Unfettered weekend in Tokyo

I am in Tokyo as part of a work trip. That is going well, and I am happy to be here.

I am fortunate enough to be able to stay over a weekend, so today I decided to do something I have always wanted to do: go to a Japanese baseball game.

There are at least two teams in Nippon Professional Baseball located in Tokyo, the Yomiuri Giants, and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. Both of them were in town today. The Giants are the equivalent of the New York Yankees in popularity and success. Japan's biggest star, Sadaharu Oh, played for them. Surprise, surprise, they were sold out.

That left the Swallows. Turns out, they were sold out as well. I went online to try to get tickets, and the only website in English that I found had no tickets available.

I then remembered that I am in a great Western hotel (the Westin Tokyo), and they had a concierge! The concierge helped me get a ticket. He used some reseller website in Japanese. The confirmation got sent to my Inbox, but it's all in Japanese. He told me to go to the 7-11 around the corner and they would print the ticket for me. He even called ahead so that they would know what to do in case they spoke little English. The 7-11 is just across this little bridge (called the "American Bridge") which runs over the train lines. I got the ticket, and then braved said trains to get to the ball park.

From here, you walk to the Ebisu Station, and take the Yamamote line to Shibuya, where you have to change trains to the Tokyo Metro. Took me 15 or 20 minutes to figure out how to do that, and then 5 minutes more to put more money on my train card.

Meiji Jingu Stadium

The stadium (Jingu Stadium) is two stops away from Shibuya. And then it is about a 15 minute walk.

It was crowded. My seat was down the left field line, next to the foul pole.

Home plate is over there somewhere

So, the seat wasn't the best. Plus, it had no back:

Not ideal, but hey, I was at a Japanese baseball game. The Swallows were hosting the Orix Buffaloes. I was sitting in the Orix section.

In Japan, each team has a serious rooting section. They have drums and trumpets. When their team is at bat, they have custom songs they sing for each player. This goes on the entire game. It reminded me of two things: college football student sections, and the Moneyball Oakland A's drummers and bleacher creatures, who came up with custom songs for each player (The Tejada Mambo was my favorite!)

There were two players I had seen the major leagues, Nori Aoki, and Wladimir Balentien. Aoki had a successful MLB career, but was just terrible for three teams in 2017, and did not get an offer in the US for 2018, so he came home. Balentien is a failed power-hitting prospect. Never put it together in 4 seasons in the US, and has been in Japan for 9 years now.

The Swallows fans had umbrellas that they would put up and shake up and down and twirl. It was great fun.

I tried to score the game. I use the Project Scoresheet/Retrosheet scoring system. It's complex, and I have several additional notations I use. However, it's been a long time, and I was rusty. My pen wasn't behaving. And then, there is the difficulty of being in Japan.

Orix's team was only ever announced on the scoreboard in Japanese. Even the non-Japanese players had their names spelled in katakana, which is not helpful for me. They did display the positions by number (1 = pitcher, 2= catcher, etc), but they did not include uniform numbers.

The home team's starting lineup had little posed video clips of everybody, with their names on the back visible, and then superimposed titles with the names in Japanese and English. If you missed the starting lineup, you were out of luck.

None of the relief pitchers ever had their names displayed on the scoreboard. The pinch-hitter for Yakult did, but not the pinch runner. And they were all way too far away to read their names on the back of their jerseys. I could make out the numbers of the right-handed batters, and the relief pitchers for Orix. Given that I could understand at least some of the names in the songs, and that the Orix fans were all wearing jerseys with their favorite players names and numbers on them, I did managed to get 3 or 4 names. And the numbers of the relief pitchers. For Orix. Oh, boy.

And there is no designated hitter in this league. Pitchers hit.

Scoresheet is a big mess. I'll keep it to laugh over the years.

The game itself was like watching a game in the mid-80s. There were steals, sacrifice bunts, and hit-and-run plays. There was lots of scoring early, so both starting pitchers left early. Both middle relievers got to bat; one of them more than once. The manager of the Swallows screwed up a double switch late, but it did not really hurt him, as the Swallows won 7-3.

The crowd with me in it then made its way back to the train station. All of the little street food vendors that had been out when I was going to the game were gone. So my plan was to go to Shibuya, and find something to eat around that neighborhood.

When I got there and popped up, I walked around, and realized I was overwhelmed. I was hot, and it was amazingly crowded. I really started to not want to eat strange food, and find some place quiet. I bailed on Shibuya, and went back to Ebisu and went to the McDonalds. That was nowhere near as crowded as Shibuya, but it was still pretty crowded and noisy. Finally, I walked back to the hotel.

Sibuya at night. It was way more crowded this afternoon.

On the way, there was a food truck park next to the open air market in Ebisu Garden Place that had a gelato stand. I had a lemon/coconut/lavender gelato. It was pretty strange, but mostly refreshing. I finally got back to the hotel and collapsed, cooling off before taking a bath.

The open-air market at Ebisu Garden Place, just in front of the building where my work is

Traveling is hard, but rewarding. Tomorrow, Blue Note Tokyo.