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Definitely another one of those "only in Japan" days
I went to the Fighters vs. Futures game in Kamagaya today... that is, the Fighters' minor-league team taking on a combination of players from the other six teams in the Eastern (minor) League. It's just an exhibition game, but can still be a lot of fun.
However, since it's an exhibition game, there were no charter buses to the stadium from Kamagaya station. BUT, when I was on the Tobu Noda train, I saw an (older) guy with a Fighters bag wearing a Fighters cap, so when we got to the station and there was no bus, I basically said "are you going to Kamagaya stadium?" and he said yes, and we ended up splitting a taxi, except he wouldn't let me pay.
Then as I was walking in, an old dude asked me if I was Jason Botts's wife. WTF. He was like "I've never seen you and you're a gaijin, therefore you must be a player's wife!" and I'm like "no way dude, I've been a Fighters fan for like seven years, I come here about once a month". He didn't believe me, and then Ojisan saw me like "hey! Deanna! come here!"
I did run into some other friends... and even the mascot Cubby's handler was like "hey! what's up?" and I said "how's Cubby doing? I was worried last week when they said he was in the hospital..." and Cubby gave me a big hug. Yes, the mascot accosts me instead of vice versa.
I mean, yeah, I had to endure a lot of "WTF is the gaijin doing here" stares but every time it's always a little better. Even the crazy Taiwanese lady who works at the food stand said hi to me.
So, the Fighters lost. That sucked. Poor Yanuki had a really rough inning and got hit up for ilke 7 runs. But um, Sho Nakata hit a home run for the Fighters, and I took a whole ton of photos. Ryota Imanari was the DH and struck out like three times, poor guy :( I got to see Mikinori Katoh pitch for the Futures, which was kind of cool (I saw him pitch when he was still in college at Keio). And Noriyuki Kobayashi started for the Futures... he usually wears #123 for Chiba and went to high school literally less than a mile from where I used to live in Saitama (I rode my bike past his HS a few times).
After the game, I was encouraged to come talk to players as they headed back to the team dorm. So in the span of an hour, the following happened:
- I got my jersey signed by Ryota Imanari!!!! :)
- Ojisan tried to introduce me to Shimazaki-coach, but Shimazaki looked at me and was like "Hey, I recognize you, didn't you go to Sendai last summer with this guy and his friends?" I got a photo with him and also got to look through his pitching schedule -- Wednesday's starter is going to be Hideki Sunaga, that should be fun!
- I got my photo taken with pitchers Yanuki and Matsuyama. I should have been more proactive about photos as usual but alas. Like, I could have TOTALLY gotten my photo with Sho Nakata if I had pushed for it.
- I chatted with outfielder Kazuya Murata's parents for a while... they come to almost all the home minor league games since they live in Chiba.
- Pitcher Shintaro Ejiri actually looked at the photos on my camera!!!! Basically Ejiri pitched an inning today and asked Ojisan if he'd taken photos of it, and Ojisan had a few, but I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Ejiri so I had taken about 30-40 photos of him. I wasn't sure if I should show him but Murata's mom saw me looking through my photos and said "oh! go show those to him, he'll really appreciate that!" So I showed them to him and he basically just took my D200 and scrolled through them, and he thanked me, and was like "oh! Nikon D200! That's a really good camera!"
It turns out that the minor league pitchers don't really get to see video or photos of what they look like pitching until much later so he was really curious how his arm angle was, since he's been doing more of a 3/4 delivery in the last year or so, so that's why he asked to see our cameras. Holy crap that was awesome though, I've NEVER had a baseball player going through my camera before, especially not one that I totally adore. Ejiri is like one week older than me. I got my photo taken with him last year or I would have bugged him today (probably should have anyway, heh). He's so tall and so cute (and smart, too, he went to Waseda).
- I met a bunch of crazy college baseball fans. Well, actually, no, these two guys that went to Hosei... they had a bunch of college player photos, so I was like "oh, who's that? what's that?" and started talking to them. Told them I was a huge Tatsuya Ohishi fan and they were like "whoa, cool"... and I was looking through a few of their Hosei photos like "hey, that's Kagami isn't it? and that's Futagami, right? and whoa! that's Komatsu! When are these from?" and I think they were thinking "why the hell does this white girl know who all of these college baseball players are?" The one guy had a Waseda jersey and a Meiji jersey and he had been getting it signed by pro players who went to those universities.. the other guy simply had a Hosei jersey and was doing the same. Anyway, they gave me a Tokyo Big 6 alumni paper from last fall and a nice print of a photo of Kisho Kagami (pitcher, 3rd-year, awesome) since I said I liked him. And that would have been fine. Except then one of the guys insisted on showing me like three photobooks full of pictures of Hosei players and I really had no fucking clue who any of them were, so that was... weird. He told me that next week was the best week to watch Hosei because they play against Todai. I'm like "Bah, isn't that boring?" and he said "Yeah, but we'll win and we also get double stamps in our pointbook for that game."
Unfortunately I had to RUN to get the last bus to Nishi-Funabashi station, or face walking back to Kamagaya. Which wouldn't have been that bad, really.
When I got back to Akabane I stopped in at Sports Authority to find out how much time and money it'd take to get a name and number put on my Fighters jersey. The guy said it'd cost 3465 yen for a name and 2-digit number, and the name could also be in Japanese. So I'm totally thinking of getting 今成亮太 #62 put on the back of the Fighters jersey I got signed today by Imanari. The logic being, if I'm getting a custom jersey here in Japan, why the hell not get kanji on it?
Oh yeah, also, I have my tickets for June 5th and 6th now, the Fighters vs. Giants game at the Tokyo Dome. Ojisan ordered a whole bunch for our gang, so I paid him for them today and he gave me the tickets. Yay. We're in the second row in left field. It should be fun.
So here's the thing. It'll take 3 weeks to get numbers put on a jersey, or so said the SA guy. I'm planning to go to Fighters games May 4-6, but the next time the top team is in Kanto again is seriously like June 5th for the Giants. I'm probly going to Nagoya for the game on May 24, and probly to a minor-league game on May 16-17 or so, but if ever there was a time where I'd have 3 weeks to spare the jersey, seems like May 7th->28th is as good a time as any. SO, on May 6th after the Kamagaya game I will probly take the jersey to SA and order letters! Yay.
And knowing my luck, Imanari will get traded or switch numbers next year :(
Anyway... here's a few photos...
Me with Cubby, who is out of the hospital now.
Me with Suguru Matsuyama. He pitched pretty awful today. But seems like a nice guy. Note you can see that my jersey got signed. :)
Me with Toshiyuki Yanuki. My hat kept blowing off so I'm kind of looking weird in this photo. He's so tall though! Shame he pitched like crap today too.
With pitching coach Takeshi Shimazaki, who actually used to be one of the Fighters' better pitchers back in the 1990's.
Shimazaki's whiteboard from the dugout, with the rotation for the next 6 games as well as his notes from today's game.
Ejiri asks Ojisan whether he's got any photos from the game.
However, since it's an exhibition game, there were no charter buses to the stadium from Kamagaya station. BUT, when I was on the Tobu Noda train, I saw an (older) guy with a Fighters bag wearing a Fighters cap, so when we got to the station and there was no bus, I basically said "are you going to Kamagaya stadium?" and he said yes, and we ended up splitting a taxi, except he wouldn't let me pay.
Then as I was walking in, an old dude asked me if I was Jason Botts's wife. WTF. He was like "I've never seen you and you're a gaijin, therefore you must be a player's wife!" and I'm like "no way dude, I've been a Fighters fan for like seven years, I come here about once a month". He didn't believe me, and then Ojisan saw me like "hey! Deanna! come here!"
I did run into some other friends... and even the mascot Cubby's handler was like "hey! what's up?" and I said "how's Cubby doing? I was worried last week when they said he was in the hospital..." and Cubby gave me a big hug. Yes, the mascot accosts me instead of vice versa.
I mean, yeah, I had to endure a lot of "WTF is the gaijin doing here" stares but every time it's always a little better. Even the crazy Taiwanese lady who works at the food stand said hi to me.
So, the Fighters lost. That sucked. Poor Yanuki had a really rough inning and got hit up for ilke 7 runs. But um, Sho Nakata hit a home run for the Fighters, and I took a whole ton of photos. Ryota Imanari was the DH and struck out like three times, poor guy :( I got to see Mikinori Katoh pitch for the Futures, which was kind of cool (I saw him pitch when he was still in college at Keio). And Noriyuki Kobayashi started for the Futures... he usually wears #123 for Chiba and went to high school literally less than a mile from where I used to live in Saitama (I rode my bike past his HS a few times).
After the game, I was encouraged to come talk to players as they headed back to the team dorm. So in the span of an hour, the following happened:
- I got my jersey signed by Ryota Imanari!!!! :)
- Ojisan tried to introduce me to Shimazaki-coach, but Shimazaki looked at me and was like "Hey, I recognize you, didn't you go to Sendai last summer with this guy and his friends?" I got a photo with him and also got to look through his pitching schedule -- Wednesday's starter is going to be Hideki Sunaga, that should be fun!
- I got my photo taken with pitchers Yanuki and Matsuyama. I should have been more proactive about photos as usual but alas. Like, I could have TOTALLY gotten my photo with Sho Nakata if I had pushed for it.
- I chatted with outfielder Kazuya Murata's parents for a while... they come to almost all the home minor league games since they live in Chiba.
- Pitcher Shintaro Ejiri actually looked at the photos on my camera!!!! Basically Ejiri pitched an inning today and asked Ojisan if he'd taken photos of it, and Ojisan had a few, but I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Ejiri so I had taken about 30-40 photos of him. I wasn't sure if I should show him but Murata's mom saw me looking through my photos and said "oh! go show those to him, he'll really appreciate that!" So I showed them to him and he basically just took my D200 and scrolled through them, and he thanked me, and was like "oh! Nikon D200! That's a really good camera!"
It turns out that the minor league pitchers don't really get to see video or photos of what they look like pitching until much later so he was really curious how his arm angle was, since he's been doing more of a 3/4 delivery in the last year or so, so that's why he asked to see our cameras. Holy crap that was awesome though, I've NEVER had a baseball player going through my camera before, especially not one that I totally adore. Ejiri is like one week older than me. I got my photo taken with him last year or I would have bugged him today (probably should have anyway, heh). He's so tall and so cute (and smart, too, he went to Waseda).
- I met a bunch of crazy college baseball fans. Well, actually, no, these two guys that went to Hosei... they had a bunch of college player photos, so I was like "oh, who's that? what's that?" and started talking to them. Told them I was a huge Tatsuya Ohishi fan and they were like "whoa, cool"... and I was looking through a few of their Hosei photos like "hey, that's Kagami isn't it? and that's Futagami, right? and whoa! that's Komatsu! When are these from?" and I think they were thinking "why the hell does this white girl know who all of these college baseball players are?" The one guy had a Waseda jersey and a Meiji jersey and he had been getting it signed by pro players who went to those universities.. the other guy simply had a Hosei jersey and was doing the same. Anyway, they gave me a Tokyo Big 6 alumni paper from last fall and a nice print of a photo of Kisho Kagami (pitcher, 3rd-year, awesome) since I said I liked him. And that would have been fine. Except then one of the guys insisted on showing me like three photobooks full of pictures of Hosei players and I really had no fucking clue who any of them were, so that was... weird. He told me that next week was the best week to watch Hosei because they play against Todai. I'm like "Bah, isn't that boring?" and he said "Yeah, but we'll win and we also get double stamps in our pointbook for that game."
Unfortunately I had to RUN to get the last bus to Nishi-Funabashi station, or face walking back to Kamagaya. Which wouldn't have been that bad, really.
When I got back to Akabane I stopped in at Sports Authority to find out how much time and money it'd take to get a name and number put on my Fighters jersey. The guy said it'd cost 3465 yen for a name and 2-digit number, and the name could also be in Japanese. So I'm totally thinking of getting 今成亮太 #62 put on the back of the Fighters jersey I got signed today by Imanari. The logic being, if I'm getting a custom jersey here in Japan, why the hell not get kanji on it?
Oh yeah, also, I have my tickets for June 5th and 6th now, the Fighters vs. Giants game at the Tokyo Dome. Ojisan ordered a whole bunch for our gang, so I paid him for them today and he gave me the tickets. Yay. We're in the second row in left field. It should be fun.
So here's the thing. It'll take 3 weeks to get numbers put on a jersey, or so said the SA guy. I'm planning to go to Fighters games May 4-6, but the next time the top team is in Kanto again is seriously like June 5th for the Giants. I'm probly going to Nagoya for the game on May 24, and probly to a minor-league game on May 16-17 or so, but if ever there was a time where I'd have 3 weeks to spare the jersey, seems like May 7th->28th is as good a time as any. SO, on May 6th after the Kamagaya game I will probly take the jersey to SA and order letters! Yay.
And knowing my luck, Imanari will get traded or switch numbers next year :(
Anyway... here's a few photos...
Me with Cubby, who is out of the hospital now.
Me with Suguru Matsuyama. He pitched pretty awful today. But seems like a nice guy. Note you can see that my jersey got signed. :)
Me with Toshiyuki Yanuki. My hat kept blowing off so I'm kind of looking weird in this photo. He's so tall though! Shame he pitched like crap today too.
With pitching coach Takeshi Shimazaki, who actually used to be one of the Fighters' better pitchers back in the 1990's.
Shimazaki's whiteboard from the dugout, with the rotation for the next 6 games as well as his notes from today's game.
Ejiri asks Ojisan whether he's got any photos from the game.
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