Japanese Baseball Experience
For Tyler’s Birthday we had the chance to go to a professional baseball game. Here in Japan, baseball is one of the most popular sports along with soccer. At a very young age, many kids are put onto teams and continue all the way until end of high school. They practice more than ever here, everyday including weekends, and I’d almost say all year. They have quite a different culture compared to our high school teams such as; most mandate a shaved head policy and many other strict policies. Also the national high school championships are also televised and extremely popular.
Today a typhoon (the “hurricanes” of the Pacific) was brushing by our island, but luckily the Yahoo Dome is able to shut; therefore making the game extremely pleasant. Our seats were quite close to the front and we had a great view of the field. So many families and even elderly people were there. Japan Baseball fan traditions include themed chants for each individual player with the help of mini bats clapping against each other and the releasing of balloons during the 7th inning. Although after hearing this for 2.5 hours it seemed that the rhythm is actually the same, just the words are different and maybe a difference in the horn melody. One major thing we noticed was that no one was ever cheering or shouting; despite the clapping of bats it was actually quite quiet and reserved. (Similar to the movie theaters here, where you feel embarrassed even taking a bite of popcorn) The only people whom were shouting, chanting, or cheering were in a special section at the back of the field. Maybe we were just so used to our American college football games, where everyone is screaming at referees, players, other fans, or anything they want. At the end of the game victory fireworks went off, yeah that’s right, inside the closed dome! Quite loud, that’s for sure.
Our home team easily crushed the Yokohama team within the first 2 or 3 innings, 7-1.
It was a great Birthday, and great experience. We are hoping our team goes to the finals and we could go see more games and maybe go join the cheer section.