As I write this email I am feeling quite tired. I've just been at the local park playing a game of baseball with some Japanese kids. Matt, Ashley and myself decided to take advantage of our day off and have a hit about with the baseball bat. Three Japanese boys had the same idea and after a little while we joined together and had a game.
These little guys aged 9, 12 and 13 had great skills and could bat and throw very well already. No doubt they have been playing from a very young age as the Japanese are absolutely mad on Baseball and it is unquestionably the number one sport here. The national competition or J-League is very well supported, and the teams often play to packed stadiums three or four nights a week.
As a keen sports fan myself I recently went to Fukuoka City with some friends on a Tuesday night to watch the local Softbank Hawks play Rakuten. Eagles. The game was played at the Yahoo Dome which is a very impressive stadium indeed. It is similar in appearance to the Wellington Stadium except more modern in design. It even has a roof which can be folded over in case of bad weather! The game itself is played entirely on Astroturf , so I guess it lends itself to an indoor environment. The weather was appalling the day I visited but despite that the match was a sellout with around 20-30 thousand fans attending. This created a great atmosphere for the game and we were looking forward to nine innings of exciting Baseball action.
We were seated in a good position, overlooking right field about halfway up the terraces with a reasonable chance of receiving a homerun hit . As it turned out the game was extremely one sided and there were no home runs on the night at all. I also hadn't anticipated how slow moving the game was: and this is from a guy who can sit through five days of test cricket no problems! It seemed to take an eternity between pitches and even longer before the batters got any sort of reasonable hit. After a while we were cheering fouls and any sort of contact the batter had. Luckily there were plenty of beer and Shochu vendors circulating around the crowd to keep our spirits up. As it happened the most interesting thing about the Baseball were the Japanese spectators who provided quite an interesting cultural experience for us.
Having been to a lot of sports events back home I am used to fellow spectators getting excited and expressing themselves after a few drinks. At home this often comes in the form of spontaneous applause, amusing chants or abuse targeted at the opposition. In Japan however crowds are very different. There were no individual assaults on the opposition, or bellows of support for one player or the other. Rather the crowd was an organized, vibrant force, using props and chants to collectively express their appreciation. A high percentage of the crowd were
wearing the Softbank Hawks Team Uniform and everyone and I mean every single person there had two bright yellow foot long clackers to bang together (similar to the netball variety in Southland). Each team's supporters had a large range of songs and chants they would sing to encourage their team . When their team batted, its supporters would stand up to perform. When it was their turn to field they sit down and let the other teams sup.
At the end of the lucky seventh innings we all blew up long, yellow balloons and held them closed by their rubber necks while the two fluffy cartoon mascots who had taken the field counted us down. At 'one'we all let the balloons fly out into the night and the sight of these thousands of yellow missiles soaring and diving around the arena until they ran out of air was really quite stunning. By this time the game was all but over.
The hometeam Softbank ended up winning 11-1, and by the end of the ninth inning I was more than ready to leave. However there was more to come. Amazingly the entire crowd stayed for the post match interviews which were posted on a big screen that seemed about six times the size of what I've seen in New Zealand. After this the mascots returned on four wheel motorbikes, and were joined by both teams cheerleaders. We spend the next thirty minutes with the large crowd singing victory songs and after that there.
All in all I had a fairly enjoyable night; More for the cultural experience than for any real sporting entertainment however. Although I didn't think going to the Baseball sounded like a very Japanese activity, I found that although the game itself is from the States, it seems to have developed a different culture here, quite removed from the American version. That said I think it might be a while until I attend another game. It is fun to play though.
These little guys aged 9, 12 and 13 had great skills and could bat and throw very well already. No doubt they have been playing from a very young age as the Japanese are absolutely mad on Baseball and it is unquestionably the number one sport here. The national competition or J-League is very well supported, and the teams often play to packed stadiums three or four nights a week.
As a keen sports fan myself I recently went to Fukuoka City with some friends on a Tuesday night to watch the local Softbank Hawks play Rakuten. Eagles. The game was played at the Yahoo Dome which is a very impressive stadium indeed. It is similar in appearance to the Wellington Stadium except more modern in design. It even has a roof which can be folded over in case of bad weather! The game itself is played entirely on Astroturf , so I guess it lends itself to an indoor environment. The weather was appalling the day I visited but despite that the match was a sellout with around 20-30 thousand fans attending. This created a great atmosphere for the game and we were looking forward to nine innings of exciting Baseball action.
We were seated in a good position, overlooking right field about halfway up the terraces with a reasonable chance of receiving a homerun hit . As it turned out the game was extremely one sided and there were no home runs on the night at all. I also hadn't anticipated how slow moving the game was: and this is from a guy who can sit through five days of test cricket no problems! It seemed to take an eternity between pitches and even longer before the batters got any sort of reasonable hit. After a while we were cheering fouls and any sort of contact the batter had. Luckily there were plenty of beer and Shochu vendors circulating around the crowd to keep our spirits up. As it happened the most interesting thing about the Baseball were the Japanese spectators who provided quite an interesting cultural experience for us.
Having been to a lot of sports events back home I am used to fellow spectators getting excited and expressing themselves after a few drinks. At home this often comes in the form of spontaneous applause, amusing chants or abuse targeted at the opposition. In Japan however crowds are very different. There were no individual assaults on the opposition, or bellows of support for one player or the other. Rather the crowd was an organized, vibrant force, using props and chants to collectively express their appreciation. A high percentage of the crowd were
wearing the Softbank Hawks Team Uniform and everyone and I mean every single person there had two bright yellow foot long clackers to bang together (similar to the netball variety in Southland). Each team's supporters had a large range of songs and chants they would sing to encourage their team . When their team batted, its supporters would stand up to perform. When it was their turn to field they sit down and let the other teams sup.
At the end of the lucky seventh innings we all blew up long, yellow balloons and held them closed by their rubber necks while the two fluffy cartoon mascots who had taken the field counted us down. At 'one'we all let the balloons fly out into the night and the sight of these thousands of yellow missiles soaring and diving around the arena until they ran out of air was really quite stunning. By this time the game was all but over.
The hometeam Softbank ended up winning 11-1, and by the end of the ninth inning I was more than ready to leave. However there was more to come. Amazingly the entire crowd stayed for the post match interviews which were posted on a big screen that seemed about six times the size of what I've seen in New Zealand. After this the mascots returned on four wheel motorbikes, and were joined by both teams cheerleaders. We spend the next thirty minutes with the large crowd singing victory songs and after that there.
All in all I had a fairly enjoyable night; More for the cultural experience than for any real sporting entertainment however. Although I didn't think going to the Baseball sounded like a very Japanese activity, I found that although the game itself is from the States, it seems to have developed a different culture here, quite removed from the American version. That said I think it might be a while until I attend another game. It is fun to play though.
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