Pro Baseball in Japan is Amazing

On Thursday night our class traveled by train to Osaka to attend an evening baseball game between the Osaka Hanshin Tigers and the Sapporo Ham Fighters.  It was an amazing event  and crowd participation was a big part of it - drummers, buglers, flag wavers all continually led a fervent crowd with well-orchestrated cheers, chants, etc.  For the most part it was constant with some letup between innings (i-nin-gu).

The game was close early but unfortunately the Tiger pitchers threw a number of fastballs (sok-kyu) that were hit for home runs (ho-mu-ran).  Maybe they should have used more curveballs (ka-bu).

The final score was 8-4 Ham Fighters, but the crowd seemed to take it in stride and flowed slowly out of the stadium to subways and trains.

A really fun night.  If you ever get to Japan, I definitely recommend going to a game - a truly unique experience.

MQ