Yarennoka 08 (やれんのか!): We're Talkin' Baseball

So last week I took a trip over to see the Yakult Swallows, one of the weaker teams in Japan's professional baseball league. The Swallows play in Japan's Central League which is the same as the National League in America where there is no DH and the pitcher is forced to hit. Overall there are only 6 teams in both the Central League and Japan's other, the Pacific League. Teams play around 140 games a season with the top team in each league battling for the Championship in the "Japan Series" (think World Series). The play-off format just changed recently, originally they had a simple system where the pennant winners of the Pacific and Central league would meet to determine the champion. Yet, in 2007 they changed the format and created a 3 team playoff entitled the "Climax Series" where the top three teams of each league battle it out amongst themselves to reach the Japan Series.

Ok... so now that you have some history, back to the story. All of the night games typically start around 6:00 and the Yakult Swallows play very close to Akasaka so it was an easy trip over. Interestingly enough, even though the Swallows play in Tokyo (Meijii Jingumae to be precise) they're referred to as Yakult. After talking to some fans I learned that Yakult is actually a big corporation in Japan that sponsors the team and basically that's how it works for most of the other teams (ie. the Yomiyuri Giants - sponsored by the Yomiyuri media group). Tickets were pretty much on par with US rates and we ended up purchasing seats in the outfield bleachers.

They started the game with some pretty cool highlight videos of the players on the big screen as you can see above. We soon realized that we were sitting in the main cheering section for Swallow fans and they really got into it! Although the visiting team - the Hiroshima Carp - had more fans in their section, both groups were really loud and supportive of the players. In fact, the fans we re so organized and well behaved that the home team fans only cheer while batting, and the away team supporters only cheer while their hitters are up; booing was non-existent.

Some funny observations:

They sold some of the same food you would find at US games such as hot dogs burgers, chicken fingers & fries. But they weren't really the same considering the burgers were 1/2 normal size, the hot dogs came without buns, and a serving of chicken fingers and fries could be eaten in about 2 bites!
There were tons of vendors running around through the aisles, with the majority of them beer salesmen - carrying a huge tank on their back full of beer which they would pump out (instead of the traditional plastic bottles or cans)
Japanese food was well represented, you could even get a bowl of hot ramen noodles and bring them to your seat
Fans were really friendly and one family behind us offered us some homemade food they brought to the game.
Cheers were sometimes led by trumpets and other music instruments, adding to the rhythm and volume.

The innings ran by very fast with both teams rarely hitting the ball out of the infield. It became clear that home runs weren't very common since many of the players employ a slap-hitting approach to the plate where they choke up and try to get on base any possible way.

Without the fans, it would have been a really boring game, the final was 1 - 0 and the only run scored on a throwing error, 7 hits were recorded in total (Yakult -3 Hiroshima 4). During the 7th inning stretch, instead of singing the American classic every team has their own cheering anthem followed by a distinct celebration:

Hiroshima had a cool routine where the fans blew up balloons in unison, shook them around, then released it into the air simultaneously.
Yakult had a silly/weird tradition where the fans sang an anthem and shook mini umbrellas up and down.

After hearing some of the cheers over and over again it was easy to join in with the crowd and copy the songs for each player. Even up until the very last out the fans were supporting the players. Another great outing, and on the way back to the dorm we ran into some more fans who liked Nick's Red Sox jersey and wanted a picture.