Baseball

You have not experienced baseball until you have seen a Japanese baseball game! We erroneously thought we were headed to a night of baseball and indeed it was the game we were expecting. The game, as played in Japan, is a totally participatory sport. First ALL of the fans are dressed up in the appropriate colors/clothing/hats or whatever that supports their particular team - all except, of course, the crazy gaijin who don’t know any better. Then, you give each and every one of those crazy fans two bat shaped plastic objects of various sizes from long and skinny to short and fat. Then you add some cheerleaders on the field – complete with pink knee high boots and bright pink pom poms – looking very much like go-go girls. Now you also need the mascots – 2 dinosaurs and a mouse – who dance around with the girls on the field. That, however, is not enough. You also need some cheer leading right up there in the stands – 4 to 6 people, dressed in the appropriate colors, blow whistles to attract the attention of the hords so that they can bang the baseball shaped things together in time to beating drums and the live band. Now, to further attract attention to your side, add a few flags – BIG flags, GIGANTIC flags, between 3 and 6 flags – all being waved to the beat of the aforementioned drums and bands. Add some chants to this and you have just set the stage for the beginning of the game.

They are very civil about their cheering. Each side takes turns cheering their team on when they are the ones up at bat. They are LOUD! They jump around, they sway back and forth, they bang on each other’s bats, they chant louder and louder. It’s actually a wonder that the team members can think at all with the noise level. As the game progressed, the taking turns seemed to diminish and both teams were cheering, frequently at the same time – particularly since it turned out to be a very close game. The notable thing, however, was that there was absolutely NO booing whatsoever from either side. We also noted the total cleanliness of the stands. They even had crew who wiped up spills while the game was in process! Trash was even thrown away (though we did notice that the losing team left some behind, not so the winning team). Absolutely amazing!