Take Me Out...

So after many months of discussion, I finally made it to a Japanese professional baseball match. I saw the local team, the Hanshin Tigers, play the Orix Bluewave.

I've been to dozens of baseball matches in the States, and this was, as most other things I have experienced this past year, quite a different experience.

First off, I couldn't fit in the seats.


The cheering was also quite different from games at Shea. Sure, there are organized cheers of "Let's go Mets!" and the "CHARGE!" horn, but nothing quite like what they do here. The cheering was non-stop from the first pitch to the last. The only breaks in cheering were between innings. The entire stadium cheered in unison (very Japanese, of course) for the entire game. They suddenly switched cheers and rhythms, and no one missed a beat.


But the most foreign part of the game was their version of the 7th inning stretch. Of course they don't sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." They don't sing anything. Instead, practically everyone in the 55,000-seat stadium has these balloons (a package of 4 costs 200 yen, about 1.85). They all get blown up by the middle of the 7th inning, and then, in unison (also very Japanese), the scoreboard flashes the words "Lucky 7s" and everyone lets go of their balloons. I've never experienced anything like that before.


Then the balloons, naturally, rain down on everyone and have to be picked up off the field by the stadium crew.


There was Japanese food, naturally - overpriced yakitori, udon and ramen. But no hot dogs or pretzels. No Cracker Jacks. But there was popcorn. And beer, so I did just fine.

The Tigers lost, 4-1, but it was a great experience.