 |
| Sporting our BOSTON gear at the game! |
I think I could easily write a new blog for each baseball game we go to in Japan... so you can all expect at least 1 more before we leave Japan in a few months. (Shameless plug... If you haven't read the first blog about Japanese baseball I highly suggest you refer to April 2012 "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and read about our time at the Yakult Swallows game in Tokyo.) Ok, so Damian and I went to a baseball game on Friday night with some friends. We went to Yokohama Stadium to see the Yokohama Baystars play the Chunichi Dragons
(Warning: I'm about to get WAY off topic!)
 |
| Mr. Besuburo (Baseball)... |
While at the game my amazing movie-buff husband asked if I had ever seen the movie
Mr. Baseball (1992)... and to his dismay I had never even heard of it. In
Mr. Baseball Tom Selleck (who doesn't love him, right?) gets traded to Japan to play baseball for the Chunichi Dragons! The day after the game Damian and I watched this movie which unfortunately received less than stellar reviews from the critics back in '92. I, however, give it 2 thumbs up, 5 stars, 100% awesome movie! I'm not sure I would have appreciated it as much 20+ years ago, but I can assure you that after living in Japan AND going to Japanese baseball games I am now the #1 fan of this film! I highly suggest you ALL go see this movie immediately! Tom Selleck plays "Jack Elliot" who plays for the Yankees (boooooooooo) and gets traded to the Chunichi Dragons and he struggles with learning the differences in Japanese baseball and culture. He learns about "shutto" (shoo-toe) which means "fastball." And of course he also falls in love with a beautiful Japanese woman making this (in my mind) an ultimate trifecta of a great movie... baseball, comedy, and romance! Go see it!
 |
| LOVE that the beer comes to you |
 |
| My new hat |
Ok... back on track over here... let's talk about the game- so much to talk about! It was at 6pm on Friday night at Yokohama stadium which is a very large baseball stadium (although they all look big compared to Fenway- GO RED SOX!!!). The Yokohama Baystars were playing the Chunichi Dragons who are from Nagoya, Japan. We got there right around when the game started and got some tickets for the bleachers! I had read that they rarely sell out since they are not very good... the only times they sell out are when the really good teams are in town playing them! (I went back and saw there were only 12,000 people in attendance at this game.) If you remember from the previous baseball blog I talked about how each team sits on different sides... we sat on the Baystars side and I am now an official Baystars fan since I bought a hat! It's funny when you get up into the seats because the Baystars side was pretty full and the Dragons was almost empty! The seats are "Japanese size" which means it is hard to take a sip of your beer without elbowing your neighbor! We were pretty crowded, but after a few innings, we moved down a few rows to where there were some empty seats... probably frowned upon in Japan to do this, but at the same time I think our Japanese friends were happy to see the "big" Americans move out of their way!
 |
| Can you tell which side the home team is sitting on??? |
Now for some baseball trivia... In the summer of 1934 the MLB All-stars traveled to Japan to play 17 games against the Japanese Baseball teams. Among these All-stars were Babe Ruth (he was already a Yankee at this point) and Lou Gehrig... and they went on to win ALL 17 games they played throughout Japan. When they arrived in Japan, more than 30,000 fans lined the streets to see them drive down the street in open vehicles, some yelling "Ruso, Ruso, Ruso" which is "Ruth, Ruth, Ruth" and "banzai" which is equivalent to "hurray." The fans were more than 40 deep on the streets and more than 600 fans were hospitalized due to these riots. Baseball had officially overtaken Sumo as Japan's #1 sport... but really how can you not love this game!?!? In 1978, Yokohama Stadium was built (and was state-of-the-art at the time) and in the bleachers they placed a memorial plaque of Babe Ruth at the right foul pole and Lou Gehrig at the left foul pole... I was lucky enough to sit in the bleachers and be able to see one of these! It is pretty blurry, and when I go back will try to get a clearer picture.
Back to the game! It was a great game, a little slow at first, but the fans constant chanting and singing is so entertaining! In between innings, the cheerleaders came out along with the Baystars mascot which is a cat with a star shaped face (very strange looking) and of course a baseball game would not be complete without the blue Power Ranger! The game even went into extra innings, but that Baystars defeated the Dragons 4-1 at the bottom of the 10th thanks to a 3 run homerun by Tony Blanco. Blanco is Dominican and started his career playing for the farm system with the Red Sox, moving to the Nationals for his Major League debut and eventually in 2013 playing 1st base with the Yokohama Baystars. After he won the game, they interviewed him and then drove him around the stadium in a little car so all the fans could cheer him on. (None of the Baystars fans left until after this.) Then when he got out to the bleachers he got out of the car and used one of those t-shirt cannons to shoot shirts into the stands! It was quite a scene- too bad none of us caught a shirt! All in all it was another great Japanese baseball experience. I even made friends with some of the fans who were so excited after we won!!! Whoop whoop!
Japanese word of the Day:
Shutto (shoo-toe): Fastball
Once we got over to the other side we had a short walk to the cable car and then a quick cable ride up the mountain (less than 5 minutes)... this was the easy part! Once we got to the top the views were amazing! The water looked so blue and the sun was shining down on us for great start to the day! The mountain is only a little over 1000 feet but it is straight up with rocky cliffs. We spent about 5 hours hiking around on the mountain as there was a lot to see. The funny thing is that you take the cable car up, but then you have to hike down stairs to get to some of the amazing things and then of course back up again... a lot of stairs! My legs are still feeling it today! It felt like doing the stair-climber at the gym for hours and hours!!!
Scattered throughout the mountain are over 1500 small hand-carved stone statues of Buddha... some very old. Many of them were "beheaded" from an anti-buddhist movement in the 1800's... which seems sort of crazy to me as an anti-buddhist would be against peace and why would anyone be against peace... Anyway they were all different and amazing. I read somewhere that each one has a different and unique facial expression and that if you look really hard you will find one that looks like you.... I just assumed I probably looked like one of the ones that was beheaded!!! They were tucked in caves and perched high up on rocks- truly spectacular!
Next up was the big buddha (daibutsu) which I was super excited to see. It is a medicine/healing buddha and it is the largest in Japan! The picture to the left really doesn't even begin to show how big it is and beautiful! It was severely damaged due to a large earthquake here but was fully restored in the 1960's. It stands over 90 feet tall and is incredible to think it is made out of stone! There was also a goddess of mercy carved into the stone which was done as a memorial for the victims of WWII. Today, people come to it to pray for travel safety.
That's it for our Japan adventures for now... stay tuned as Beth & Damian are taking on the outback for the next 12 days and will have lots to blog about! G'day mate!
