Voice of Will: Birthday Baseball

2006-09-30 - 10:39 p.m.
My wife is so AWESOME!! She bought me a baseball ticket about 10 days ago and didn:t tell me until today. She handed me a ticket at noon and told me to have fun at my first Japanese baseball game. She sent me with 3 of her coworkers to the game.

These folks are fun, about my age, and great to hang out with. So the idea of going with them to a baseball game was really exciting.
We got to the stadium about 20 minutes before the game started. A few notes to those who want to watch baseball in japan. Be short, and skinny.

The seats are like the seats on the buses in china. They are designed for people who are no more than 5'10", and have skinny butts. What makes this worse is there are moulded plastic arm rests between each seat. In no way am I under 5'10", nor do I have a skinny butt (as many of you can attest.) So it was a tight fit with 4 foreingers all of whom are over 6' tall. In fact I was hoping I could get some japanese person to take a picture of us all squished into the seats. It would be similar to how all those clowns fit in a VW beetle. But I digress. After a half inning of my ass gripping the seat for dear life, I decided I had enough of hurting my rear and my dignity. So I moved into the aisle and sat on the step. Now in china I never would have done that, but because everything is so clean I figured why not. This let one of the other three shift over into my seat, and then there was quasi leg room.

The game was between the Hiroshima Carp and the honomuri Giants. When the game started I was very underwhelmed. The Carp (damn that was hard to write, i wrote crap 3x) pitcher seemed unable to pitch his way out of a wet paper bag. he gave up 2 runs on 4 hits, and 3 walks in ONE inning. At the beginning of the 2nd inning he was facing the lead batter again. The Giants looked very tough, and I was wondering of there was a mercy rule in japanese baseball because I thought the Carp would need it. Well apparently the Carp pitcher just needed one inning more of prep. He went on to throw 3 hitless innings.

Meanwhile the Giants who looked so impressive gave up a 2 run homerun in the fifth inning leaving the game tied 2-2. The Giants got a long home in the bottom of the fifth inning leaving Giants ahead 3-2l. The score stayed stable as each team held the other hitless until the top of the 8th inning. The Carp had gottten a runner to first because he was hit by a pitch. The next batter was the same one who hit the 2 run homer in the fifth. He hit a line drive down the third baseline ino the corner. The runner from first accelerated all the way around third. At that point the left fielder managed to get to the ball. When the runner turned third I said there was no way the throw would be in time. The runner huffing and puffing towards home as the throw was on the way. It was like the Meatloaf song. Here's the throw, the play at the plate, It:s gonna be close! It's in the dirt at home, it's out.... NO safe, Safe at HOME! The runner beat the tag at the plate to tie the game. Awesome play. The crowd goes wild for the visiting team. The batter who hit it managed a triple, with no outs. He was stranded there. Going into the top of the 9th inning, the Carp get a man on first because he outran the throw. Next batter plays textbook baseball and bunts him to second. The coach decides to walk the next hitter (i would too .325 average) to put men on first and second. The next batter is the 2nd baseman who has a .217 average. 1 home run on the season that is almost over, and 5 RBI:s. What happens?

The second baseman hits a blooper over the outfielders who were playing very close. The runners on first and second manage to score, and viola the score is now 5-3 Carp. The game ended with that score.
Wow. It was fun (expensive fun 3700 yen, or about 35 dollars), like watching a college baseball game, and the atmosphere was electric. Some of the players are VERY good, but when the starting right fielder for the Hiroshima Carp has a .185 batting average for the season it tells you the variance in the caliber of players. There are very few Ichiro's playing in japan, but there are lots in the Domincan Republic. But I digress.
The game was awesome. I managed to make about a dozen japanese friends who speak very limited english. but I manage to make friends everywhere I go, it:s a gift and a curse. Lots of fun, lots of excitement, and booing at the umpire was fun, and watching the crowd was intreguing (and so is my spelling)