College baseball and DDR yakiniku
Today I went to Meiji Jingu for what I thought was going to be THE best pitching matchup pair of games of the season, period. Waseda-Meiji was Yuki "Handkerchief" Saito against Yusuke "5 Outs Away" Nomura, and I thought Keio-Hosei was going to be Nobuaki Nakabayashi vs. Kisho Kagami. Except I apparently missed the memo that Kagami injured his shoulder. So, crap. Instead, Kazuhito Futagami started. He's Hosei's ace this year anyway, and expected to go high in the draft and all, but for whatever reason he doesn't excite me.
Anyway, the place was PACKED because half of Tokyo wanted to come see 2006's Koshien hero Yuu-chan against 2007's almost-hero Yuu-kun. So guess what I discovered? Outfield seats for Tokyo Big 6 games (except Soukeisen of course) are FREE for women! Seriously! I was going to get in line for infield tickets and the line was huge, and so I asked a guy where I could buy outfield tickets and he basically said "...um, you're a girl, women get in for free in the outfield." "WHAT? Really?" "Really."
So I went in for free, sat in the front row in left field for the first game. I would have been on the Meiji side if I'd been taking photos for real, but since I was so far out, I decided instead to go be near the Waseda bullpen so I could see Tatsuya Ohishi warm up. And he warmed up from the 5th inning to the 8th inning, so I wasn't disappointed. I'm really not sure whether I'm a Waseda fan per se -- I think in some ways I just kind of like ALL the Tokyo Big 6 teams, even Todai -- but I'm definitely an Ohishi fan. Actually, it was kinda funny, there was a lady sitting a few seats down from me keeping a scorecard too, and I'd missed the first inning dealing with lines, so I asked her what happened in the first inning, she told me, I wrote it down, then she asked where I was from, why I speak Japanese so well, etc. We chatted a bit, I asked her what player she liked, and she was like "Saitoh-kun of course, I watched him when he was in high school and thought he was so wonderful back then. Are you also a fan of his?" and I was like "No, I love Ohishi-kun!" She was pretty surprised by that, and asked if I was an exchange student at Waseda or something, and I said no, I just like college baseball. Waseda won the game 7-0, I got to see Ohishi pitch an inning, I was happy.
Second game I decided to go sit on the Hosei side because I didn't know Kagami was out. Then I found out he was. I stayed there anyway for a new vantage point. It was a really close game and Hosei won 3-2. It's going to be REALLY interesting to see the Hosei-Meiji game next week, which I believe will determine the Tokyo Big 6 champion, as neither team has lost a series yet.
After that I ran home briefly to drop off my camera and other crap and then I went down to Nakano to meet up with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seishinbyou and his friends, for cheap all-you-can-eat yakiniku. Quite an experience. I still don't do very well at big groups of strangers, and get really freaked out, but it WAS nice to see Aaron again after like 5 years, and to kind of meet Akudaikan after seeing his DDR photos on Aaron's site for so long. I also got to meet februaryfour, and her boyfriend, who bizarrely enough were two of the aforementioned foreigners-I-don't-know sitting next to Sakamoto at the Marines-Fighters game on May 5.
After eating way too much meat in 2 hours, we adjourned to an arcade in Shinjuku, where most of the group proceeded to play a lot of DDR and I proceeded to play a lot of Pop'n'Music and hang out. I did play two songs of DDR, fairly low level 6-foot stuff... I kind of vaguely wonder exactly where my limit would be now if I tried to push some harder songs, and at the same time, I really don't want to have to deal with any more foot/knee problems -- I'm still wearing orthopedic inserts as a result of my DDR days.
I took a bunch of photos through the night but this is one of the ones I'm actually in, a group shot outside the arcade. We took two but the first one there's a huge light flare in my face, very weird.
(Aaron, I'll send you the rest sometime if you tell me where to send them... including the one of you kicking the Jubeat machine...)
When I got on the train home, this guy next to me saw my shirt (a Nationals shirt) and asked me in English if I was from Washington DC, and I answered in Japanese and tried to make it clear I really didn't feel like playing English Teacher, but he persisted on asking me questions about baseball in the US, and said he studied in Portland for a few months at one point and hopes to study sports management in the US again someday and that he loves the Red Sox and the Mariners and asked me stuff about them and I'm like "Look, dude, I seriously have no clue, I haven't paid attention to the MLB in like two years because I find it totally boring compared to Japanese baseball, I don't KNOW what is going on with A-Rod or Griffey or anyone else, why do you not believe me? If you want to talk about baseball with me, you'll have to talk about Japan, thanks." I was holding my issue of 大学野球 because I planned to spend the train ride continuing to read more about the players I saw today, but instead I ended up talking to this guy. I guess I kind of felt bad for him. The funny part is, I think if he'd actually been cute, I would have tried to get his email address or something, but he wasn't. Plus I really, really, really don't need "friends" who are just using me for free English lessons.
Anyway, long day. Why the hell am I still awake?
Tomorrow I was originally going to go to Kamagaya for the Fighters-Searex minor league game, but it's supposed to rain, so I'm not really sure what I'll do. We'll see.
Anyway, the place was PACKED because half of Tokyo wanted to come see 2006's Koshien hero Yuu-chan against 2007's almost-hero Yuu-kun. So guess what I discovered? Outfield seats for Tokyo Big 6 games (except Soukeisen of course) are FREE for women! Seriously! I was going to get in line for infield tickets and the line was huge, and so I asked a guy where I could buy outfield tickets and he basically said "...um, you're a girl, women get in for free in the outfield." "WHAT? Really?" "Really."
So I went in for free, sat in the front row in left field for the first game. I would have been on the Meiji side if I'd been taking photos for real, but since I was so far out, I decided instead to go be near the Waseda bullpen so I could see Tatsuya Ohishi warm up. And he warmed up from the 5th inning to the 8th inning, so I wasn't disappointed. I'm really not sure whether I'm a Waseda fan per se -- I think in some ways I just kind of like ALL the Tokyo Big 6 teams, even Todai -- but I'm definitely an Ohishi fan. Actually, it was kinda funny, there was a lady sitting a few seats down from me keeping a scorecard too, and I'd missed the first inning dealing with lines, so I asked her what happened in the first inning, she told me, I wrote it down, then she asked where I was from, why I speak Japanese so well, etc. We chatted a bit, I asked her what player she liked, and she was like "Saitoh-kun of course, I watched him when he was in high school and thought he was so wonderful back then. Are you also a fan of his?" and I was like "No, I love Ohishi-kun!" She was pretty surprised by that, and asked if I was an exchange student at Waseda or something, and I said no, I just like college baseball. Waseda won the game 7-0, I got to see Ohishi pitch an inning, I was happy.
Second game I decided to go sit on the Hosei side because I didn't know Kagami was out. Then I found out he was. I stayed there anyway for a new vantage point. It was a really close game and Hosei won 3-2. It's going to be REALLY interesting to see the Hosei-Meiji game next week, which I believe will determine the Tokyo Big 6 champion, as neither team has lost a series yet.
After that I ran home briefly to drop off my camera and other crap and then I went down to Nakano to meet up with
seishinbyou and his friends, for cheap all-you-can-eat yakiniku. Quite an experience. I still don't do very well at big groups of strangers, and get really freaked out, but it WAS nice to see Aaron again after like 5 years, and to kind of meet Akudaikan after seeing his DDR photos on Aaron's site for so long. I also got to meet februaryfour, and her boyfriend, who bizarrely enough were two of the aforementioned foreigners-I-don't-know sitting next to Sakamoto at the Marines-Fighters game on May 5. After eating way too much meat in 2 hours, we adjourned to an arcade in Shinjuku, where most of the group proceeded to play a lot of DDR and I proceeded to play a lot of Pop'n'Music and hang out. I did play two songs of DDR, fairly low level 6-foot stuff... I kind of vaguely wonder exactly where my limit would be now if I tried to push some harder songs, and at the same time, I really don't want to have to deal with any more foot/knee problems -- I'm still wearing orthopedic inserts as a result of my DDR days.
I took a bunch of photos through the night but this is one of the ones I'm actually in, a group shot outside the arcade. We took two but the first one there's a huge light flare in my face, very weird.
(Aaron, I'll send you the rest sometime if you tell me where to send them... including the one of you kicking the Jubeat machine...)
When I got on the train home, this guy next to me saw my shirt (a Nationals shirt) and asked me in English if I was from Washington DC, and I answered in Japanese and tried to make it clear I really didn't feel like playing English Teacher, but he persisted on asking me questions about baseball in the US, and said he studied in Portland for a few months at one point and hopes to study sports management in the US again someday and that he loves the Red Sox and the Mariners and asked me stuff about them and I'm like "Look, dude, I seriously have no clue, I haven't paid attention to the MLB in like two years because I find it totally boring compared to Japanese baseball, I don't KNOW what is going on with A-Rod or Griffey or anyone else, why do you not believe me? If you want to talk about baseball with me, you'll have to talk about Japan, thanks." I was holding my issue of 大学野球 because I planned to spend the train ride continuing to read more about the players I saw today, but instead I ended up talking to this guy. I guess I kind of felt bad for him. The funny part is, I think if he'd actually been cute, I would have tried to get his email address or something, but he wasn't. Plus I really, really, really don't need "friends" who are just using me for free English lessons.
Anyway, long day. Why the hell am I still awake?
Tomorrow I was originally going to go to Kamagaya for the Fighters-Searex minor league game, but it's supposed to rain, so I'm not really sure what I'll do. We'll see.