Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Tokyo Giants v. Yokohama Baseball

So my other big story yesterday besides getting lost was actually going to the game. I was definitely surprised at the differences there are between American baseball games and Japanese ones. Even though we were at Yokohama's field, there was hardly home team advantage. Each team had huge cheering sections in the outfield stands. Yokohama's was in the right field and we were in Tokyo territory on the other side. Instead of following the official songs and cheers brought on by the stadium announcers, each team had a cheer leader (from now on will be refered to as cheermister, lol) and their own bands (trumpets, drums, etc). The fans had songs memorized and would routinely add in the batters name when appropriate. Grandmas, kids, and married couples were all into it. They would give strangers fist pounds when a run scored. Lol.



The funniest thing was when one of Travis's dorm mates would blow this plastic horn. It made a terrible honking sound. Lol, everyone would turn around and stare. It is okay to cheer here, but only when its in sync and the same as everyone else. Its a very Asian concept. Where in America you can make noise whenever, be your own person, here sticking out is not a good thing. Even cheering and clapping is calculated and regulated. People know when to do it and when to be quiet.

After a few more blows of the horn, a police officer came over and told Roy to stop blowing it. The officer said that it was bad and that it interfered with the rhythm of the cheering. Lol, that had to be the highlight of the game.



I was surprised because almost all of the people that were walking around and selling food and beer were young women. Like that's gotta be a hard job, especially if you are a little Japanese girl. It seems like in the states that job is dominated by guys. Probably because of the weight you have to carry and that women don't want to have to do it. I found that interesting.

Lastly I've found people to to very self-disciplined here. For instance the baseball stands were probably the cleanest I have ever been in. There wasn't popcorn and food all over the ground. This is partially because there was someone who would periodically come around to pick up trash (genius) and also because if people spilt something they would clean it up themselves. I believe that's why the trains, sidewalks, and everything is so clean.

A few of the Japanese students with us were explaining various players. I was surprised that there were some Latin American players who played for both teams. I think one was from Columbia and the other from Venezuela. I can't remember. But for some reason I was always under the impression that American baseball were the only ones that did international recruiting. I don't know why I always thought that, but I definitely had my eyes opened today. I wondered if those players learned to speak Japanese (probably) and how they had adjusted to the culture. They were far from home, just like me.

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