Tokyo

On Going Native

Meiji Jingu Stadium, 2011

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Yokahama Bay Stars vs. Tokyo Yakult Swallows
Meiji Jingu Stadium
Central League, Nippon Professional Baseball
Tokyo, Japan
14:00


Outside of the Game:
This was the day that the degree of difficulty was going to get ratcheted up a little. I was going to buy my own ticket for the Swallows game to sit in the outfield cheering section, and then, after the game, I was going to immediately get on the next train to Osaka to get halfway to Fukuoka for the game the next day.

I got up and had breakfast in the hotel before going back to my room for a bath, nap, and last packing up. I left my bags at the hotel, which was right next to the train station, and then blundered out on my merry way. Since it was still a little too early to go out to the stadium for the 2 PM game, I decided to muck around a bit by the hotel, which was right by the “Times Square” area of Tokyo.

I walked past some manner of orderly protest that I was unable to discern anything about before ducking into one of the many mega-malls in the area. It was all very posh, and I ended up in the basement food court/supermarket and bought some various snacks. Having successfully murdered sufficient time, I went to the subway.

Even their protests are orderly

Since this was the only stadium I'd actually be revisiting from last year, I was fairly confident of the way. It was a quick subway ride away, and I got there without incident. Once there, it was just a matter of following the copious signage to the stadium.

Maybe not that much fun...

On the way back, time was a factor. The game had gone on a little longer than Japanese average, and I was trying to make a particular train for which I already had a ticket. I had to wait for one of the subways after I missed a train, but I thought I was in a good place to still make the train. I quickly picked up my bags from the hotel and went over to the station, with about three minutes to spare.

My plan fell apart here, as I had not taken into account that the train to Osaka left from Tokyo Station and not Shinjuku. A quick trip to the ticket office later, and I had acquired the ticket to the next train I’d likely make. I missed the next train to Tokyo, but one came soon after it. It was a bit of a sweaty, humid slog, but I made my train, slumping in a damp pool in my seat and subsequently finding a vending machine soon after I stopped sweating long enough to breathe.

Due to my inaccurate comprehension, the train trip was much shorter than I thought it would be, so even though I was several trains later than planned, I still managed to get to Shin-Osaka at a reasonable hour.


The Stadium & Fans:

Center field to home plate at Meiji Jingu

This was my first re-run in Japan. For whatever reason, I fell in baseball love with the Swallows last year. It might have been the second-class team in the big city vibe that struck a Metropolitans chord with me. It may have been last year’s gutsy victory against a superior opponent who had so many arrogant fans in attendance. It may have been the painfully earnest tweener girl who sat next to me, so clearly living and dying by every pitch that it would make me a bad person to root against the Swallows. For whatever reason, they became my team, and so I came back.

Once at the park, it was clear that some manner of event was going on. Proving that a year of off-and-on Japanese self-education was not wasted, I was able to actually read one of the signs that proudly proclaimed “Yukata Day” at the stadium.

“Yukata” are cloth robes (as opposed to the more well-known silk kimonos) that are traditional uni-sex summer wear. They are less in favor these days, but it appeared that a major yukata manufacturer was sponsoring this event, and there were indeed many people (mostly women) in yukata at the game. I don't know if it was free admission with a yukata, as my Japanese was operational, but not functional.

Some things don't change

And, sucker that I am, I visited all the merch carts and went absolutely nuts on Swallows stuff that I could somehow cram into my one carry-on bag. Baseballs, hats, trinkets, and t-shirts went from shelves to bag so quickly it almost didn’t matter. I have a similar reaction in the Mets store in Queens, and it is then that my fandom really struck home.

Meiji Jingu remains the second-oldest stadium in Japan, and one of the only four professional stadiums left in the world still in use where Babe Ruth played. (Koshien, Meiji Jingu, Wrigley, and Fenway, for those of you scoring at home.) While the facilities may be a little on the cramped side, it is still one of my favorite stadiums in the world. This time, I was able to see the outfield section, which is physically separated from the infield seats by two ramps on either side of the outfield, so I wasn’t able to poke around last year.

The outfield stands are extremely similar to the infield stands, with slightly claustrophobic interior passages leading to ramps up to the seating area. There is an open-air concession in the back of center field covered by netting, and a tunnel connects the home and visiting seating areas in the bleachers with more concession stands.

The band played on

Whether it was the time of the game or the impending weather, the crowd wasn’t as large as the last game, with nearly the entirety huddled in the respective cheering sections and open-plan seating in the outfields. The BayStars had a small contingent of fans to plead their case, but they were quite outnumbered by the Swallows faithful.


At the Game with Oogie:

Incognito

This was a special game for me, as it marked the first time that I would be purchasing a ticket all by my lonesome for the game. Up until this point, and for all the other games on this tour, I had been using the excellent JapanBall ticket service, but most teams do not provide advance sales on the cheering section or other open seating areas, so I was on my own.

Unsurprisingly, I had done an insane amount of research before the game about how the ticket-buying was to go down at the English-language Swallows fan site and through other means, and I had it all meticulously printed out with me on the way to the game.

And I’m pretty sure I put it all down to take a picture and never picked it up again, so it is still lying, for all I know, somewhere in the area around Meiji Jingu Stadium. Nevertheless, I had obsessively read it enough times to know to go to the outfield ticket office, point at the home cheering area, say, “Ichi, kudasi,” and shove my money under the window. The ticket purchase went without incident or arrest.

A taste of home

Most of the seats, or at least, most of the popular seats, at Japanese games are general admission. We’ve already done the thought exercise about what an apocalyptic scenario it would be if they tried that in America, but for the very ordered and polite Japanese society, it works. People get to the stadium early, buy an open seating ticket, and then get in line and wait for the gates to open, when they quickly move to get the best seat available, and then lay claim to the seat and go on with getting food and the like. This would be my first try at it.

And it went as you’d expect. I got in the home cheering area and found a seat that gave me an unobstructed view of both the scoreboard and the field, and I laid out my towel and went upon my way. I was still a little suspicious that my seat would be there when I got back, but a chicken sandwich and some wandering around the outfield later, my seat remained as I claimed it.

I was sitting in front of a nice older couple and behind a mother and her kids. As I was struggling to get on my poncho while juggling my camera and scorecard towards the end of the game, the wife helped me to get my poncho down over my back of her own accord, which was nice of her.

Sitting in the cheering section was as loud as I expected it to be. There were two “ringleaders” to the whole proceedings, who directed all the cheering and got it started. They were both in red shirts, and one played a trumpet, while the other had a flipbook that I presume had the name of all the cheering songs on them that he was using to direct the festivities.

It was loud and raucous for the entire game, even during the lengthy bouts of rain that plagued the later innings. I found it impossible not to get caught up in the spirit of the event, and even while taking pictures and keeping score, I was clapping and singing along to the best of my ability. It was a singular baseball experience, to be sure. 


The Game:

First pitch, Bay Stars vs. Swallows

This was certainly a lot more like the Japanese baseball that I had come to know than the first game I saw this year. As I also had a legitimate rooting interest, I can't say as I was upset with the results.

Despite minor threats in the second and fourth, the Bay Stars were a non-entity for the first four innings, striking out five times. The Swallows, however, did everything but score in the first two frames, loading the bases before grounding out in the first and getting four aboard in-between outs in the second without scoring. The inevitable breakthrough happened in the third, as back-to-back singles got moved over by a ground out to second, and were then brought home on another single and a ground out, before one last fielder's choice ended the inning.

The Swallows momentum continued in the fourth, as a lead-off single was followed with a ground-out and a walk, and then two more back-to-back singles that brought in two runs, before a double-play ended the inning with the Swallows up, 4-0.

The BayStars mounted a rally that should have been much more in the fifth. Back-to-back singles to start the inning were successfully bunted over by the next batter. A single brought one of them home, but a pitching change led to the pitcher's best friend, the inning-ending double-play, with the BayStars only getting one back, 4-1.

Another Swallows drive in the fifth fell short, with a two-outs bases loaded threat got snuffed when a new pitcher induced a ground-out to second. From there, it was a mostly damp and quiet march to the end of the game, with three double-plays to end innings, including the top of the ninth, allowing the hometown Swallows to prevail, 4-1.


The Scorecard:

Bay Stars vs. Swallows, 06/25/11. Swallows win, 4-1. 

Since I was going to be sitting in the cheering section, I opted for the Eephus League Scorecard because of its smaller size and simpler scorekeeping demands. This especially proved a good decision during the rain, as it made a smaller item to have to keep dry for the duration.

However, while it didn't quite hold up to a non-DH game before, it nearly obliterated itself against Japanese managers without a DH. The process of trying to keep up with all the player changes, identifying said players (especially difficult with for the visiting team who don't get scoreboard treatment) in the rain (and unable to use the super-zoom on my camera to help with the identification) bent to the extreme, but it did not break, as I was able to keep all the info together for some heavy revisions later, and even found some ways to mitigate the lack of replacement space.

The only scoring bits of note were that the Swallows were a double-play machine, turning three inning-ending infield double plays, even in the inclement weather, and the visiting BayStars turned two of their own.


The Accommodations:

Station Hotel

Since I was essentially renting a bed for the evening, I had picked a reasonable business hotel just outside of Shin-Osaka station, The Station Hotel. It seemed appropriate.

It took the standard amount of Japanese orienteering to figure out what exit and what direction to go from the station, but I found the hotel in a reasonable enough time. I was greeted with the news that the elevator was out of service, but the counter person absolutely insisted on lugging my ill-packed luggage the three floors up to my room. We used the back emergency stairwell, which was right by the garbage exit for the hotel restaurant. On that hot and humid night, the smell of fish refuse and god knows what else will live with me for a very long time.

The room itself was the box with a bed that I had come to expect, with the master control panel embedded into the headboard of the bed. Despite my nap on the train down, I was still pretty exhausted, and after a quick soak in the tub, I packed up for the early exit the next day and went to sleep.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2011 Japan II