get through to Daigo (I mean, she is 12 too).

That brings us to Shigeno Goro.  He finally deigns to come home now that the Taiwan baseball season is over.  It’s hard to know how much to blame Goro for not making any attempt to help his son through this – who knows how much either Kaoru or Toshiya might have told him, though it’s hard to imagine one or both didn’t fill him in.  But for being generally an absentee dad so that he can play our the string on his baseball career?  I think one is on safe ground blaming him for that.  His kids need him – Daigo especially, it seems – and he’s nowhere to be found.

I tell you, when Gogo casually dropped a “What’s up?” on Daigo there, I really wanted to pop him one.  Goro may just not be the father type, but try telling that to your kids.  Izumi seems to be the stronger of the two, inheritor of Goro’s independence and self-assuredness – she gets him.  Daigo, by contrast, is sensitive and more than a little neurotic.  How much of a difference could Goro have made in his life as he struggled through not being a natural talent at the game he loves, and then through the aftermath of a traumatizing event of the highest order?  Goro wouldn’t even have needed to be a great dad, just a present one – but that ship has sailed.

Well, he is here now – and maybe it’s not too late for Goro to be of some use in helping Goro heal.  He can certainly tell his boy a little something about coping with tragedy, and by showing him some belief maybe encourage Daigo to face his demons and try baseball one more time.  But ultimately I think Daigo needs to talk to Toshiya and especially Hikaru in order to heal emotionally.  Not to be forgiven or exonerated – Daigo will never truly lose his guilt over what’s happened – but just to let everything that’s inside of him have a chance to come out, and to know that the Satou boys want him to go on with his life.  Whether that will happen this season or we’ll have to wait till the next one I don’t know, but at the moment it’s Goro that’s in the on-deck circle for Daigo.  Let’s hope he doesn’t whiff on three pitches.