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Keisousen, Part 1 -- ♥Daisuke♥ (aka, Meet the 2010 Keio baseball team!)
Wow, WHAT a day I had on Sunday.
So as it turns out, the reason I ever got email from Ogura was that her phone ran out of batteries... because she didn't go home on Saturday night. Instead, she was out partying with friends and college baseball players until really late, and slept for like an hour in a coffeeshop before heading to Jingu to line up for seats to the baseball game. Apparently at 7am (for a 9:30am opening and 1pm game) there were already tons of Waseda fans lined up though the Keio side wasn't so bad; our friend Matsui (the lady whose name I forgot two weeks ago) had put down a placeholder sheet the night before, so they were first in line. All I have to say is holy fucking shit, on all counts.
This was a really big deal because it was possibly Yuki Saitoh's last ever college game AND last ever Soukeisen AND he just got drafted on Thursday AND he is the most well-known college player in the country AND this is THE biggest college baseball match of the year, traditionally (this rivalry goes back over 100 years), so they expected 29832985392859230852398 people to show up for it. By which I mean the recorded attendance was 33000, which is Jingu capacity, and I am actually guessing there were 1000-2000 people more than that.
Ogura called me around 10am, when I was starting to pack up to head out, and told me to meet her on the 11:10 train down from Akabane, so I did, and we got there around 11:45am, and... all I can say is, thank god for having friends. You weren't even ALLOWED into the infield even if you had an infield ticket, unless you had previously been there to save a seat, or if someone had saved a seat for you. But these guys saved the entire front row of our normal spot! The Keio guys were doing batting practice and whatnot at that point, so I took a few photos. We said hi to some players as they came by on the sides, like Nagasaki and such... (Daisuke and Fukutani both ran by at one point, Fukutani had on his #17 jersey but Daisuke actually had on a navy sweatshirt with a small #27 on the front under the collar... he wears #19 usually... I think he was trying to go incognito! I immediately recognized him and yelled hello/goodluck, but a lot of people were like "who are you yelling at?" and I'm like "that's Daisuke Freaking Takeuchi!" It's amusing that I've finally gotten to the point that I recognize some of these boys better than the Japanese fans :)
Anyway... the game was great, the stadium was packed and full of a lot of energy. Asai-san came down and sat with me, the rest of our group was further down the row, we had 3 guys also taking photos in the middle, but I had the corner seat closest to the dugout. Asai is usually in the cheering section so she yells really loud, so I yelled and sang with her, it was a lot of fun. And, Keio's Hitoshi Fuchigami hit a home run off Yuki Saitoh in the VERY FIRST AT-BAT of the game! That was super-exciting.
Keio eventually won 2-0. Saitoh and Takeuchi both went 7 innings, and Tatsuya Ohishi and Koji Fukutani finished out the last 2 innings for each. I was sitting next to the photo well, which had already been going nuts for Saitoh of course, but when Ohishi took the mound it went even more nuts, since he was a "bigger" draft pick and went to Seibu.
We stuck around for a bit of the post-game singing and headed outside maybe 20 minutes after the game ended, by which point the Waseda bus had already left. It was still crowded but it seemed like the Keio boys, who don't ride a bus but instead take the subway back to Hiyoshi, were going to come out. I think we missed Hayata Itoh, he often runs out and gets the hell out of Jingu as fast as fucking possible, but we got EVERYBODY else we wanted to talk to! My goals for the day were to get a photo with Daisuke Takeuchi and Masahiro Nagasaki, and to give Halloween candy to Nagasaki, Takeuchi, and Fuchigami, and a subgoal was to talk to Fuchigami in English :) Anything above that was going to be awesome and extra.
WELL.
I got my megaphone autographed by Iba, Kazuma, Fuchigami, Nagasaki, Fukutani, and Daisuke. I got Daisuke and Fukutani to sign other photos I had.
I got my photo with Takao, Yumoto, Nagasaki, Kazuma, Iba, Fuchigami, Fukutani, and Daisuke! That's almost the entire lineup from the game right there!
Yasuhiro Takao, first baseman. I actually finally figured him out by face about 2-3 weeks ago. Also from Keio HS.
Captain Tatsushi Yumoto, aka Yumoshi. I stalked him for an autograph two weeks ago. He's very captainly.
Masahiro Nagasaki ♥
I think he thinks I'm insane, but he's always been very nice to me -- tips his cap and bows when he sees me in the stands because I'm part of his fan club of sorts, etc. So he was holding court for a while and finally I made my way over there, I gave him some photos I had from spring semester, and then also a bag of Halloween candy, and asked if I could get a photo with him, and he said sure. The photos I gave him were from this super catch he made to end the game with Meiji back in May that pretty much got Keio the chance to win the championship. (4 of the 6 photos are near the end of this post.) I told him, "This was the day that I became your fan!" He laughed. I told him, "If you don't like the way they're on this paper, though, you can take them out and put them in something else." (I assembled them together on a paper inside photo sleeves, so they could be rearranged easily.)
Kazuma Takeuchi... who has sort of become "the other" Takeuchi since Daisuke came along. He's also from Keio HS and a very serious but nice lefty batter.
Ryuta Iba. He's a big friendly dude. Also from Keio HS.
Hitoshi Fuchigami ♥
He was of course swamped by ninety billion people because he hit that homerun and because he's one of the better-known members of the team, he's also from Keio HS and has been a regular on the college team for like 3 years, he even made it on the roster as a freshman, which is rare for a non-pitcher at Keio.
Fuchi always puts English phrases in his "好きな言葉" answer, so after asking him in Japanese to sign my megaphone thingy, I said in English, "And because today is Halloween, and you hit a great home run, this is for you, some Halloween candy." He smiled and replied in English, "Oh, thank you very much." I said, "I heard you can speak English well!" He laughed like "No! I only speak a little." and reiterated it in Japanese. Still, he let me get a photo with him anyway :) I actually did one time before but he was wearing his school uniform this time, it was cute. Fuchigami wants to become a lawyer, his dad is a doctor... pretty crazy, really.
Koji Fukutani! He's so YOUNG, he'll be 20 in January... and as a sophomore is already the #2 pitcher on the staff. I'm a much bigger fan than I let on. He's also tall and throws very fast, and though he pitched 2 innings at this game he said that he would also be starting Monday's game. Yikes! Unfortunately Asai-san took this photo and she is very short and I am very tall and Fukutani is very tall so it came out kind of bad. (We actually took two, the first was REALLY godawful... I apologized to him like ninety times and said "I'm really sorry, it's my fault for being too tall," and he said "no, you're a good height", which was very sweet of him.
Daisuke Takeuchi ♥
This is actually the THIRD photo I got with him. Both of the ones Asai took were terrible, but Daisuke was hanging out for a while waiting for his parents to show up so they could go to dinner, so I got Toda-kun to take this one since Toda is my height. Daisuke was super-nice about it though. I also gave him Halloween candy and bugged him to sign my megaphone and another photo and told him that he is an awesome pitcher and he pitched a great game and I was so sorry to bug him, and thanked him a bazillion times. He was really nice about it though, I guess he has seen me in the front row of almost every game he starts, yelling "Daisuke, ganbare!!!" so he puts up with me being a dork. Or something. Either way I am really happy. Daisuke wants to go pro someday, and I don't know if he'll be TALL enough for it, but he's a lefty and throws some ridiculous breaking stuff, other guys in Big 6 have told me that he's really hard to hit because of that. Now if his elbow can just hold up...
Ogura also bugged him to sign her megaphone. It was adorable because he took the pen cap and put it in his mouth to hold it while signing. HEY WAIT A MINUTE, THAT'S MY PEN!
:)
We also tried to get Keio ouendan leader Kitada to sign our megaphones but he was too busy and we didn't want to bother him while he was holding his meeting with the Waseda ouendan leader. Oh well.
Oh, and this is what my megaphone looks like now:
So, after all of that excitement, Ogura and Toda-kun and I went to a coffeeshop near Jingu, where Ogura fell asleep for an hour and Toda-kun and I talked about random crap. He's a sophomore at Rikkio University, went to Rikkio Ikebukuro HS, so when I told him about seeing Kosuke's game this summer he actually knew about it, though he didn't know Kosuke, I guess he's just a freshman after all. He loves industrial league ball, and Big 6 ball, so we talked about lots of random games and players and whatnot for a while. I'm glad I finally had a chance to get to know him a little since I really only knew him as being "Kobayashi's friend" for a very long time.
We woke up Ogura and then headed back to the trains; when Ogura and I got back to Akabane we tried to buy tickets to the game on the 3rd but it turned out that Lawson's machine said we couldn't and Family Mart's said they didn't go on sale until Monday at 7pm. OMG! So I hopefully will get back in time to buy one...
I bought some sushi from Ito Yokado for dinner, and started going through photos and whatnot when I got home, but in reality instead watched the end of the Japan Series and then crashed hard.
As I write this, in the afternoon on Monday, Keio is currently kicking Waseda's butt 6-1 in the 2nd game of the series. So it's looking like that game will be for all the marbles after all. Awesome :)
So as it turns out, the reason I ever got email from Ogura was that her phone ran out of batteries... because she didn't go home on Saturday night. Instead, she was out partying with friends and college baseball players until really late, and slept for like an hour in a coffeeshop before heading to Jingu to line up for seats to the baseball game. Apparently at 7am (for a 9:30am opening and 1pm game) there were already tons of Waseda fans lined up though the Keio side wasn't so bad; our friend Matsui (the lady whose name I forgot two weeks ago) had put down a placeholder sheet the night before, so they were first in line. All I have to say is holy fucking shit, on all counts.
This was a really big deal because it was possibly Yuki Saitoh's last ever college game AND last ever Soukeisen AND he just got drafted on Thursday AND he is the most well-known college player in the country AND this is THE biggest college baseball match of the year, traditionally (this rivalry goes back over 100 years), so they expected 29832985392859230852398 people to show up for it. By which I mean the recorded attendance was 33000, which is Jingu capacity, and I am actually guessing there were 1000-2000 people more than that.
Ogura called me around 10am, when I was starting to pack up to head out, and told me to meet her on the 11:10 train down from Akabane, so I did, and we got there around 11:45am, and... all I can say is, thank god for having friends. You weren't even ALLOWED into the infield even if you had an infield ticket, unless you had previously been there to save a seat, or if someone had saved a seat for you. But these guys saved the entire front row of our normal spot! The Keio guys were doing batting practice and whatnot at that point, so I took a few photos. We said hi to some players as they came by on the sides, like Nagasaki and such... (Daisuke and Fukutani both ran by at one point, Fukutani had on his #17 jersey but Daisuke actually had on a navy sweatshirt with a small #27 on the front under the collar... he wears #19 usually... I think he was trying to go incognito! I immediately recognized him and yelled hello/goodluck, but a lot of people were like "who are you yelling at?" and I'm like "that's Daisuke Freaking Takeuchi!" It's amusing that I've finally gotten to the point that I recognize some of these boys better than the Japanese fans :)
Anyway... the game was great, the stadium was packed and full of a lot of energy. Asai-san came down and sat with me, the rest of our group was further down the row, we had 3 guys also taking photos in the middle, but I had the corner seat closest to the dugout. Asai is usually in the cheering section so she yells really loud, so I yelled and sang with her, it was a lot of fun. And, Keio's Hitoshi Fuchigami hit a home run off Yuki Saitoh in the VERY FIRST AT-BAT of the game! That was super-exciting.
Keio eventually won 2-0. Saitoh and Takeuchi both went 7 innings, and Tatsuya Ohishi and Koji Fukutani finished out the last 2 innings for each. I was sitting next to the photo well, which had already been going nuts for Saitoh of course, but when Ohishi took the mound it went even more nuts, since he was a "bigger" draft pick and went to Seibu.
We stuck around for a bit of the post-game singing and headed outside maybe 20 minutes after the game ended, by which point the Waseda bus had already left. It was still crowded but it seemed like the Keio boys, who don't ride a bus but instead take the subway back to Hiyoshi, were going to come out. I think we missed Hayata Itoh, he often runs out and gets the hell out of Jingu as fast as fucking possible, but we got EVERYBODY else we wanted to talk to! My goals for the day were to get a photo with Daisuke Takeuchi and Masahiro Nagasaki, and to give Halloween candy to Nagasaki, Takeuchi, and Fuchigami, and a subgoal was to talk to Fuchigami in English :) Anything above that was going to be awesome and extra.
WELL.
I got my megaphone autographed by Iba, Kazuma, Fuchigami, Nagasaki, Fukutani, and Daisuke. I got Daisuke and Fukutani to sign other photos I had.
I got my photo with Takao, Yumoto, Nagasaki, Kazuma, Iba, Fuchigami, Fukutani, and Daisuke! That's almost the entire lineup from the game right there!
Yasuhiro Takao, first baseman. I actually finally figured him out by face about 2-3 weeks ago. Also from Keio HS.
Captain Tatsushi Yumoto, aka Yumoshi. I stalked him for an autograph two weeks ago. He's very captainly.
Masahiro Nagasaki ♥
I think he thinks I'm insane, but he's always been very nice to me -- tips his cap and bows when he sees me in the stands because I'm part of his fan club of sorts, etc. So he was holding court for a while and finally I made my way over there, I gave him some photos I had from spring semester, and then also a bag of Halloween candy, and asked if I could get a photo with him, and he said sure. The photos I gave him were from this super catch he made to end the game with Meiji back in May that pretty much got Keio the chance to win the championship. (4 of the 6 photos are near the end of this post.) I told him, "This was the day that I became your fan!" He laughed. I told him, "If you don't like the way they're on this paper, though, you can take them out and put them in something else." (I assembled them together on a paper inside photo sleeves, so they could be rearranged easily.)
Kazuma Takeuchi... who has sort of become "the other" Takeuchi since Daisuke came along. He's also from Keio HS and a very serious but nice lefty batter.
Ryuta Iba. He's a big friendly dude. Also from Keio HS.
Hitoshi Fuchigami ♥
He was of course swamped by ninety billion people because he hit that homerun and because he's one of the better-known members of the team, he's also from Keio HS and has been a regular on the college team for like 3 years, he even made it on the roster as a freshman, which is rare for a non-pitcher at Keio.
Fuchi always puts English phrases in his "好きな言葉" answer, so after asking him in Japanese to sign my megaphone thingy, I said in English, "And because today is Halloween, and you hit a great home run, this is for you, some Halloween candy." He smiled and replied in English, "Oh, thank you very much." I said, "I heard you can speak English well!" He laughed like "No! I only speak a little." and reiterated it in Japanese. Still, he let me get a photo with him anyway :) I actually did one time before but he was wearing his school uniform this time, it was cute. Fuchigami wants to become a lawyer, his dad is a doctor... pretty crazy, really.
Koji Fukutani! He's so YOUNG, he'll be 20 in January... and as a sophomore is already the #2 pitcher on the staff. I'm a much bigger fan than I let on. He's also tall and throws very fast, and though he pitched 2 innings at this game he said that he would also be starting Monday's game. Yikes! Unfortunately Asai-san took this photo and she is very short and I am very tall and Fukutani is very tall so it came out kind of bad. (We actually took two, the first was REALLY godawful... I apologized to him like ninety times and said "I'm really sorry, it's my fault for being too tall," and he said "no, you're a good height", which was very sweet of him.
Daisuke Takeuchi ♥
This is actually the THIRD photo I got with him. Both of the ones Asai took were terrible, but Daisuke was hanging out for a while waiting for his parents to show up so they could go to dinner, so I got Toda-kun to take this one since Toda is my height. Daisuke was super-nice about it though. I also gave him Halloween candy and bugged him to sign my megaphone and another photo and told him that he is an awesome pitcher and he pitched a great game and I was so sorry to bug him, and thanked him a bazillion times. He was really nice about it though, I guess he has seen me in the front row of almost every game he starts, yelling "Daisuke, ganbare!!!" so he puts up with me being a dork. Or something. Either way I am really happy. Daisuke wants to go pro someday, and I don't know if he'll be TALL enough for it, but he's a lefty and throws some ridiculous breaking stuff, other guys in Big 6 have told me that he's really hard to hit because of that. Now if his elbow can just hold up...
Ogura also bugged him to sign her megaphone. It was adorable because he took the pen cap and put it in his mouth to hold it while signing. HEY WAIT A MINUTE, THAT'S MY PEN!
:)
We also tried to get Keio ouendan leader Kitada to sign our megaphones but he was too busy and we didn't want to bother him while he was holding his meeting with the Waseda ouendan leader. Oh well.
Oh, and this is what my megaphone looks like now:
So, after all of that excitement, Ogura and Toda-kun and I went to a coffeeshop near Jingu, where Ogura fell asleep for an hour and Toda-kun and I talked about random crap. He's a sophomore at Rikkio University, went to Rikkio Ikebukuro HS, so when I told him about seeing Kosuke's game this summer he actually knew about it, though he didn't know Kosuke, I guess he's just a freshman after all. He loves industrial league ball, and Big 6 ball, so we talked about lots of random games and players and whatnot for a while. I'm glad I finally had a chance to get to know him a little since I really only knew him as being "Kobayashi's friend" for a very long time.
We woke up Ogura and then headed back to the trains; when Ogura and I got back to Akabane we tried to buy tickets to the game on the 3rd but it turned out that Lawson's machine said we couldn't and Family Mart's said they didn't go on sale until Monday at 7pm. OMG! So I hopefully will get back in time to buy one...
I bought some sushi from Ito Yokado for dinner, and started going through photos and whatnot when I got home, but in reality instead watched the end of the Japan Series and then crashed hard.
As I write this, in the afternoon on Monday, Keio is currently kicking Waseda's butt 6-1 in the 2nd game of the series. So it's looking like that game will be for all the marbles after all. Awesome :)
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