Go Hanshin TIGERS

Fantastic. Thats all can be said about the game. But for those who don’t know let me give you a little background on the Hanshin Tigers. I was watching the travel channel a while back (when I still had television) when they had a special about Japan. I thought “hey, this looks up my alley” and decided to give it a gander. The show was alright, it was some guy going around and doing stuff I thought I would probably never be able to do (ha, I showed me didn’t I). He ate octopus balls and talked with Japanese people but the thing I remebered the most was when he went to a Hanshin Tigers game. It was one of the most interesting things I had seen in a long time and I swore if I ever made it to Japan that I would see a game. Fast forward a couple of years and I’m in Japan studying abroad. I am thrilled that I can now see a game. I check out tickets and find out there are only three games left in the season and they are all sold out……..DAMN IT. “Well that was a trip to Japan wasted. Now I’ll never see a Hanshin Tigers game.” Fast forward some more to this trip. My company scores me some tickets to a game and I am thrilled to death. But of course it gets rained out (To those who read my last blog you know the story). Okay now that my whole saga of trying to see a game is over lets get down to me actually seeing the game.

Oh and what a game it was. It was supposed to be me and some people from my company but it turned out everyone was busy so it was me, my host brother, and two of my friends from Webster. We get into the stadium and it is just packed. I mean every seat has a butt in it and every butt is cheering for the Tigers. Except for like this tiny section for the other guys team, the Kobe somethings, I don’t remeber they’re not important. So before we go in there one of the girls at my company who was showing us the way, gave us a bag of Hanshin Tigers….uh, geez…whats the word I’m looking for… crap, that’s it.  She gave us a bag of Hanshin Tiger crap, but in a good way.  In it was some hanshin tiger ears, the classic Hanshin tigers noise bats (it’s two colorful bats that you hit together when you want to cheer), and some hand clapper things we didn’t really use.  The only complaint I have was that because she was a female fan all of her memorabilia were pink.  But that didn’t stop us.  Remind me to show everyone the photos of me in the pink ears and, YES, I did wear them the whole game.  So the game was alright but the fans, oh my stars and garters, if you can go just for the fans.  They are all crazy about the tigers.  I have never seen an entire stadium cheer in unison.  And I don’t mean every one was like “Yeah tigers”.  I mean every player had their own song and everyone in the stadium knew it but us.  I think the total count by the end of the game was 45,000 fans.  It was an amazing sight to see.

So when we walked in the score was already 1-0, tigers losing.  Thats the set up for the rest of the story.  After we sat down we started getting eyeballed by all the people around us.  We scared a whole lot of people.  But you know us, we started talking with everysingle one of them.  We had some old ladies behind us that turned out to be super sweet and even held an umbrella over us when it started to rain.  My friend Brian talked with the people in front of him and almost hooked me up with their daughter (not a good thing).  Apparently she thought that I was very handsome and cute with my pink ears on and started asking questions about me.  I guess she really thought I looked good.  Then there was the couples in front of me who were die hard hanshin fans.  The  two girlfriends also thought I was very cute with my ears.  The boyfriends, not so happy about that fact.  But by the next inning we were all laugh and having a good time.  I was actually able to carry on a pretty long conversation with all of them.  I know I have only been here for three weeks but I am kinda surprising my self with how good I have gotten.  I was doing a little better than my friends who were studying there for the whole year.  Anyway, everyone around us was just happy to hang out with us.  The crowd was loud and rambunctious and the game.  Of all the games to see we got a great one.  Like I set up before, the tigers were down by one, in the bottom of the seventh they had a guy on and one out.  The batter pops a foul ball strait up and the catcher goes for it.  On his way he trips over the batter and both of them go rolling.  The ball lands and the batter is called out.  That was the angriest crowd I have ever seen in my life.  Angry Japanese people yell the funniest things even if you don’t understand the language.  The coachs came out of the dug out and started yelling at the umpire for 20 minutes.  It was so intense.  They didn’t put it up on the big screen for a replay and it took me a while to figure out why.  EVERY FAN  had taken out their cell phones and were watching the replay live on T.V.  45,000 people all looking at their cell phones.  By the end of the whole ordeal the manager was thrown out of the stadium.  Awsome.  But that didn’t keep the fans down.  As soon as the inning ended they did their traditional 7th inning stretch.  Every fan took out these giant balloons, blew them up, and let them go at the same time.  I have it on tape and it was one of the greatest experiences I have had on this trip.  The entire sky was just filled with ballons.  I will show everyone when I get back.

After that the 8th inning went on with out anyone scoring.  Then in the 9th the Hanshin tigers pitcher struck everyone out.  And then we experienced one of my best sports moments ever.  It started to rain hard, the tigers got a man on, got another on first and him to second, walked him to third, and then the next guy had himself a full count with one out, bases loaded.  And THEN, they walked the guy home.  Kinda anti-climactic but still it got a guy home to tie the game.  Then the next guy came up and they hit him and that one the game.  It doesn’t sound cool but you should have been there.  When they came from behind to win the whole stadium exploded.  All the people around us started giving us high fives and screaming.  Then we all sung the Hanshing theme song.  IT WAS EVERYTHING I EXPECTED FROM THE GAME AND MORE.