About ten years ago Haruki Murakami, the author, gave a talk at UC Berkeley. in which he said he had decided to try to become a writer during a baseball game — specifically, when someone hit a single to left field. I told this story as often as possible. My listeners were always puzzled. It made no sense. Was he kidding?
Now Murakami has told the story in print. Turns out it was a double, not a single. And I missed another crucial detail. Murakami was a “fairly devoted Yakult Swallows fan.” It was the Swallows lead-off batter who hit the double. Now the story makes sense. Something wonderful had just happened on the field. Surprising, too. Wonderful unpredictable things happen, Murakami realized. They could happen to him. “Something flew down from the sky at that instant,” he wrote, “and, whatever it was, I accepted it.”