Baseball

After church today (another post later), I went to a baseball game. It was the Yomiuri Giants (think Yankees) against the Yokohama Bay Stars (think Cubs). The Giants won in the 10th inning...an exciting game. Here's the box score.

Here's a picture of the final score on the outfield board.



The words below the score are all written vertical. On the left, it says "Giants" in their phonetic alphabet called katakana. It is actually "Ja i a n tsu" when pronounced sounds like Giants. Followed by that are the numbers corresponding to the positions (1=pitcher, 2=catcher, etc...standard American stuff) which is in the batting order. Below the number is the name of the person. So to the right of Giants is 1 (pitcher) who's name is Uehara. The four names in the middle are the umpires. The right side is for the Bay Stars.

The stadium was packed. The outfield stands are divided by the scoreboard. The the left was a section of Giants fans and to the right a section of Bay Stars fans. The *whole* time their team was at bat, they would chant, use noise makers, and sing songs. I can't stress this enough *THE WHOLE TIME*...every inning...every time their team was at bat. (For those of you who know me well, you know I am not a big fan of noise.) The rest of the stadium would join in sometimes depending on what was going on. The lady next to me was just using her noisemaker at random times. It was two small baseball bats made of plastic that when hit together made a 'crack' sound. She would whack them together to the beat of the chants/songs. She almost whacked me a time or two. Anyway, after about 4 hours, it was starting to get on my nerves, but God gave me grace and I was patient.

Here's a video of the chanting/singing.



The stadium was the Bay Stars stadium in Yokohama. It was open air and it happened to be very nice out...I picked the best day to go. I had a KFC chicken sandwich and fries. They did have hot dogs, but they were skewered like corn dogs without a bun or anything. :( There were popcorn vendors and you could get popcorn drizzled with caramel or toffee or something. I guess trying to get close to cracker jacks. :)

The bull pen was hidden behind the outfield wall. When it was time for a new pitcher, they *drove* the pitcher out in a strangely modified car. Here's a video. (And yes, they're singing again.)



It came time for the 7th inning stretch, so I stood up to stretch, and the couple to my left got up and stood in the aisle thinking I was wanting out, so I went out and walked around. :) They had a cute little baby which was probably 9 months old.

The players each had "entry songs" which were played for a few seconds when they came to bat. Here's the list for the Bay Stars...some of which are English.

After the Giants won, Damon Hollins (wikipedia|giants site)
was the first to speak (not sure why) and the first thing out of his mouth was thanks to God, which was cool. They interviewed just a couple of folks and displayed it on the big board in center field.

After that, I headed out with the other 30,000 people and it seems like half went to the same train station as me. :) It wasn't too bad though...I got on the first train there, which was packed, but not the worst I've ever been on.

That's all folks.

--David