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I went to Nagano and all I got was this lousy ouendan
No, just kidding.
So yeah, today I went to Olympic Stadium to watch some independent league baseball, the hometeam Shinano Grandserows vs the Niigata Albirex. Just as most of my allegiances in baseball come from complete dumb luck, the Albirex were the first team I saw in the BCL, and by chance I met their pitcher Hideki Nagasaka, who played in the US for several years and speaks pretty fluent English.
Well, I'd noticed that Nagasaka hadn't pitched in several weeks, but his blog seemed to show him still with the team, since every entry was from cities the team was in, so I wondered what was up. I suppose an easy way to find out would have been to just post a comment to his blog and ask, but instead I went all the way to Nagano to talk to him in person. Well, and to see a new stadium (new to me, anyway, it's from the olympics so like 12 years old).
I'm pretty zonked so this entry is going to end up being a little incoherent.
But basically, the two major highlights of the day for me were first, talking to Nagasaka and the team, and second, the Gamushara ouendan, which is a performance ouendan, not aligned to a specific group. Apparently you can hire them for events, and they are as ouendan as it gets -- all ridiculously genki and yet regimental. They kept performing on and off before and during the game, and everybody got a kick out of it... during the 5th inning stretch, the ouendan went around cheering for everything possible -- from the umpires, to the bases, to the baseball ground itself, to the grounds crew, etc. They also greeted people going into the stadium and said goodbye to people leaving.
As for Nagasaka, when I got into the stadium, I put my stuff down in the front row of the Niigata side right behind the bullpen, and saw him at the dugout, so I yelled his name and waved, and he came over to the bullpen to chat for a while... he was like "Dude, I saw your blog. That was really funny how you pointed out that Hard-Off Eco Stadium is also 'HOES'." And I'm like "Well, dude, I saw your blog, what's up with you?" and he said that he broke his elbow! Yikes! I'm not sure it entirely made sense, he said he broke it from overthrowing, which makes me think it isn't actually broken in the sense we usually mean, but maybe more like blown out. Either way, he said that he hasn't been able to throw a ball in almost two months, which sucks. But he's still with the team because they don't have a DL per se in this league, and so he's kind of helping out with the younger pitchers and whatever.
I was like "I have something for you..." and gave him the book of photos I'd printed out the night before at Yodobashi. I said that my photos came out pretty crappy, but they were from the games back in June that I went to where I met him. He looked through them like "Sweet! Thanks a lot! These are great! Should I give the ones of my teammates to them?" and I said "You can do whatever you want with them..."
Well, after he went back to the dugout, apparently he DID give them to his teammates because over the next 10-15 minutes various guys came by and waved up at me like "Hey! Thanks for the photo!" Some of them said it in English, some in Japanese.
In the meantime, a lady came up to me like (in Japanese), "Hey, do you remember me?" and I'm like "Dude! You're Yuuki Imai's mom!" I met her in Gunma too. She said that they drove out for this game because it's pretty convenient for driving from where they live... and she saw me talking to Nagasaka and was thinking "that's GOT to be the same girl from the Isesaki game". So we talked for a bit. Her son was injured back when I met her, and apparently he's recovered now but not getting a lot of playing time anyway. She also told me that the stadium's architecture (which is kinda weird) is designed after some kind of historic Stonehenge-like thing from Japanese history. I'm not sure I understood everything she said. Either way, it was really kind of surreal to be chatting with an outfielder's mom while various players were coming by to thank me for photos.
When Yuzo Hino came into the bullpen, he was the starting catcher and he's from Waseda Jitsugyo and from Waseda University, so I'd chatted with him a bit in Gunma, and he actually waved up and said in Japanese, "Long time no see, how are you? Thanks for the photos!"
As I said in my facebook tweet... 12,000 yen for shinkansen tickets, 1,000 yen to print up photos, and having half the Niigata Albirex team come up and say hi... priceless.
I went and got yakisoba for dinner. The two kids in front of me were part of the Sakaki HS baseball team that had been helping out on the field during BP, and they were asking for more and more sauce on the yakisoba, so when I got the leftovers of their batch it was pretty good. And pretty hot. And... get this, Olympic Stadium has no trash cans because they expect patrons to bring their trash home. WTF WTF WTF WTF.
The game itself was nuts. The first 4 innings took 2 hours and at that point the Shinano team was up 10-1. Fortunately, the next 4.5 innings only took another hour and a half and the eventual ending score was 10-4. Shinano's coach-outfielder Ryutaro Tsuji, who played in the NPB for several years, hit a 3-run homerun... and Niigata's coach-outfielder Tomoshi Aoki, who also played in the NPB as well as in the US, also hit a 3-run homerun.
The problem with this is that my return shinkansen, the last one of the day, was out of Nagano station at 9:40pm. Which meant I had to be on a train out of Shinonoi station at 9:16pm. Which meant I had to be on a bus back from the ballpark by 9pm.
But the game ended around 8:30. There was schmoozing with all the Shinano players but I couldn't find the Niigata players, they apparently just got in their bus and left from what it sounded like from the staff. I ran over to find their bus, but it was still inside the stadium behind a fence... and I really, truly, did not have time to wait for it. Which sucks as I wanted to try to get some of my photos SIGNED. Maybe I should have tried to do that beforehand :( Either way, that meant I also didn't get to say bye to Nagasaka.
Instead, back in the cluster of fans and Shinano players, I got Shinano manager Yoshiyuki Sano to sign my BCL meikan, and I got a photo with the winning pitcher, Shin Sugiyama.
OH, and before all that I also got a photo with that Gamushara ouendan. I just had to.
And then I ran off to catch the shuttle bus... I could have easily gotten like half the Shinano team to sign stuff or take photos, but that would have taken the effort of finding someone to take the photos. Ryutaro, who I really DID want a signature or something with, had a huge line of people waiting to talk to him, so I figured I might as well just leave. Shrug.
The shuttle bus left at 8:55pm and I had no trouble making all of my train connections to get home. Hooray.
Here are a few quick photos:
Outside the stadium waiting for them to let us in.
Inside the stadium (heh, I got Imai's mom to take this one yet again)
Really nice sunset over the field.
With the Gamushara ouendan!
With Shin Sugiyama.
Anyway, it's now 1:30am. I was thinking to go to Kamagaya tomorrow but as I always do in these cases, I feel lazy :( It sucks because I know I should go... and at the same time it'd take a lot less effort to just go to Jingu since Hosei and Rikkio tied today. I dunno, we'll see. I'm going to sleep shortly.
So yeah, today I went to Olympic Stadium to watch some independent league baseball, the hometeam Shinano Grandserows vs the Niigata Albirex. Just as most of my allegiances in baseball come from complete dumb luck, the Albirex were the first team I saw in the BCL, and by chance I met their pitcher Hideki Nagasaka, who played in the US for several years and speaks pretty fluent English.
Well, I'd noticed that Nagasaka hadn't pitched in several weeks, but his blog seemed to show him still with the team, since every entry was from cities the team was in, so I wondered what was up. I suppose an easy way to find out would have been to just post a comment to his blog and ask, but instead I went all the way to Nagano to talk to him in person. Well, and to see a new stadium (new to me, anyway, it's from the olympics so like 12 years old).
I'm pretty zonked so this entry is going to end up being a little incoherent.
But basically, the two major highlights of the day for me were first, talking to Nagasaka and the team, and second, the Gamushara ouendan, which is a performance ouendan, not aligned to a specific group. Apparently you can hire them for events, and they are as ouendan as it gets -- all ridiculously genki and yet regimental. They kept performing on and off before and during the game, and everybody got a kick out of it... during the 5th inning stretch, the ouendan went around cheering for everything possible -- from the umpires, to the bases, to the baseball ground itself, to the grounds crew, etc. They also greeted people going into the stadium and said goodbye to people leaving.
As for Nagasaka, when I got into the stadium, I put my stuff down in the front row of the Niigata side right behind the bullpen, and saw him at the dugout, so I yelled his name and waved, and he came over to the bullpen to chat for a while... he was like "Dude, I saw your blog. That was really funny how you pointed out that Hard-Off Eco Stadium is also 'HOES'." And I'm like "Well, dude, I saw your blog, what's up with you?" and he said that he broke his elbow! Yikes! I'm not sure it entirely made sense, he said he broke it from overthrowing, which makes me think it isn't actually broken in the sense we usually mean, but maybe more like blown out. Either way, he said that he hasn't been able to throw a ball in almost two months, which sucks. But he's still with the team because they don't have a DL per se in this league, and so he's kind of helping out with the younger pitchers and whatever.
I was like "I have something for you..." and gave him the book of photos I'd printed out the night before at Yodobashi. I said that my photos came out pretty crappy, but they were from the games back in June that I went to where I met him. He looked through them like "Sweet! Thanks a lot! These are great! Should I give the ones of my teammates to them?" and I said "You can do whatever you want with them..."
Well, after he went back to the dugout, apparently he DID give them to his teammates because over the next 10-15 minutes various guys came by and waved up at me like "Hey! Thanks for the photo!" Some of them said it in English, some in Japanese.
In the meantime, a lady came up to me like (in Japanese), "Hey, do you remember me?" and I'm like "Dude! You're Yuuki Imai's mom!" I met her in Gunma too. She said that they drove out for this game because it's pretty convenient for driving from where they live... and she saw me talking to Nagasaka and was thinking "that's GOT to be the same girl from the Isesaki game". So we talked for a bit. Her son was injured back when I met her, and apparently he's recovered now but not getting a lot of playing time anyway. She also told me that the stadium's architecture (which is kinda weird) is designed after some kind of historic Stonehenge-like thing from Japanese history. I'm not sure I understood everything she said. Either way, it was really kind of surreal to be chatting with an outfielder's mom while various players were coming by to thank me for photos.
When Yuzo Hino came into the bullpen, he was the starting catcher and he's from Waseda Jitsugyo and from Waseda University, so I'd chatted with him a bit in Gunma, and he actually waved up and said in Japanese, "Long time no see, how are you? Thanks for the photos!"
As I said in my facebook tweet... 12,000 yen for shinkansen tickets, 1,000 yen to print up photos, and having half the Niigata Albirex team come up and say hi... priceless.
I went and got yakisoba for dinner. The two kids in front of me were part of the Sakaki HS baseball team that had been helping out on the field during BP, and they were asking for more and more sauce on the yakisoba, so when I got the leftovers of their batch it was pretty good. And pretty hot. And... get this, Olympic Stadium has no trash cans because they expect patrons to bring their trash home. WTF WTF WTF WTF.
The game itself was nuts. The first 4 innings took 2 hours and at that point the Shinano team was up 10-1. Fortunately, the next 4.5 innings only took another hour and a half and the eventual ending score was 10-4. Shinano's coach-outfielder Ryutaro Tsuji, who played in the NPB for several years, hit a 3-run homerun... and Niigata's coach-outfielder Tomoshi Aoki, who also played in the NPB as well as in the US, also hit a 3-run homerun.
The problem with this is that my return shinkansen, the last one of the day, was out of Nagano station at 9:40pm. Which meant I had to be on a train out of Shinonoi station at 9:16pm. Which meant I had to be on a bus back from the ballpark by 9pm.
But the game ended around 8:30. There was schmoozing with all the Shinano players but I couldn't find the Niigata players, they apparently just got in their bus and left from what it sounded like from the staff. I ran over to find their bus, but it was still inside the stadium behind a fence... and I really, truly, did not have time to wait for it. Which sucks as I wanted to try to get some of my photos SIGNED. Maybe I should have tried to do that beforehand :( Either way, that meant I also didn't get to say bye to Nagasaka.
Instead, back in the cluster of fans and Shinano players, I got Shinano manager Yoshiyuki Sano to sign my BCL meikan, and I got a photo with the winning pitcher, Shin Sugiyama.
OH, and before all that I also got a photo with that Gamushara ouendan. I just had to.
And then I ran off to catch the shuttle bus... I could have easily gotten like half the Shinano team to sign stuff or take photos, but that would have taken the effort of finding someone to take the photos. Ryutaro, who I really DID want a signature or something with, had a huge line of people waiting to talk to him, so I figured I might as well just leave. Shrug.
The shuttle bus left at 8:55pm and I had no trouble making all of my train connections to get home. Hooray.
Here are a few quick photos:
Outside the stadium waiting for them to let us in.
Inside the stadium (heh, I got Imai's mom to take this one yet again)
Really nice sunset over the field.
With the Gamushara ouendan!
With Shin Sugiyama.
Anyway, it's now 1:30am. I was thinking to go to Kamagaya tomorrow but as I always do in these cases, I feel lazy :( It sucks because I know I should go... and at the same time it'd take a lot less effort to just go to Jingu since Hosei and Rikkio tied today. I dunno, we'll see. I'm going to sleep shortly.