Baseball

Baseball to Japan is like football to the US. Since Jordan and I already like baseball we were strongly encouraged to catch a game.

The Back of the Stadium

The first thing we noticed about the stadium is that, of course, the seats are tiny. They were not wide enough for anyone wider than me and your legs take up all the row space so that if someone needs to get past you to get to or from their seat you must get up and stand in the isle in order to let them pass.

The next thing we noticed is the constant cheering. When your team is at bat the fans are constantly singing songs and cheering. There is even a trumpet player!

In between every inning cheerleaders come out with the mascots and prance around. There was also a t-shirt shooting gun on a truck.

Instead of a 7th inning stretch there is a 7th inning large cheer sessions with a balloon blow off! And some small fireworks of course (even though at this point the home team was losing).

But in the end the Yokohama Baystares won! With a 2 run homerun! There was lots of cheering and songs and dancing mascots and cheerleaders. They also set up a quick stage and interviewed the pitcher and the guy that hit the home run. More cheering and another balloon light off and then more fireworks!! Fans sang their cheers all the way out of the stadium.

It was all quite the production but in the end I prefer our baseball games. Hearing the same two cheers over and over all game got to be rather loud and a little tiresome. Perhaps if I knew what they were saying... I sang my old softball cheers instead :)