This is a letter that was sent to me several years ago (1996) by a dear friend and baseball junkie who was, at that time, living in Japan. He's back in the States now, and currently not speaking to me because he feels I've gone to the dark side re my thoughts on the Free Trade protesters in Miami. But I still love him, and once the season starts, I'm sure we'll be taunting each other over the standings of the Giants and the Marlins.
"Dear LARedd,
as you might have gathered, Hideo Nomo can't do anything without 120 million of his countrymen and women (& me) knowing about it, least of which is striking out 17 Marlins -- a game they showed here twice (ugh!). Seeing the Marlins, however, kick-started thoughts of you, and as cherry blossom petals snow down along the basepaths, I thought I'd say hello and describe baseball Nihon-style.
No national anthem, for starters. Teams, as you may already know, carry names of corporate sponsors rather than cities, with the exception of the Yokohama Bay Stars (to be fair, there are 3 teams with city and corporate names: Fukuoka Daiei Hawks -- Fukuoka is in Southern Japan, Daiei is a department stor; Hiroshima Toyo Carp (Toyo as in Toyota); Ciba Lotte Marines (Tokyo suburb and food manufacturer).
The home team here is the Seibu (railroad/department store/land developer) Lions, whose motto is, in English, "Winning with irresistable force," but at the moment it is false advertising -- they're 2-5. Two leagues: Central & Pacific, with the Pacific employing the (gag!) DH. Anyway, with the lack of a national anthem, the home team takes the field not as a group, but individually as a lengthy intro is given for each player. Pitchers work fast here. Managers have an annoying obsession with bunting runners over -- yes, even the clean up hitter is expected to bunt when asked to.
Opening day was against the Kintetsu Buffalos (Kintetsu Railway's own -- bearers of the world's ugliest baseball uniform) and the Lions and their irresistable force jumped out to a 7-0 lead. Two innings later, however, with a cold wind blowing in from right, the Buffaloes tie it up. Hey, cold wind? Home team blowing a 7 run lead? Gee, I feel right at home. The stadium is divided into home and road sections for good reason: each team has thousand of rabid, albeit well behaved ( i.e., no hooligans), fans who chant non-stop while their team is at bat. There is also a definite caste system at work: folks in the box seats (i.e., me on opening day), at ?2,500 (about $25) are subdued -- the fun takes place out by the foul poles (where I intend to sit next time). At a critical point in the game, a Lion named Kiyohara gets a double and, thrilled at the prospect of a lead-taking run, I yell "Yeah! Kiyohara, you're the man!" Which causes everyone to turn around and stare at the crazy gaijin (foreigner, i.e., me), and causes a beer vendor to come up to me and ask which kind of beer I would like.
No seventh inning stretch -- I get up in the middle of the 7th and Kyoko says "Are you going somewhere?," while the guy in the seat behind repeatedly pokes me in the back, saying "sumimasen": (Excuse me). They do, however, sing the Lions song in the middle of the seventh. The ushers have whistles, and it wasn't until a foul ball came our way -- tweet -- that I knew why. An American, I am proud to say, came through to win it for the Lions: Scott Cooper, or su-ko-to Ku-pa, who played 3rd for the Red Sox last year, hit a two-out RBI double to break a 10-10 tie in the bottom of the 9th. There are a few other yanks here: Darrin Jackson (Lions), Darnell Coles (Cunichi-newspaper-Dragons), Shane Mack (Yomiuri-newspaper-Giants), Tom O'Malley (Yakult-health food-Swallows), Glenn Braggs, (Yakult) and more. The Japanese are getting smart and are poking around the Dominican Republic and have two guys who are outstanding: Yomiuri has a pitcher named Galvez and Nippon Ham (food processors) Fighters have a guy named Brito whose homers are measured in kilometers.
Oh yeah, Pete Rose's son plays for Yokahama, and who can blame him? If my dad was as big a scumbag as Pete Rose (and he has his moments...), I'd play as far away from the US as I possibly could. We just finished Koshien, the semi-annual high school baseball tournement, televised nationally (oh, and I should mention, baseball is on tv every day here - is this a great country or what?). At koshien, each school brings their student body to the game, including their band. The student body does a cheer, like "Kawashima, he's our man, if he can't do it, Soto can,: after which the band breaks into "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man." This is the standard for all 3 schools -- chant and "Popeye" theme (although one school's band played the theme from "Raiders of the Lost Ark").
Look for a guide for American baseball fans visiting Japan called (in Japanese) "Take Me Out to The Ballgame," currently being penned by moi. Also, read "You gotta have Wa" by Robert Whiting.
Your pal,
Larry"
"Dear LARedd,
as you might have gathered, Hideo Nomo can't do anything without 120 million of his countrymen and women (& me) knowing about it, least of which is striking out 17 Marlins -- a game they showed here twice (ugh!). Seeing the Marlins, however, kick-started thoughts of you, and as cherry blossom petals snow down along the basepaths, I thought I'd say hello and describe baseball Nihon-style.
No national anthem, for starters. Teams, as you may already know, carry names of corporate sponsors rather than cities, with the exception of the Yokohama Bay Stars (to be fair, there are 3 teams with city and corporate names: Fukuoka Daiei Hawks -- Fukuoka is in Southern Japan, Daiei is a department stor; Hiroshima Toyo Carp (Toyo as in Toyota); Ciba Lotte Marines (Tokyo suburb and food manufacturer).
The home team here is the Seibu (railroad/department store/land developer) Lions, whose motto is, in English, "Winning with irresistable force," but at the moment it is false advertising -- they're 2-5. Two leagues: Central & Pacific, with the Pacific employing the (gag!) DH. Anyway, with the lack of a national anthem, the home team takes the field not as a group, but individually as a lengthy intro is given for each player. Pitchers work fast here. Managers have an annoying obsession with bunting runners over -- yes, even the clean up hitter is expected to bunt when asked to.
Opening day was against the Kintetsu Buffalos (Kintetsu Railway's own -- bearers of the world's ugliest baseball uniform) and the Lions and their irresistable force jumped out to a 7-0 lead. Two innings later, however, with a cold wind blowing in from right, the Buffaloes tie it up. Hey, cold wind? Home team blowing a 7 run lead? Gee, I feel right at home. The stadium is divided into home and road sections for good reason: each team has thousand of rabid, albeit well behaved ( i.e., no hooligans), fans who chant non-stop while their team is at bat. There is also a definite caste system at work: folks in the box seats (i.e., me on opening day), at ?2,500 (about $25) are subdued -- the fun takes place out by the foul poles (where I intend to sit next time). At a critical point in the game, a Lion named Kiyohara gets a double and, thrilled at the prospect of a lead-taking run, I yell "Yeah! Kiyohara, you're the man!" Which causes everyone to turn around and stare at the crazy gaijin (foreigner, i.e., me), and causes a beer vendor to come up to me and ask which kind of beer I would like.
No seventh inning stretch -- I get up in the middle of the 7th and Kyoko says "Are you going somewhere?," while the guy in the seat behind repeatedly pokes me in the back, saying "sumimasen": (Excuse me). They do, however, sing the Lions song in the middle of the seventh. The ushers have whistles, and it wasn't until a foul ball came our way -- tweet -- that I knew why. An American, I am proud to say, came through to win it for the Lions: Scott Cooper, or su-ko-to Ku-pa, who played 3rd for the Red Sox last year, hit a two-out RBI double to break a 10-10 tie in the bottom of the 9th. There are a few other yanks here: Darrin Jackson (Lions), Darnell Coles (Cunichi-newspaper-Dragons), Shane Mack (Yomiuri-newspaper-Giants), Tom O'Malley (Yakult-health food-Swallows), Glenn Braggs, (Yakult) and more. The Japanese are getting smart and are poking around the Dominican Republic and have two guys who are outstanding: Yomiuri has a pitcher named Galvez and Nippon Ham (food processors) Fighters have a guy named Brito whose homers are measured in kilometers.
Oh yeah, Pete Rose's son plays for Yokahama, and who can blame him? If my dad was as big a scumbag as Pete Rose (and he has his moments...), I'd play as far away from the US as I possibly could. We just finished Koshien, the semi-annual high school baseball tournement, televised nationally (oh, and I should mention, baseball is on tv every day here - is this a great country or what?). At koshien, each school brings their student body to the game, including their band. The student body does a cheer, like "Kawashima, he's our man, if he can't do it, Soto can,: after which the band breaks into "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man." This is the standard for all 3 schools -- chant and "Popeye" theme (although one school's band played the theme from "Raiders of the Lost Ark").
Look for a guide for American baseball fans visiting Japan called (in Japanese) "Take Me Out to The Ballgame," currently being penned by moi. Also, read "You gotta have Wa" by Robert Whiting.
Your pal,
Larry"