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Weekend of baseball
Today I went to Kamagaya and saw the Rakuten farm team beat up the Fighters farm team.
It was a pretty great experience. First, my ticket was only 500 yen because I'm a member of the Fighters fan club. Second, the stadium is really nice for minor league -- there's a reasonable sized food stand with a nice wide variety of stadium food, and goods booths, and the bathrooms even have western toilets! Lots of room in the stands, and I got to sit in the front row right over the dugout and take tons of pictures. Also, I got ambushed and bearhugged by the mascot. Literally.
People were curious about me more than anything. In the 6th inning this crazy old dude (who had been cheering loudly all day) came up to me while Mitch Jones was at bat and said (in Japanese), "Hey, you should cheer for Jones in English!!! Come on!!" So I yelled some stuff in English like "Cmon, Mitch, you can do it," and when Jones struck out, I said "Hey, it's okay, you'll get them next time," and he actually looked up at me and kind of half nodded/half smiled. The funny part being that I totally would have never said anything if the crazy old man hadn't encouraged me to. So a few minutes later the old dude comes back and hands me a can of Asahi beer. I'm not kidding. He was like "Here! This beer is for cheering the Fighters with us!"
In the 7th inning a lady came over and asked if I understood Japanese. I said sure, I understand better than I speak. So she spent the entire 7th inning chatting with me in Japanese. Turns out she is from Sapporo, and came down to Tokyo for this week. She goes to around 40 Fighters games every year, and was also at the games on May 2/3 that I was at. Her favorite player is Masaru Takeda, and he is injured, so she hoped she could see him here in Kamagaya, but alas. Funny part here is that she said "The other ladies over there were wondering about you. They had never seen you here before, is this your first time?" I explained yeah, it was my first game, though I'd been to Kamagaya before for Fan Fest and such. "They thought maybe you were friends with Mitch Jones..." "Hahaha, no, I have never met him, I do sometimes cheer in English for the foreign players..." "Oh, like Sledge?" "No, like Seguignol... Micheal..." She was really amazed that I'd been a Fighters fan for longer than she has, and wanted to know if I'd come cheer the Fighters in the Tokyo Dome this week. And naturally I had to say "No, I'm an English teacher and Sunday/Monday are my only days off." Sigh.
Kamagaya is just too damn far from here :( I had to leave at 10:30am to be at the station to get a bus to the stadium at noon (and for the first time, I was that annoying person who barely almost missed the train and ran in and got stuck in the doors and it had to stop for a split second to accomodate me). The game was over at 4, and I stopped at the cheap baseball card store in Minami-Koshigaya and still didn't get home until like 6:30pm. (Dude. They had the Fighters Spirit 2007 box set, minus the special insert card, for 700 yen. It usually sold for like 5000 yen. I do not care about inserts. Bonus!)
Tonight, I tried to relax at home, do laundry, watch some TV, and went out for cheap sushi at one point. But I also should have been writing a lot of baseball stuff, and didn't. I suck. TV was good though, Ainori was entertaining and so was that new Kimutaku dorama, kind of.
Sunday, I... went to the Tokyo Dome all day pretty much. I had a press pass from the Daily Yomiuri because Jim Allen is cool and let me shadow him. I have a lot of things to say about that experience, but not right this minute. The Dragons lost to the Giants for Kenichi Nakata's 26th birthday, and that was kind of sad. On the other hand I got to talk to guys like Marc Kroon and Tyrone Woods before the game, so that was kind of cool. Met some of the other English-language reporters for the Tokyo area papers. Didn't faint. I consider that a big victory.
If you have ESPN, please watch Bobby Valentine's movie tonigh (May 13, 9pm Eastern). I think it will help you understand why I am so completely nutso crazy about Japanese baseball. Plus it is Bobby's birthday today, which is a weird coincidence.
It was a pretty great experience. First, my ticket was only 500 yen because I'm a member of the Fighters fan club. Second, the stadium is really nice for minor league -- there's a reasonable sized food stand with a nice wide variety of stadium food, and goods booths, and the bathrooms even have western toilets! Lots of room in the stands, and I got to sit in the front row right over the dugout and take tons of pictures. Also, I got ambushed and bearhugged by the mascot. Literally.
People were curious about me more than anything. In the 6th inning this crazy old dude (who had been cheering loudly all day) came up to me while Mitch Jones was at bat and said (in Japanese), "Hey, you should cheer for Jones in English!!! Come on!!" So I yelled some stuff in English like "Cmon, Mitch, you can do it," and when Jones struck out, I said "Hey, it's okay, you'll get them next time," and he actually looked up at me and kind of half nodded/half smiled. The funny part being that I totally would have never said anything if the crazy old man hadn't encouraged me to. So a few minutes later the old dude comes back and hands me a can of Asahi beer. I'm not kidding. He was like "Here! This beer is for cheering the Fighters with us!"
In the 7th inning a lady came over and asked if I understood Japanese. I said sure, I understand better than I speak. So she spent the entire 7th inning chatting with me in Japanese. Turns out she is from Sapporo, and came down to Tokyo for this week. She goes to around 40 Fighters games every year, and was also at the games on May 2/3 that I was at. Her favorite player is Masaru Takeda, and he is injured, so she hoped she could see him here in Kamagaya, but alas. Funny part here is that she said "The other ladies over there were wondering about you. They had never seen you here before, is this your first time?" I explained yeah, it was my first game, though I'd been to Kamagaya before for Fan Fest and such. "They thought maybe you were friends with Mitch Jones..." "Hahaha, no, I have never met him, I do sometimes cheer in English for the foreign players..." "Oh, like Sledge?" "No, like Seguignol... Micheal..." She was really amazed that I'd been a Fighters fan for longer than she has, and wanted to know if I'd come cheer the Fighters in the Tokyo Dome this week. And naturally I had to say "No, I'm an English teacher and Sunday/Monday are my only days off." Sigh.
Kamagaya is just too damn far from here :( I had to leave at 10:30am to be at the station to get a bus to the stadium at noon (and for the first time, I was that annoying person who barely almost missed the train and ran in and got stuck in the doors and it had to stop for a split second to accomodate me). The game was over at 4, and I stopped at the cheap baseball card store in Minami-Koshigaya and still didn't get home until like 6:30pm. (Dude. They had the Fighters Spirit 2007 box set, minus the special insert card, for 700 yen. It usually sold for like 5000 yen. I do not care about inserts. Bonus!)
Tonight, I tried to relax at home, do laundry, watch some TV, and went out for cheap sushi at one point. But I also should have been writing a lot of baseball stuff, and didn't. I suck. TV was good though, Ainori was entertaining and so was that new Kimutaku dorama, kind of.
Sunday, I... went to the Tokyo Dome all day pretty much. I had a press pass from the Daily Yomiuri because Jim Allen is cool and let me shadow him. I have a lot of things to say about that experience, but not right this minute. The Dragons lost to the Giants for Kenichi Nakata's 26th birthday, and that was kind of sad. On the other hand I got to talk to guys like Marc Kroon and Tyrone Woods before the game, so that was kind of cool. Met some of the other English-language reporters for the Tokyo area papers. Didn't faint. I consider that a big victory.
If you have ESPN, please watch Bobby Valentine's movie tonigh (May 13, 9pm Eastern). I think it will help you understand why I am so completely nutso crazy about Japanese baseball. Plus it is Bobby's birthday today, which is a weird coincidence.