Miki Kimura, on the right, was so moved when she saw Ichiro play live at the Seattle Mariners game last Sunday that tears welled up in her eyes. An avid baseball fan who has served as manager for both her high school and college teams, says she chose to attend AU mainly because she wanted to become involved with their top-notch baseball team. AUAP students from both CWU and WWU attended the game together and enjoyed watching the Mariners defeat the Texas Rangers. The students felt the excitement of the American fans and sang the English song they learned in American Studies class, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” during the 7 th inning stretch.

Miki’s dream is to become a writer for a Japanese baseball magazine. However, her short experience at AUAP so far has already expanded her dream to include covering not only Japanese baseball, but Major League ball as well. A week after arriving at CWU, Miki heard the familiar sound of the crack of the bat and followed it to the ball park. In the past few weeks, she has spent her free time observing the CWU baseball team practice. Miki is well on her way to realizing her dreams. Now if she can only convince her father to start following the Mariners instead of his favorite, the New York Yankees!