Yakult Swallows – Part 1
My second Japanese baseball game of the 2009 season was my first in central Tokyo. The place was Meiji Jingu Stadium (明治神宮野球場) which is almost walking distance from my apartment. My daughter and I took the train instead of making the 40 minute or so walk.
The sunset was beautiful, even with countless beer girls jumping in front of the camera. The number of beer girls at Jingu was staggering. I have been to many, many baseball games in more than a dozen parks in three countries and have never seen anything like it. The ratio of fans to beer vendors was probably about 10:1.
Like our experience in Chiba, we were on the big screen within minutes of our arrival. Unlike the games I’ve been to in Tokorozawa and Chiba, there were lots of foreigners at the Swallows’ game. At those other games it seemed we were the only foreigners among tens of thousands of Japanese. At the Swallows’ game, perhaps as much as 1% of the crowd was not Japanese.