On Sweating Out One's Soul
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| Yokohama Stadium, 2011 |
Chunichi Dragons vs. Yokohama BayStars
Yokohama Stadium
Central League, Nippon Professional Baseball
Yokohama, Japan
18:00
Outside of the Game:
I think sleeping in full-on air conditioning for the first time in a few days was detrimental to me, as I woke up at much less than 100%, but functional enough to keep going. I packed up, went down and had breakfast in the ryokan, and then went for a walk to clear my head. I definitely felt better once I got outside, so the constitutional did some good, even if I didn't feel all there.
As I was walking around, I crossed paths with a group of grade schoolers on a field trip. There was a long line of them, and I was walking past the lot of them, when a small voice from somewhere in the group croaked out a timid, tiny, “Gewd mahning.” I didn't see who it was, but I turned to the group and said, “Good morning” back, and that was all that was necessary to get the ball rolling, as I was soon greeted with an endless refrain of the same from the entire group. Have you ever had sixty Japanese schoolchildren melodically shouting “Good morning” to you at once? It's quite a thing.
I checked out of the ryokan and dragged my bags down to the station. I got a ticket for a slightly earlier train to Yokohama and then went out to the track to get my unsurprisingly on-time train.
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| Shin-Yokoahama Station |
My train dumped me in Shin-Yokohama Station, and I made a quick stop at the tourist office there to work out the rest of my trip downtown, as well as how to get to the airport the next day for my first flight within Japan. I left a short time later, with all the schedules and maps I could possibly need and the absolute knowledge of where I was going. The certainty of some things in Japan was just gratifying.
A short train ride later dropped me at the station near my hotel, which was incidentally also right across the street from the stadium for that night’s game. It is important to note that the distance from the station to my hotel could not have been more than five blocks, which I walked completely in the shade. By the time that I had completed that walk in the shade, I was drenched head to foot in sweat. I would later determine this to be because it was about 100 degrees with 98 percent humidity that day, but still.
It was thus drenched in sweat that I arrived with my bags at the super-nice, luxury Hotel Yokohama Garden. The staff didn’t blink an eye at my obvious derelict condition, and nearly forced me to sit in their nice lounge chair while they processed my reservation and ventured that I might want a water.
After ruining their chair and dropping off my bags, I set off into the blazing Yokohama for some sightseeing. I wandered through Yokohama’s sizable Chinatown and got some dumplings for lunch in the shade and cool before heading to the harbor.
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| Town of Chinese |
Now, if you name a place “Harbor View Park,” there are some unstated promises in your establishment, especially when it is 100 degrees out, and perhaps one’s temperament isn’t where it should be.
But I’m here to tell you that you have to do a large amount of walking and climbing through that park before you even get a hint that there’s a harbor. To be fair, you are eventually rewarded with a spectacular panoramic view of the entire harbor and environs, but boy, does it make you question the founding principles of the park name for a while there.
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| To be fair, you could see the harbor |
I climbed down to the waterfront proper and slunk from shadow to shadow as I traversed Yamashita Park to avoid bursting directly into flames from a sun that just seemed to get hotter and hotter. Upon reaching the other end of the park, I headed back to my hotel, check-in time having arrived, and had the most necessary shower and soak of my entire life.
My hotel being literally across the street from the stadium, I was fairly certain of my ability to get to the game in time, and a nap in the air conditioning was very much in order.
The stadium is part of Yokohama Park, so about two and half hours before the game, I went across the street and started to take in the sights. A group of fans were camped out in front of the stadium garage, no doubt waiting for players, and I took a shaded walk through the adjoining park before going to the stadium itself.
During the walk-around, I had my biggest “gotcha” moment, as I poked my head over a wall in the back of the stadium to see a briefing happening for all the stadium workers. I popped off a quick picture before ducking back down, but in the shot, two of the workers were giving me the Japanese “V,” so ninja I am not.
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| Oh, so you saw me... |
As I rambled, they were setting up for the various pre-game festivities, and I was wondering why everything wasn’t in fuller swing. As I was trying to work out one of the stadium maps, one of the workers came up and asked me if I needed help. And not just in English, but in “teenager dude” English. He helpfully explained that they don’t open the stadium until an hour before the game, and then told me what entrance I had to use for my ticket.
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| Pre-game mascots |
Armed with that knowledge, I headed back across the street for an hour more in the air conditioning, as the weather hadn’t settled down all that much since mid-day.
I came back over just as the pre-game show was getting warmed up. The Dragons and BayStars cheerleaders were having some sort of competition. There looked to be some sort of quiz going on, and then there was a dancing contest, and then the mascots showed up, so it became more of a show. A little before gate opening, I got on line and got swept into the stadium with the crowd surging to claim unreserved seats.
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| The stadium from my hotel room after the game |
After the game, it was simply a matter of crossing the street (after a long detour necessitated by barriers to keep people funneling to the train station by closing down the stairway that would let me just cross the street to the hotel). I stayed up for a bit, watching the activity outside the stadium and the fans clearing out and stadium workers closing up shop. About two hours after the end of the game, they turned off the lights at the stadium, and I made my way to my very comfortable bed.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, Yokohama Stadium |
Yokohama Stadium is a single-level bowl stadium. The entrance and promenade area is raised up from the surrounding street, and connects up with the adjoining Yokohama Park in the rear.
The interior is ringed by a walkway that houses the concessions and merchandise stores. There is an upper level that allows people higher up in the seating bowl to get to their seats easier, and it also houses the “Victory Court” concession. The bleacher cheering section areas are closed off from the field-level seats and are accessed by a separate entrance.
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| Pre-game cheerleader fight |
An unintentionally hilarious item was a sign they had put up, stating how serious they were about access control near a non-public area of the stadium. On this poster was then very clear pictures of exactly every type of identification that they would accept, because such things could not possibly be of use to someone trying to violate that access control.
The stadium was pretty full for a Tuesday night game, and the fans were well-represented both in the pre-game shows and in the stands. They were loud, and grateful, as the heroes of the game got rapturous cheers and applause whenever they stepped on the field.
There was also a “fan of the game” contest during mid-inning on the main scoreboard. One of the people picked was a sweaty chunky guy in a yukata out in the cheering section, who stripped off more and more of the robe as they kept cutting back to him, to the loud approval of the fans. (He won the contest.) It seems that some fan behavior is directly comparable no matter what side of the ocean you’re on.
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| Fan of the game |
Since I was just across the street, I stayed for nearly all of the victory celebration after the game, which went on much longer than I expected. Even as they were dismantling the stage after the hero interviews, the mascots and the cheerleaders were off by the home cheering section, throwing freebies into the adoring fans.
Dear MLB: This is called fan service. Look into it.
Speaking of mascots, the BayStars had a starfish character, which is to be expected, but one of the other mascots can only be described as a huge grinning baseball with his tongue sticking out. I have not received an adequate rationale for that guy.
For such a low-achieving team, the fans were die-hards. From my hotel, I was able to see people claiming their seats for the next day’s pre-game show the night before. That, my friends, is dedication.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| "Lens limit" doesn't translate in Japanese |
I was sitting on the third base side, just far enough down that I was in the no-man’s land between the home fans behind home plate and the visiting section that extended towards the left field bleachers. I was worried about being finally finished off by the sun after so much careful hiding, but the much-anticipated late-day shadows reached my seat just before game time. From where I was sitting, I could see my room at the hotel across the street.
One guy sitting lower in my section was using a camera that was about a fourth of his total height, with all the lenses and whatnot attached to it. It had a tripod and he and the camera were taking up two seats. It gave me a clear context for why American stadiums have camera limits for visitors.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Dragons vs. BayStars |
The lowly BayStars had their day this night in Yokohama, though it started rather inauspiciously. The Dragon’s leadoff batter Araki walked, and then stole second. This prompted a stoppage of play as 200 something flashed on the scoreboard and flowers were brought out to him at second, and he was greeted by applause from the crowd. I couldn’t figure out what it could be. He couldn’t possibly have stolen 200 bases in the season already. No further explanation was given in English, so I guess I’ll never know. And he didn’t help the Dragons, who went down in order after his walk and steal.
The BayStars came out swinging, lining a single on the first pitch they saw, and the runer was promptly sacrificed to second. A fly out to center raised the specter of stranding him there, but two more singles came back-to-back, bringing him home and leaving first and second with two outs. The next batter walked, and the following singled, sending the lead runner home, but the trailing runner also tried his luck and got nailed by the right fielder, ending the inning 2-0 BayStars.
The Dragons got right back into it with three straight singles getting a run across, but a double-play killed the inning and the rally, and the BayStars went in order, leaving it 2-1 BayStars. The Dragons pulled even with two doubles in the top of the third, and that would be as close as they got for the night.
The bottom of the third was a massacre. A single was followed by a strikeout, and that would be it for the outs for a while. A single, walk, and single brought home the lead run and loaded up the bases for the BayStars light-hitting right fielder, with zero home runs for the year.
You see where this is going.
He took the second pitch way out over the left field wall for a grand slam, to the rapturous joy of the fans. (Incidentally, the stadium scoreboard gave him a “Nice Play!” for his achievement, which makes one wonder what you’d need to do to get a “Good Play!”) Two groundouts ended the inning, leaving it 7-2 BayStars. Both sides forwent scoring in the fourth, but the Dragons tried to make a game of it in the fifth. A one-out single and double got sent home by a two-out single to narrow the gap to 7-4. But the BayStars promptly strung together three singles to get one of them back, 8-4 at the start of the sixth.
The Dragons went in order, but the BayStars added two more runs in the bottom of the inning on two singles, a double, and a sacrifice fly. The Dragons went in order again, but the BayStars weren’t done yet. A hit batsman started the bottom of the inning, and a single and double brought him home and left two on. The BayStars second baseman then lined a triple into the right field corner to bring them home. At the end of seven, it was 14-4 BayStars.
The Dragons got one back on a solo shot in the eighth, but that was about the story of the game already. The BayStars walk away with a laugher, 14-5.
The Scorecard:
Dragons vs. BayStars, 06/28/11. BayStars win, 14-5.
This was in the ScoreMaster book again. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting from a scoring perspective, but this was a hard one to keep track. There were a lot of substitutions and switching positions, and the pitcher’s slot bounced all around the Dragon’s lineup. It was like scoring a Bobby Valentine game all over again.
The Accommodations:
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| Hotel Yokohama Garden |
The Hotel Yokohama Garden was previously mentioned as my body repository for the night. It was the fanciest hotel I stay at this trip, and had the benefit of being right across the street from the stadium. This was a luxury Western-style hotel that was clearly used by business-types for the most part. There were copious meeting rooms and areas, and businessman-type amenities.
For whatever reason, I got a room on the top floor of the hotel, so I could just about see into the stadium from across the street. There was a tiny balcony in my room, but it was only for emergencies if all the escape equipment out there was any indication.
The room was a full-sized Western room and bathroom, with a full-sized closet. In addition to the huge bed and room, there was a full-sized working desk that came with its own computer and monitor, which I felt compelled to use as much as possible, because my room came with a computer.
It was very convenient to the game, and very worth the extra money I splurged on it.
2011 Japan II
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