Somewhat unbelievable (at least to me), but true: in all of the years I’ve lived here, I had never been to a Japanese baseball game until last month and, as you can see, it was a lovely evening with a great sunset.

It’s not that I should have gone earlier because I love baseball (the truth is that I can take it or leave it), but I have always liked live sporting events and I’ve always been curious about the Japanese baseball fans’ lively and organized support of their teams during games.

It sometimes seems like a hundred years ago, but I was a major fan of the Yankees when I was in my early teens (but those were the Reggie Jackson days and the Toronto Blue Jays had not yet been founded, so who wasn’t a Yankees fan in Toronto?), so I do at least know the basics of the game and what’s going on and that’s another reason it’s odd that I’d never been: just to see the differences/similarities.

Anyway, we had a fab time. We went with a couple who are big Yakult Swallows fans, so they were able to fill us in on all of the rituals. I also decided to take my big lens to see if I could get any decent shots of the batters at the plate and/or other things.

The Swallows lost (but they were playing the Giants, so I am not sure even their most dedicated fans expected them to win), but they did score at least one home run and this led to the most fascinating part of the game (most fascinating to me, that is): upon scoring a home run, the entire section of the Swallows fans in the stands opens up their tiny clear, plastic, Swallows umbrellas and do a kind of sing-a-long while waving the umbrellas in the air. The song sounds like one of the songs you hear at Bon-Odori and, since I love Bon-Odori and have a real thing for umbrellas, it was kind of a magic moment:

Yakult Swallows Home Run Ritual from tokyololas on Vimeo.

The other fascinating thing (which I had heard about many times, but never seen) was the way beer is sold at the games. There’s no better way to describe it than with a photo:

Yep, that’s right. Young Japanese women in “cute” uniforms with small kegs strapped to their backs from which they dispense draft beer right at your seat. It’s highly efficient and completely eradicates any spillage issues that arise when beer is sold in pre-poured cups and carried through the stands in large trays. However, anyone who has ever lifted a full beer keg (even a smaller one) must be contemplating the WEIGHT being carried about all night: it’s definitely a good incentive for selling more beer faster!

One of the Swallows players, Aaron Guiel, is Canadian, so, each time he came up to the plate, a big section of the crowd would whip out their Canadian flags and a brass band in the stands would play part of the Canadian national anthem:

Here’s Guiel in the field – he plays right field, so he was standing in front of us for most of the game:

And, finally, here is Aoki at the plate – it’s amazing what you can get with 500mm on a crop sensor (we were sitting in the cheap seats):