Scribbler's Cafe

pop my baseball cherry

Toru came down from Tokyo to chase my loneliness away for a couple days. He brings me such peace. I am so grateful for his friendship. We did many fun things. I took him to the trippy pseudo-catholic-goth restaurant in Umeda and showed him one of my favorite jazz hideouts. It was very enjoyable for me to dress up and play adult for a night. But, the highlight was easily the baseball game.

We went to my FIRST BASEBALL GAME EVER!!! The Yokohama Baystars were playing the Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium. Toru was cheering for the Baystars (with about three other people). The Tigers are my local team, so I joined in with the massive hoards in yelling for them. Japanese baseball fans have a reputation around the world for being crazy and over the top. In Japan, it’s the Tigers fans that are thought of as the most extreme. Yep, they were pretty crazy. Everyone had sticks to bang together and knew the special cheers and clapping patterns for each player and special play. My favorite moments were when all ten gazillion people (me included, Toru refused) blew up giant sperm-shaped balloons and then released them at the bottom the seventh to rally the team. Amazing sight. We got to do it again at the end of the game because the Tigers won. There was tons of beer, just like in America, but I couldn’t find hotdogs. There was sticky squid on a stick and that looked pretty good. The baseball game itself was fairly interesting as well. Yet, it was very easy to forget about the game with all the action in the stands.

AND not only did we get to see this great game, we got in for FREE! We got to the stadium late (delayed by dinner in Namba’s Noodle World). When we started to approach the ticket booth, a couple came up to us and offered us their tickets. They didn’t even ask to be paid. We happily took them and went in to figure out where the heck our seats were. We were even more surprised to find that they were AMAZING box seats – second row, on the baseline. No one even sat in front of me so it was like being in the first row. We were feeling pretty lucky that night.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, July 09, 2006