I hate the f福留 孝介ing Cubs more than any other team in baseball.

福留 孝介!!

But I love Kosuke Fukudome.

Opening Day is maybe my favorite day. The buzz of Christmas day fades with time, in direct proportion to the strength of your belief in Santa, and to your inability to purchase material things with your own money. Opening Day, though, never gets old. It's the only day of the year that Pirates fans can honestly say, "We are in this thing." The American Dream is alive on Opening Day, even for people from Kansas City.

The Astros (from this point forward known as "we") played the Cubs tonight. We lost, 4-2. The main reason I didn't really care, besides the fact that we've got 161 games to catch up, is because I got to meet Mr. Toots.

I don't know how to really spell his name, but I sure can spell it phonetically: Mr. Toots. And I thought I had it hard growing up, with a name elementary school kids could make fun of for rhyming with a low end shoe store, and that junior high kids could make fun of for rhyming with "Gayless," which, no matter how many times I explained it, actually means the opposite of what it was intended to mean.

Payless, Gayless, or Mr. Toots? I will take the first two, thank you very much.

Mr. Toots, well, he's just happy his name isn't Kosuke Fukudome (koh-skay foo-koo-doh-may).

Until we were properly introduced, I was referring to Mr. Toots as the "It's goin' be cold tomorruh" guy. We all know this guy. He's the one we always sit next to on the five-hour flight, or get stuck in line behind at the DMV. It's-goin-be-cold-tomorruh guy doesn't have anything meaningful to say, so he remarks on the weather. And guys who remark on the weather because they don't have anything else of substance to say love when the temperature is due to change. Because that, that is something to remark on. It's goin' be cold tomorruh!

"Hey Bob," It's-Goin-Be-Cold-Tomorruh Guy said, in a truly authentic Southern drawl, "how do ya pronounce that boy's name?" Shockingly, this guy knew my dad. (That's actually not shocking; The Bob knows everyone in Houston.)

"That boy" was a reference to Fukudome. Garland and I had been talking about that very topic earlier. We made quick eye contact, and she broke into a huge smile.

I turned and told him the answer: "It's actually pronounced 'Fuck you, dome.' He really didn't like playing at the Astrodome."

"Oh he didn't, did he?" Mr. Toots -- I now knew his name -- asked rhetorically. Men with Southern drawls as genuine as that are not going to be offended if I drop the F bomb. "HAW!" A laugh as authentically Dixie as his accent. "Haw haw haw!"

"Actually, it was his parents. They had beef with the Dome."

This parlayed into a discussion between him and my father, about me. A few minutes later, I heard this:

"Swa-HEE-LEE? He speaks SwaHEELEE?"

The Bob told him that yes, he had heard him correctly.

"Bayless," he said, "you speak Swahili?"

I turned. "Yes sir."

"Aw, MAN!"

"Yeah, it really helps me in today's job market."

"SwaHEElee! Well I'll be. Ya know, your dad told me a lot about you, but I never figured you'd look the way you do." Not sure, even now, what he meant by that.

"How did you think I'd look?" I asked, our relationship up to this point based entirely upon two things: 1) that I had told him the Japanese boy's name was actually "Fuck you, dome," and 2) that I speak Swa-hee-lee. "Black?"

"Yeah!" he exclaimed. "Like a negra!"

I can now check yet another item off my list: hearing a man say the word "nee-gruh" in a sentence, loudly, in public, iiiiin the 21st century.

My little sister Garland, whose face was hidden from Mr. Toots, was glad that her face was hidden from the man. She was also crossing an item off of her list.

"You are who you vote for, I guess," I said.

"And I did NOT!" he informed the entire section, beaming, as he raised his $8 beer to his lips and defiantly swigged a $1.35 gulp.

"And that's not surprising," I whispered to Garland.