On Hiding from the Burning Eye
 |
| Kleenex Stadium Miyagi, 2010 |
Nippon Ham Fighters vs. Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles
Kleenex Stadium Miyagi
14:00
Pacific League, Nippon Professional Baseball
Sendai, Japan
Outside of the Game:
After breakfast, a quick subway ride got me to Tokyo Station and my train up to Sendai. It was a two-hour ride on a double-decker train, and I spent all of it trying to finish up my scorecard from the game the night previous. So lost in the work, I almost missed the dulcet chimes notifying me that I had arrived in Sendai.
Another city that got some radical remodeling courtesy of World War II, it was redesigned into a pedestrian paradise of wide, tree-lined streets and conveniently straight thoroughfares. A quick stop at the visitor center got me a map from a helpful counterperson, and a short walk brought me to my hotel, the Sendai Kokusai.
Having an hour to kill before I had to leave for the game, I walked around one of the Ichibancho covered market, and there I saw the first picture of Godzilla I had seen in-country, a giant multi-story billboard on the side of a building. After meandering around the market, I stopped at a park in the north end of town that had a statue dedicated to a famous sumo wrestler Tanikaza, because how can you not stop at the statue dedicated to a sumo wrestler?
A ten-minute commuter train ride got me to and from the game, getting me back to the hotel at about 5 PM. At the hotel, I packed up everything for traveling the next day, took an epic soak to wash the day off, and then headed out for dinner.
As per my local specialties directive, I was off to a restaurant serving the pride of Sendai: gyutan, better known as cow tongue. Perhaps a bit dubious at the outset, at least I was sure that cow tongue grilled in front of me over charcoal, at an establishment that served nothing else but said tongue, was extremely unlikely to have any cross-contamination problems with shellfish.
 |
| It's actually quite good. |
Umami Tasuke is located in a restaurant alley just off one of the main shopping drags in town, and the staff at the hotel mentioned this place had an English menu. (They did. It read, verbatim, "Cow Tongue, 900 yen.") The place was a tiny, Japanese-style restaurant, with a few floor tables in one alcove and a counter situated around the grill. Four serious-looking men manned the counter. One on the right was clearly in charge of the oxtail soup, the one in the center manned the grill with scorched chopsticks, the next was in charge of rice and barley, and the last and youngest dealt with the customers.
I placed my order with the young man, and the head grill chef sliced a few pieces of tongue from a large slab (and I'm positive I don't want to know how that slab is constructed) and began his cooking rituals. A few minutes later, he plated the meat and handed it over the counter to me. I dug in, and it was actually excellent. This immediately led to one of the more unwanted thoughts of my entire life, to wit that I bet my tongue tastes delicious. After quickly downing one plate, I ordered another, to the approving nod of the stoic grill chef.
Fully sated, I made my way back to the hotel for some final packing and finishing off my scorecard from the day's game. Then it was off to a completely normal and in no way notable sleep.
The Stadium & Fans:
 |
| Home plate to center field, Kleenex Stadium Miyagi |
Outside of a rather unfortunate name, Kleenex Stadium Miyagi has a lot going for it.
The train station for the stadium was fully decked out in team colors and logos, so it would be a fairly hard thing not to know at which station to get off. I think I even heard them playing the team fight song. In case you were particularly oblivious, it was called "Baseball Station" in several signs.
The stadium was a short walk from the station and seemed to be part of a larger athletic complex. There was a large fan area in front of the stadium, including a "Sweets Town" that sold all manner of candies and such. There seemed to be particularly a lot for the kids at this stadium, as there was also a mini-tram ride around the entire stadium and extra activities areas in back for tikes as well.
Out in front, there were the regular fan club, merch huts, show stage, and the main club store. There was also another baseball diamond laid out in the ground, with the bases and plate inset in Plexiglass. I couldn't read the signs, but I could only assume that this was the location of a previous stadium before the current incarnation.
There were seated and picnic bleacher areas that had their own entrance in the back of the stadium, and all the other areas of the park entered through front gates. The outfield and luxury seating well walled of as per regular Japanese procedure, so you don't have the run of the place when you get in. The main interior area overlooked the pavilion outside and had basic stalls and concessions. In addition to this area, there was a special food area upstairs from the main entryway that had more advance culinary fare (including the steak and rice bowl place where I grabbed lunch), and a desert concession (where I got a specialty sundae named after an Eagles player in a plastic helmet -- I mean, how couldn't you?). The upper food court was equipped with "Oriro Desent Devices," and I frankly was a little disappointed that whatever emergency they were there to assist with did not happen so I could see them in action. Then again, I probably shouldn't go around wishing for disasters, no matter how cool the equipment might be.
 |
| Little worries about the signs, however. |
The main seating bowl behind home plate was a multitude of special areas, with luxury boxes in the building behind home plate and on the wings behind first and third bases. Small on-field seating areas were located on the outfield side of each dugout. There were two big scoreboards out in center (and the one in right-center had bleacher seating underneath), and the outfield seating was alternating picnic areas and boxes of bleachers. The stadium was one of two in Japan that also had the narrow LCD displays, running along the bottom of the luxury boxes behind home plate and under the ads on the bleachers,a long with auxiliary scoreboards around the stadium. And, in perhaps a last gift for my last game, they showed the players names and numbers on some of the scoreboards in romanji (a.k.a Western lettering).
The foul ball patrol was there in force, but in a little bit of a twist, the whistles that they used to warn of foul balls were "screaming eagle" whistles, so there was a bit of the home-town flair.
 |
| Pre-game show |
The fans were numerous and involved. Except for a smallish enclave of visiting fans (located in right field instead of left here for no apparent reason, as the home and visiting dugouts were swapped), the game was nearly full of homers, and it was nearly full. The local rally was the waving of Eagle's flags and towels, and the seventh inning extravaganza was the seemingly common screaming balloons followed by the fight song.
At the Game with Oogie:
 |
| In-game rice bowl |
I had tickets in the lower deck behind home plate in one of the premium sections. Under normal circumstances, this would be a great thing, but after being rainy and overcast all morning, Mr. Sun decided to come out to play, and his love was bright and merciless. And coming straight in from center field. I actually thought about bailing to the food court area after an inning or two until I saw a bunch of fans around me make desert hats out of their team towels. Towels are an... I've done that bit already. And so with my trusty towel, I too turned my hat into a shade, and was able to survive the travails of the suddenly sunny weather. (Although my peripheral vision was severely reduced. On one foul ball up and straight back, I had no idea where it was, except that the whistling of the foul ball monitors was quite close. The irony of getting brained by the first foul ball I'd actually touch was apparent, but thankfully unfulfilled.)
I was in an area mostly populated with season ticket holders. What was particularly nice was that there was one extremely strident team supporter right behind me, who I imagine is usually in the rooting area. He was singing along with the cheering section, and hearing him in isolation behind me was actually the first time I could clearly hear what some of the songs were.
There were also two Western fans to my left, who seemed to be relations of some of the gaijin players on the Eagles. At one point during a late-inning rally, the more gregarious of the two tried to start up an American-style player chant instead of the Japanese singing, which the fans in the area gamely went along with bemusedly, but temporarily.
 |
| Cheer like 'Mericans |
The Game:
 |
| First pitch, Fighters vs. Eagles |
This would be the second time that I saw the Eagles, but my first for the visiting Nippon Ham Fighters. (And the team is owned by the corporate entity "Nippon Ham," with the team being the "Fighters." So it is the "'Nippon Ham' Fighters," not the "Nippon 'Ham Fighters,'" though that way is, of course, much, much funnier.) It would be a fairly typical Nippon League game, with the pitchers both going deep into the game, and small ball being evident throughout. The Fighters scraped out two runs in the first, after the Eagles' pitcher was just barely unable to get out of the jam he got himself into. The Eagles were able to get one back the next inning, but the scoring on both sides ended after that. Although there were some opportunities on both sides, nothing came across, and the hometown Eagles dropped one to the Fighters of Nippon Ham, 2-1.
The Scorecard:
Fighters vs. Eagles, 07/03/10. Fighters win, 2-1.
Once again, there was no local scorecard in the program (although there was a machine that allowed you to purchase said programs, something I've never seen before). So back to the Scoremaster book for me, though it was not nearly as tortuous an experience as recording the previous night's game. Besides a ground rule double (the first and only I saw in Japan), there was not much scoring of note, although the entire process was greatly helped along by a) my experience up to this point, and b) the scoreboards that actually showed player numbers (instead of just positions) and the player names in Western characters.
The Accommodation:
 |
| Sendai Kokusai |
The Sendai Kokusai was the nicest hotel I had booked for the entire trip, which made sense, as it was the one I was likely to spend the most time in, and it was also the one where I'd be staying for my last night in-country, so I might as well get the fancy in when I could. I don't think I realized how upscale the place was until I sauntered into the marble-floored entryway looking like I had just been rolled by a rampaging gang of clothes wrinklers. The staff was too polite to mention how poorly I looked, and let me register and leave my bags before heading out to the game. After the game, they even more politely didn't mention that I looked as bad as I did before, with the added benefit of being completely soaked in sweat from sitting out in the sun all afternoon like some sort of crazy person.
My room was actually about average-sized for a nice, American hotel room, although it still had the standard combo toilet from the future and the command console by the bed, which, while queen-sized, was inexplicably only about four inches above the floor.
The hotel didn't just have a restaurant, but a floor of restaurants, in addition to a shopping mall in the basement and a hotel bar that took over most of the lobby floor of the hotel. It was the first place in Japan that I felt completely out-of-place in, and not because I was American, but because I was not nearly rich enough to be staying here.
On World-Moving Travel
 |
| Guess if the delayed flight is mine. Go on. Guess. |
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Hoboken, NJ
Outside the Game:
Seeing Godzilla for the first time the previous day had put the seed of another thought in my mind that was germinating, but not yet fully formed. It was something else fairly synonymous with Japan that I hadn't experienced yet, something of significance...
At around 4 in the morning, there was an earthquake. At least, that was my working hypothesis (later confirmed with a Website about Japanese earthquakes). I was having a dream where my parents were trying to wake me for school on a day when I really didn't prefer to go, prompting them to keeping shaking me harder and harder, until I finally awoke, screaming at them to just let me sleep.
Things are fuzzy at 4 AM under the best of conditions. Throw in your subconscious mind playing tricks with you and your entire room, nay building, shaking pretty severely, and it is positively a recipe for mental anarchy. Facts suddenly became clear, and there is that moment of clarity at the point of realization that why, yes, in fact, the entire building I am in is shaking rather intensely, I am nine floors above said quaking ground, and why didn't I pay more attention to the helpful and copious pamphlets provided by the hotel for just such occasions?
By now, the command crew was back on the bridge of the HMS Ooogiebrain, summoned frantically by the night staff accustomed to nothing more than playing a movie. Briefings were being held, committees have been formed, the passive voice was being used. I made a break for my slippers and the emergency flashlight (installed in every room in Japan -- I remembered that much of the pamphlet), when the shaking stopped. A quick base of the palm to the side of the head confirmed this was not a dream. The muffled sounds from the rooms around me confirmed that I did not just imagine this. For some reason, I felt compelled to stay very still. After a good five minutes of no further shaking, I made my daring break back to the safety of the blankets.
Using the console by the bed, I turned on some calming light jazz radio and stayed very, very motionless for a good half hour. The building having made no untoward moves for a half hour or so, I slipped back into a very, very cautious sleep.
I awoke somewhat rested but in no way relaxed. I had an over-priced but beautiful breakfast at the French restaurant at the hotel, checked out, and then made my way to the station for the first of my trains, casting an occasional doubtful and castigating eye downward to the earth that made betrayed my trust so fully.
I had a train back to Tokyo, and then a train back out to the airport. After my adventures on the way out, I decided to get to Narita extra early, just in case. Little did I know how early.
One of the last things they show on the airport express train is a list of airlines that are located in which terminals, and then a list of the flight statuses for the rest of the day. Although there were threats of rain later in the afternoon, it was a cloudless blue sky all morning and page after page of happy little "On Times" flashed by. Except one. I think you can guess where this one is going.
It turns out that my erstwhile plane coming in from Houston ran into some mechanical trouble and had to be replaced. This resulted in a two hour delay to my departure, which, added to my earliness for the original departure time, gave me a good four hours or so to kill.
To be fair, the Continental staff were quite nice about the whole thing, and gave me a food voucher without even having to ask for it. Still, four hours. The idea that I could watch a ballgame in that kind of time did pass through my head. Instead, I was doomed to stalk the terminal with a boarding pass to nowhere soon. Thankfully, the airport was fairly extensive, with a central mall, and two food courts, and even an observation deck. Not wanting to get trapped in the terminal area too early, I trudged through every non-restricted area of the airport, visited every store, and weighed every food option. I eventually spent the exact total of my voucher on cold sebu and roast duck, and then contemplated how to kill yet another hour. The answer came in the form of a 200 yen "massage" chair, that with small, almost negligible, changes could be made into a torture device of the highest magnitude. It did its manhandling as designed, however, and I finally relaxed for the first time that day.
 |
| Voucher |
Eventually, I could take no more and decided to go through security about an hour before boarding was supposed to begin. Security and immigration were painless, and I strode with false confidence towards my gate. As the gate came into sight, unsurprisingly, I saw no plane. However, as I reached the gate itself, the plane, lying seemingly in wait, rolled up to the gate. Well. Okay, then.
Still having an hour to murder, I walked around the gate area, making two purchases. One was a bottle of water that nearly depleted all my non-convertible Japanese change. The second was a mid-range, duty-free bottle of single malt Japanese whiskey. Hey, the plane was finally here. A man can celebrate.
And so time passed until it was nearly time to board. First Class and the elite club bastards were just starting to board when I heard my name. And this gave me pause, because it was the first time I had heard anyone actually say my name in over a week. It gave me further pause because this could not be a "Good Thing." I got out of line and went up to the counter to find my fate.
I was informed that one of the power outlets in my row wasn't working. And I replied that this was nice information and I'd work something out, and hey, didn't they see I was second in line when the pulled me over here to tell me this world-breaking news? They apologized and let me board with the elite crowd, and, lo and behold, as soon as the people in my row showed up, I arranged to share the one working power outlet with them for the duration of the trip. Truly, we live in an age of miracles.
I was in the first row after First Class again, so I had legroom to spare and stretching space for days. Not as out of it as I was on the flight in, I settled down to do some work on this and watch some TV, but unlike the flight out, I did take several sporadic short naps that all but assured that I'd have the maximum amount of disorientation when I landed. Blinking out into the sunlight that should not be there, I dragged myself through customs, got to my car service limo, and promptly passed out on the ride back to Hoboken to the point I had to be physically shaken awake by a patient livery driver needing specific directions to my apartment. Thus began the jetlag of my discontent.
 |
| Almost home |
The Accommodations:
Hoboken, sweet Hoboken.
Epilogue:
And so it goes. Barring anything out of my control, I am going to go back next year and finish seeing the last five teams. I may also do a few repeats to sit in a rooting section or some variant thereof. One thing I will be doing before I return is taking a Japanese class (or at least one in kanji) so that I can be slightly more sure of not accidentally killing myself while dining. |
| Swag |
2010 Japan I
