Out to the Ballgame

Well, it finally happened. Something that I've been wishing to do for a long time now, and I finally got the chance to do it. And my God, was it worth it.

I was able to attend a Japanese League Baseball game on Thursday night - the Yakult Swallows vs the Yomiuri Giants, Meiji Jingu Stadium. There's so much to write about and so many interesting contrasts in terms of this game versus the countless American games I've gone to, as well as the differences in just plain old baseball.

To start out, unlike American baseball, most Japanese teams are sponsored. Both the Swallows and the Giants are based in Tokyo, but are not called as such - Yakult is a dairy company, and Yomiuri is an enormous newspaper company, and they fund the teams, so the names reflect as such.

Jerich and I got there a little early and got outfield unreserved tickets for about $12, and as soon as we walked in the first amazing thing occured to us: They had Japanese food for sale! The concession stands' menus consisted of udon and soba noodles, curry rice, yakitori (chicken skewers), sushi (of course), and edamame (!). There were also smatterings of popcorn, etc, but it was the exception and not the rule.

We got dinner and took our seats amongst the salarymen, who were putting their Swallows jerseys on over their work clothes. Not a bad way to end the work day, I'd say.

The stadium:






The stadium itself wasn't much to look at. It's actually on the grounds of the Meiji Shrine, attended the weekend before. Meiji Jingu actually means Meiji Shrine. But in any case, it was kind of an old-style stadium, the outfield wall a simple arc, and the field artificial turf that is all but old-fashioned in American sports. We were seated in the outfield with the Swallows fans, and across the way on the other side of the outfield were the Giants fans. The Giants are kind of the Yankees of the Japanese league, and their fans were loud and proud and very coordinated (explained later).

Cheering:
This turned out to be one of the most interesting parts of the game. The method of cheering is much more like that of a soccer match - there were innumerable chants for the Swallows, and all the fans seemed to know every word. There were even hired cheerleader types who waved behemoth flags around and played trumpet to the tune of the said cheers.

Each player seemed to have his own cheer designated to him, so that when he was up to bat thousands of people serenaded him. Imagine doing your job with 7,000 people singing to you. Not easy. By far the most popular player appeared to be a guy named Aoki - at least half of the jersey-wearing fans were wearing his name and number. He had a particularly rousing song for him.

The funniest song by far was for Aaron Guiel, who is Canadian, the only North American player in the Swallows' lineup (There was a Venezuelan player, who, when he came up, would be greeted by the waving of an ENORMOUS Venezuelan flag right near where we were sitting. It looked so amazingly bizarre. It really made me wonder if he would be this welcome if he didn't play baseball well. But anyway.). When Guiel came up to the plate, the trumpeters in the crowd began to play Oh, Canada. We found this hilariously funny, until the second or third at bat, when we realized that they were actually replacing Canada with "Ga-e-ru," which is the Japanese pronunciation of his last name. Whoever said they weren't creative?

The most bizarre aspect of the cheering was the fact that whenever the Swallows scored a run, nearly every fan brought out identical umbrellas and began gesticulating them up and down. I honestly have no idea what this was all about, and even after doing some post-game research, still don't really know:



I seriously have no idea what this was all about.

Anyway, the other impressive thing was that neither of the teams' fans really jeered the other players. There was never any booing of anybody, just a kind of unconditional love towards the players for doing their best. The word "ganbaru," do your best, is used often in Japan, and I think that's all the fans really want (besides a victory). Even with two out in the ninth and their team down 5-0, the Giants fans were as vocal as they were when the game started.

The other cool thing was the scoreboard:





I know, cool, right? On the right and left, under the team names, are the players, surrounded by (from left to right), their position (1=pitcher, 2=catcher, etc), their average, and the number of home runs they'd hit. In between the two line scores are the Japanese characters for 1-10. On the black screen is the pitch speed, in kilometers.

After the game was over, Jerich and I shuffled with a few hundred other fans to the nearest train station. Needless to say, I'll be back.