My sushi chef loves the Yankees.

Let me explain Hiro to you. Hiro is a guy I have followed from sushi bar to sushi bar the way other people follow a hairdresser from one salon to another. Three years ago, after ten years and four restaurants, he disappeared from Boston. He had told us he was going home to Hawaii to visit his mother... but he didn't come back.

We suffered. We languished. We had intense salmon cravings in the middle of the night, but corwin and I never found an adequate replacement for him.

Then, about a month ago, a friend of ours happened into Fugakyu, the hippest sushi joint in town, with dozens of private rooms and fountains full of koi fish. There was Hiro! We rejoiced. We embraced. We did the "we love yellowtail" dance. And we planned to visit him last Friday night, after the Yankees game ended.

Of course, that ended up being the painful twelve inning loss to the Rangers that kicked off the sweep. Ouch. We lost the game AND we missed our sushi. Grumble grumble. So we rescheduled our fish date for Wednesday night, after the game at Fenway Park. Fugakyu (be careful with that pronunciation...) is just a few T-stops away from the park.

So it was that we made our pilgrimage for raw fish, decked out in our pinstripes and toting our scorecards, binoculars and other game paraphernalia. It had been a rather chilly night that night and I was wearing extra layers. While we waited for seats near Hiro to open up at the bar, I went to the ladies room to take off my long underwear. A woman at the sink took one look at me and said "Who won?"

"Clemens," I answered, figuring that was the most precise answer.

"Yeah!" She pumped her fist, closed her compact and walked out with a wink. (Yes, this was in Boston.)

We took seats slightly to Hiro's right. Two women were seated directly in front of him, finishing up their meal. We exchanged joyful greetings with our sushi provider and he immediately asked what had happened in the game. We told him. His face lit up.

"Oh no, Hiro, don't tell us you're a Yankees fan!" The women in front of him said.

"Oh, no, I hate the Yankees. Damn Yankees!" he said, all the while giving us the thumbs up behind his back.

I gleefully showed him my photo album of spring training photos. "Oh Soriano, he's so great," Hiro said. "You know he was in here the other night."

"No!"

"Yes, he was here, and Matsui was here that night too. You know Soriano played in Japan."

"Yes, we know. They say English is his third language."

"But that Matsui, huh? You can see why they call him Godzilla."

"Why, Hiro?"

"He's so ugly! His head is too big for his body!"

That got us to talking about the Japanese national high school baseball tournament, which is a huge, huge event. Matsui picked up that nickname as a star high school player during the tournament. "I played against a guy who played in that tournament," Hiro told us. Now, Hiro is built more like a football linebacker than like a baseball player. But apparently, in the 1980s, when there were more regular Japanese restaurants who used to be closed for lunch on the weekends, they used to play baseball, restaurant versus restaurant. "This guy, it was like he was a ringer, you know? To us it was like he was semi-pro. We couldn't hit him at all." Hiro shook his head, slicing mackerel delicately as he talked.

"And here's the worst part. He wasn't even a chef! He was just a yaki-tori grill guy!" Oh, the pride of sushi chefs. Oh, the lure of baseball.