With the Fourth of July this weekend, I find myself really missing baseball. While I can’t wait to see Gerrit Cole take the mound for my Yankees, I figured I’d share the experience I had going to see a Nippon Professional Baseball League game in Tokyo. Last August, I took in the city rivalry game between the Yomiuri Giants and Tokyo Yakult Swallows at the famed Tokyo Dome.
The Yomiuri Giants are the Japanese equivalent of the New York Yankees. They play their home games in the enormous Tokyo Dome and have won 22 Japan Series Championships. They have long been the dominant team in Japan baseball since the team’s inception in 1934 and have a massive fanbase throughout the country and, much like the Yankees, an even bigger cult of haters. Meanwhile, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows may be the equivalent of the Mets. They also play in Tokyo but in the smaller Meiji Jingu Stadium. They were founded in 1950 and spent over a decade before they finished the season with a winning record. Their fanbase is much smaller and doesn’t usually stretch beyond Tokyo as the Giants’ does.
Unlike the US, baseball games in Japan often sell out well in advance of game day. I realized this when I first tried to attend a game in Osaka. I walked up to the ticket counter on a game day and was turned away with a laugh for being naive enough to think I could buy a ticket so late. In recent years, they have also cracked down on ticket scalping so I was out of luck that day. For the Giants-Swallows game, I learned my lesson and purchased a ticket three weeks out. There was only a handful left but I secured a spot down the left-field line in the upper deck.
Crowds at a Japanese baseball game are into it from before the first pitch till the final out. They have loads of different cheers and songs. When the starting lineups are announced, each player on the home team has his own cheer. Unlike attending an American game where the crowd goes through peaks and valleys of interest, the Japanese fans stay attentive to the game throughout and cheer nonstop whether their team is ahead or trailing. The remarkable thing is that they do it all while sitting. At no point during the games did the fans stand up to cheer on their team because that would be impolitely blocking someone’s view.
The Swallows entered the game with the worst record in the Nippon League, the Giants owned the second-best. Still, the Swallows jumped out to a big early lead. By the 5th inning, it was 7-0 and I decided to hit the concourse in search of some food.
I was amazed to see the assortment of ballpark food available in the concessions. Much like an American ballpark, they offered hamburgers, hot dogs, and peanuts, although no Cracker Jacks. They also had a wide selection of Japanese food that looked as good as you’d see in most restaurants. From sushi to pork cutlet to chicken curry, they all looked better than anything you’d find at a US sporting event. The best part was that every food item was under $10US, with most entrees around $5.
As for drinks, Kirin and Asahi are the two largest Japanese beer brands and their presence was felt all over the dome. Still, they offered quite a few craft brews, including a few selections from the Brooklyn Brewery. Highballs are also a very popular summer cocktail in Japan, so there were plenty of whisky carts that featured both the local, Suntory, as well as Dewars. These were mostly hawked by attractive young women in short shorts that winded through the crowd much the same way a cotton candy vendor would in the US. Despite all of the alcohol so readily available, and at a cheap price – both a large cup of beer and a high ball went for around $5 – I didn’t see a single fan that looked like he might have had one too many.
I ordered a pork cutlet and a Suntory and soda, alas I couldn’t resist the whisky sirens, and headed back to my seat. I came back just in time. The Giants had put runners on the corners with no outs and former Padre, Christian Villanueva, at the plate. Luckily, the manager called for a mound conference, as the ushers will only allow you to and from your seat during a break in play. As soon as I sat back down, Villanueva connected on a blast that came close to hitting the back of the dome, easily 450 feet or more! The Giants had cut the lead to 7-3.
The Giants would continue to come back. The game went back and forth in the later innings and was tied 9-9 entering the final frame. In the bottom of the 9th, a Giants player hit a bomb towards centerfield. I thought I was about to see a walk-off home run but at the last second, former MLB-er, Nori Aoki, leaped up and made a spectacular catch, robbing a home run. Unfortunately, the Swallows couldn’t rally off Aoki’s huge play, they posted a goose egg in the 10th, before the Giants would eventually eke it out in the bottom of the 10th.
I was disappointed that the lowly Swallows couldn’t pull off the big win but excited that I had seen such an eventful game. Afterward, I made my way out of the dome with the other 45,000 Japanese fans. No one had left early. The crowd politely made their way out of the dome. Despite the large crowd, there were only two concourses available for exiting the dome, yet no one pushed or complained. I hope to get back again to catch another game, hopefully, next time, I can see the Nippon League team that I’ve decided to adopt for my fandom, the Hanshin Tigers.