September 26th, 2005
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There’s nothing like…
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Not many people here today. It would be nice if the tickets were discounted, or we could sit in the many open reserved seats along the first base line (hint, hint).
late season baseball. Less than ten games left, your team far out of contention, you decide to pour it on at the end and perhaps squeak by your rival for season attendance. But apparently I’m in the minority. Whether it’s the brisk evening air or other things on TV, most of the crowd here is seated in unreserved section of the outfield, which in itself isn’t overpowering. I got here ten minutes before the opening pitch (thanks to an excessive string of trains at the crossing between Minami- and proper Shinjuku stations on the Odakyu line), and I still got a seat in the third row of the section. Since it is cool, coffee and whiskey are being sold by the roaming vendors in addition to the standard beer and coke (separate). Curry, noodles, and other hot foods seem to be favored today, though I am content (for now) with supermarket popcorn and rice cookies. Actually, even though it takees a hell of a wind to get me admitting that it it’s cold, I took the extra precatuion of bringing my 1998 Sturcture jeans hacket to back up my Virginia henley, which is overlaid with my awesome Ichiro replica jerset that Mikiko gave me for my birthday last year.
An impassioned teenager in horn-rimmed glasses and a ruddy-colored Swallows jersey has just humbly requested the crowds support in cheering for Ramirez, our team’s home run leader for the reseaon. The fans rose to their feet to cheer our swat champion with panache as the red-breasted youth prepared his trumpet for a rallying toot.
Ramirez struck out.
I had entertained the idea of keeping score in the official manner and writing an AP-like writeup of the game, but in the end I decided that it would require far too much effort and prevent me from accomplishing virtually anything else. I did, however, recall fondly the time six years ago that our Lambeth neighbor (the amazing Greek) Karen taught me how to keep score at one of Brandon’s club games.
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A little chin music from our starter Yoshimi.
If you’re a fervent follower of The Simpsons, you may have seen the episode where Homer is trying to give up beer and goes to a baseball game. After he realizes how incredibly boring an activity it really is, they cut to a shot of him sitting in the stands with virtually everyone in the crowd around him taking a sip every couple of seconds. It’s kind of like that, but I’m sitting next to a middle school girl and her mother, neither of which have a beer.
It’s the top of the fourth but it feels like the sixith. Our starting pitcher did a gem of a number last inning, walking two and allowing four runs. The disappointing thing about Japanese baseball is there are no Roger Clemens‘ or Orel Hershisers. There are no twenty-two game winners because the pitching is universally mediocre, and there’s always a good chance today’s pick from the rotation won’t see it past the first third of the game.
However, probably the oddest thing is how quietly the games begin. There is no national anthem, and no opening pitch by the mayor. One second some middle school kid is flexing his might in a little league-pro home run derby, and the next you’re two outs into the top of the first. Man that UCC coffee smells good. Everyone around me in a three-seat radius is buying it (well, those that aren’t drinking beer).
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Fifteen stories of parking, eating, and a very un-Tokyo use of space for truckloads upon truckloads of technology.
I went to Akiba today to pick up a camera for Brandon. I got there at ten-thirty, perhaps the second earliest I’d ever been in the area. It was kind of nice actually, not many people, easy-to-navigate sidewalks. Since Densha Otoko gained fame Akihabara has dubiously seen a new influx of women, mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings looking for the earmarks of otaku society. I’ve been meaning to ride the new Tsukuba Express [even though it's damn ugly]. It’s not everyday a new train line opens. Being the rail transit freak that I am, I just have to ride it, especially since it goes deep into Ibaraki-ken, a place I’ve never been. It’ll probably be one of the first things I do after I get back from the States next month.
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As several people at work have commented, things like the umbrella dance make Swallows’ games feel like a matsuri (traditional Japanese festival).
Even though he carries the lowest average in the starting lineup, Atsuya Furuta still remains the Swallows’ fan favorite. He’s been around like forever, he’s the catcher, he’s team captain of the Swallows, and he’s practically being begged by the media to take over the role of manager of the team to see us out of the consistent middle-of-the-deck finishes. We actually have a little bit of a rally going now, having scored one run with two on and only one out. The crowd is screaming for a home run, let’s see if Furuta can make it come together.
Double play. End of rally.
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Yeah, it’s time to get going. I have a feeling things aren’t going to change much in the next two and a half innings. Sorry dude, not all the bugling in the world can save this season.
[I ended up leaving halfway through the bottom of the seventh as I had an obligation to fulfill. We ended up losing 4-1.]
