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When I was a kid I played some form of baseball (frequently wiffleball due to space and number-of-participants constraints) at least 200 days a year. I don’t see that anymore in the states in this age of soccer and video games. But in Japan I see kids playing baseball nearly every day.
The location for these shots is the open area on the north-west corner of 甘泉園公園. I’ll be posting more pictures from and information about this park near Waseda University soon.
To say that the Japanese overreacted to the Swine Flu scare is more than a bit of an understatment. A group of educators were supposed to come to my university in Oregon, but they all canceled due to the H1N1 hysteria. Never mind that there are far fewer cases in my neck of the rural woods than there are in densely populated Japan (meaning they would have been safer here than at home) or that the death rate from this flu bug is less than it is for the regular flu (which inflicts far more people anyway).
One of Japan’s Swine Flu “precautions” was the prohibiting of balloons at professional baseball games. I’m happy to report that this ban has finally been ended, just in time for my arrival and attendance at Japanese ball games. Yeah!
Let the launchings begin…
Continuing on our current thread of ballparks and Sears Tower, US Cellular Field, where the Chicago White Sox play, is much easier to spot from Sears Tower. This image didn’t require any cropping.
I saw the White Sox play a few nights later. For some of those photos click here.
Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, and Sears Tower are really nowhere near each other. But I was visiting both on the same day so when I was in the observation deck on the top of the Sears Tower in the morning I asked someone to point out where Wrigley Field was to me. I couldn’t identify it with my naked eye, but I pointed my camera that way anyway, put it on maximum zoom, and pushed the button. After a generous crop I had myself the above picture.
Tomorrow I’ll show you the opposite view, Sears Tower from Wrigley Field a little later in the day after a ride on the Red Line.
My copy of the 2009 Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook and Media Guide arrived this past week. I’m pleasantly surprised by the contents. I was expecting a cheaply produced collection of facts that may help make my visits to games in Japan later this year a bit more enjoyable. However, this is really high quality and much more useful than I bargained for. The paper quality is top notch. Every page is in full color. And the items covered are more comprehensive and interesting than I hoped. Let’s take a look at some of the sections:
Each Japanese baseball team has a two page spread as shown above with overview material. This is pretty much all I was expecting, but there is much more.
Detailed stats, and even salaries, are shown for every player, including names in both Japanese kanji and English. If nothing else it’s a good source for practicing kanji name readings. 😉
All foreign born players have additional career details provided. How many Americans, other than Tuffy Rhodes, are there with over 400 home runs who are virtually unknown to U.S. baseball fans?
Not shown here are a bunch of other sections in the book. One I particularly like is the schedules by date. So let’s say you are in Tokyo on September 26th and want to catch a game. Instead of having to flip to each team’s page to see where they are playing, you can turn to the schedules-by-date page and quickly see that you have four options: Rakuten at Seibu in Tokorozawa, Orix at Lotte in Chiba, Hiroshima at Tokyo in the dome, or Yokohama at Yakult in Jingu. Times are also listed and since two of these games start at 2 and the other two start at 6 you could actually make it a doubleheader with four different teams in one day if you want. Try doing that in a major city in the U.S.A.
Published by Wayne Graczyk and JapanBall.com, ordering information can be found here.
Japanese baseball has begun and my Lions won on opening night (4/3/09). I’m hoping they can keep it up so that by the time we get there they will still be in the thick of things.
If you ever go to a baseball game in Japan note that your experience will be radically different depending on where you sit. Sit in the outfield and, not only will you pay much less for your ticket but, you will be in the thick of the ouendan (応援団), or cheering sections, of the crowds. Sit near home plate and things will be much less lively, perhaps even boring. The fans in the outfield tend to be much more friendly too.