Date: Saturday, 5/12/07
Time: 6p-10p
Place: Tokyo Meiji Jingu Stadium, north Tokyo, Japan
Game #: Yakult home #20/#38 total -JN #14 of 2007
Attendance: 37,000? (no exact figure, max is 37,933, and it was pretty damn full)
Those Present: JN, JN's mommy
The Players: The Tokyo Yakult Swallows, and the visiting Hanshin Tigers
Final Score: Tigers hold on for to 3-2 win.
update coming...
Friday, May 25, 2007
An Apology, a Welcome-back, and a Primer to the World of Hanshin Tigers Baseball
Firstly, I apologize to you who have been patiently waiting for Johnny Laugh's newest entries. I have been busy immersing myself in Japan and Japanese culture and language, to the point where I have been thinking in Japanese, which does you and me no good in this blog, since I don't write or read Japanese well, and you probably don't either.
That being said, I also had a few chances to immerse myself in Japanese baseball, between viewings of New York Yankee and Seattle Mariners baseball on Japanese TV (every single day, damn Yankees!). The funny thing is that their "Direct TV" is called "BS", Broadcast Satellite, so we were watching BS-1 and BS-3 everyday, a funny thing to yell in English.
***
Alot has been said about how the Hanshin Tigers of Japan's Central (National) League are the Boston Red Sox of Japan. They are good, but only so good, taking the Japan Series in 1985 after a long hiatus and backseat to the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants (the Japanese Yankees), and then not reappearing there until 2003 (and losing in the series then).
Their futility (many credit a curse started when happy fans threw a KFC Colonel Sanders statue into the local river in celebration in 1985) is noteworthy, and as a bigger-payrolled and more historical team (since 1935, proclaims the logo), makes them a target for Red Sox-esque failure-complex.
Also paralleled to American ball is their rabid #1 in Japan fanbase versus the old-guard by-default-type Tokyo Giants fans (think smug Yankee fans, and then loud/obnoxious Red Sox fans at whatever stadium you've been to), and their yearly, three-week, built-in road trip (when they vacate their sacred Koshien Stadium in Osaka for the national high-school baseball tournament - think March Madness, in one stadium).
All this, and from America, my mom and I have been patiently watching, thinking that the fans and the happy-go-lucky team have been A. Obnoxious, and B. Curious.
What makes these fans so so loud and crazy? Other teams have an organized fan-cheering section, and since the country is small (the size of the state of California), most teams cheering sections travel to road games (Tokyo as San Francisco, and Osaka as LA, in geographic terms), but the Tigers fans are the loudest, the most numerous, and the loudest (really).
We took a few trains to Meiji Jingu Stadium, in northeast Tokyo, to find out. Luckily, our good local friend and host got us some prime "Tigers' Corner" bleacher seats, 2nd row! and we were in the epicenter for the earthquake that is Tigers Baseball Fandom...
That being said, I also had a few chances to immerse myself in Japanese baseball, between viewings of New York Yankee and Seattle Mariners baseball on Japanese TV (every single day, damn Yankees!). The funny thing is that their "Direct TV" is called "BS", Broadcast Satellite, so we were watching BS-1 and BS-3 everyday, a funny thing to yell in English.
***
Alot has been said about how the Hanshin Tigers of Japan's Central (National) League are the Boston Red Sox of Japan. They are good, but only so good, taking the Japan Series in 1985 after a long hiatus and backseat to the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants (the Japanese Yankees), and then not reappearing there until 2003 (and losing in the series then).
Their futility (many credit a curse started when happy fans threw a KFC Colonel Sanders statue into the local river in celebration in 1985) is noteworthy, and as a bigger-payrolled and more historical team (since 1935, proclaims the logo), makes them a target for Red Sox-esque failure-complex.
Also paralleled to American ball is their rabid #1 in Japan fanbase versus the old-guard by-default-type Tokyo Giants fans (think smug Yankee fans, and then loud/obnoxious Red Sox fans at whatever stadium you've been to), and their yearly, three-week, built-in road trip (when they vacate their sacred Koshien Stadium in Osaka for the national high-school baseball tournament - think March Madness, in one stadium).
All this, and from America, my mom and I have been patiently watching, thinking that the fans and the happy-go-lucky team have been A. Obnoxious, and B. Curious.
What makes these fans so so loud and crazy? Other teams have an organized fan-cheering section, and since the country is small (the size of the state of California), most teams cheering sections travel to road games (Tokyo as San Francisco, and Osaka as LA, in geographic terms), but the Tigers fans are the loudest, the most numerous, and the loudest (really).
We took a few trains to Meiji Jingu Stadium, in northeast Tokyo, to find out. Luckily, our good local friend and host got us some prime "Tigers' Corner" bleacher seats, 2nd row! and we were in the epicenter for the earthquake that is Tigers Baseball Fandom...
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