Last weekend I went to a pre-season baseball game to see the Hanshin Tigers play the Eagles. Japanese baseball is fairly similar to American baseball in a lot of ways, but the fans are completely different. The Tigers are famous for having rowdy fans, though the stadium wasn't too crowded because it was Spring Training and it was a Monday afternoon. Every time the Tigers were at bat, everyone around us (we were in the Tigers cheering section) was singing and making noise along with men who were shouting encouragement and playing trumpets. Each inning there was a different man leading the crowd.
Instead of a seventh-inning stretch, they had a big balloon release. We all blew up big ballooons with special caps on the ends (to release air slowly) and then let them go during the special balloon song. It was a very pretty sight to see all the balloons fly into the air and I also enjoyed the balloon cleaning squad on the field who waited for the balloons to fall and picked them up before the players came back out. A single balloon escaped their attention and was flying around but the right fielder got it in the end.
1 comment:
Go to a regular season baseball game. It really is an experience (even more so that what you've already seen). After that, you might add the movie "Mr. Baseball" (which was filmed in Japan when I was living there) which is about an American on a Japanese baseball team. Good stuff. ^_^
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