Japanese Little League Baseball
We have recently found an enjoyable walk from our apartment to the Iidabashi area. There you can find the Tokyo Dome (home of the Giants) and these smaller baseball players in the mini stadium next door.

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We have recently found an enjoyable walk from our apartment to the Iidabashi area. There you can find the Tokyo Dome (home of the Giants) and these smaller baseball players in the mini stadium next door.
Playing a summer-time game, in the winter, while it looks like autumn…
This was the scene less than two weeks ago at the baseball field in Ueno Park.
I pre-blogged today, and the next few days, as we are on our way to Thailand for the winter break. We should have an internet connection in Thailand so expect some updates from Bangkok and Phuket soon.
Although I’m still a Seibu Lions fan, I almost instantly became a fan of the Yakult Swallows as well. Luckily the Swallows, in the Central League, are in a different league than the Lions (who are in the Pacific League) so cheering for both teams should not be a problem most of the time.
One reason I became a fan is their nearby location. Another is their edgy attitude, demonstrated by the player’s faces on the screen when announced.
There are many other reasons, but the overall one is they remind me of my favorite team in the US, the Oakland A’s. Both teams don’t spend on high-priced free agents. Both have a nearby team known as the Giants (I hate both). I’ll save some of my other reasons for later when I have pictures to better explain them.
A 9th inning, 3-run home run by the Hiroshima Carp caused the Swallows to lose on this evening, but my daughter and I had a great time anyway. The Swallows made the Climax Series playoffs this year.
The half-empty stadium on a weeknight also reminded me of the good old days at the Oakland Coliseum in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
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.

