Games people play: A marriage of majors and the Olympics

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Getting ready to reach softball's peak and make her Olympic debut, Janie Reed was on a training field at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in western Japan.

Across the Pacific Ocean, 7,452 miles away, another important family first was unfolding in Miami: Husband Jake Reed was about to walk onto a major league mound for the first time.

“Luckily, the staff was watching the box score,” she said. “And when he came in, they let me kind of slip away for a second so I could watch it.”

They have a one-of-a-kind bicoastal marriage.

Janie is the starting left fielder and No. 2 hitter for the United States as Americans try to regain the gold medal they lost to Japan in 2008. Her sacrifice fly drove in the second run in Wednesday’s opening 2-0 win over Italy and her fifth-inning bunt set up Amanda Chidester’s RBI single in Thursday’s 1-0 victory over Canada.

Jake, a side-arming right-hander, had a 3.38 ERA in six relief appearances for the Los Angeles Dodgers from July 6-18, then was optioned back to Oklahoma City and designated for assignment two days later to open a roster spot for Billy McKinney. If unclaimed, Reed likely will be assigned outright back to Triple-A.

Their work paths cross in soft toss, no easy feat given his submarine release point.

“He’s gotten a lot better,” she said, laughing. “We have to give him a target behind the plate.”

Jake Reed and Janie Takeda met at the University of Oregon in 2011, when they arrived early ahead of their first semesters.

“The freshman athletes kind of just like gravitate toward each other,” he said. “And so being a baseball player, softball player, we started hanging out with some of their team. We, I think, just kind of got to know each other a little bit through just being young freshman and not really...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Games-people-play-A-marriage-of-majors-and-the-16337093.php