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Japanese Film Crew Shoots a Documentary Segment at Gunder’s Irish Shanti by Gary Anderson
It’s an amazing place, the Irish Shanti, and the surprises just keep coming. On Monday, July 31, the surprise was a film crew that had flown a famous Japanese baseball player all the way from Tokyo to eat a Gunderburger for a documentary on Midwestern minor league baseball. The film crew arrived an hour ahead of schedule, but got right to work. Within an hour, the ballplayer, Sachio Kinugasa, had come, done his eating duties, and left, on his way back to Tokyo. Kinugasa, now retired, played in an amazing 2,215 consecutive games with the Hiroshima Carp, making him number two on the worldwide "Iron Man" list of baseball players, surpassing New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig’s mark of 2,130, but falling short of Baltimore Oriole legend Cal Ripken, Jr., who played in an astounding 2,632 straight games. The scene at the Shanti was in sharp contrast to what it would have been had this been a Hollywood film crew. A Tinseltown crew would have taken over the entire restaurant, leaving people who wanted to eat lunch there looking for an alternative, but the Japanese crew of five was nearly silent, taking up only half the restaurant and being totally respectful of the diners on the opposite side of the room. They worked together like a well-oiled machine, this crew of four men and a young woman in a baseball cap. She was the spokesman for the group, having lived in New York City for a time and picking up enough English to carry on a relatively cohesive conversation. On the other half dozen tables on the film crew’s side of the room sat several more stand-in Gunderburgers, waiting in the wings as the star was being filmed from every conceivable angle. After a few minutes, the crew’s director decided that the top of the star’s bun had wilted, so one of the stand-ins was unceremoniously stripped of its top, and the show went on. One table featured a half-eaten burger, surrounded by hash browns, mustard and catsup bottles, and a couple glasses of ice water. It was also filmed from various angles, showing what a Gunderburger would look like after someone had given eating it the old college try—and failed. The film crew was in Iowa shooting a documentary on minor league baseball (baseball is Japan’s national pastime, as well). They had just come from spending several days with Clinton’s Lumberkings, showing how the game is played at a level where players aren’t superstars and aren’t paid exorbitant sums of money. The Japanese especially revere players who play simply because they love the game—and what better place to do that than in Iowa? The documentary will run on Tokyo television, and when asked if Americans will have a chance to see it, one of the crew members says, “Yes, if they live in Tokyo.” The idea of using the Shanti came from one of the producers of the documentary, who saw a write-up of the restaurant in a Japanese magazine. (That’s how famous this little place in the middle of a town of 27 really is.) They then decided to fly Kinugasa into Chicago for the day, drive him to Gunder, have him eat a Gunderburger (or at least make an attempt), and then fly him home that night. The Irish Shanti truly is an amazing place, full of surprises. Only a couple weeks earlier, the Sunday Des Moines Register called the Shanti one of the ten places in Iowa you have to see before you die. That afternoon, a couple rode their motorcycle 100 miles just to sample a Gunderburger. It defies logic—but isn’t that the way life is supposed to be? When it comes to a place like the Irish Shanti, if you wait long enough, the entire world will come by for a visit.
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