Take Me Out

The air conditioner was rattling away at full tilt in Star Room. A gaggle of eager-faced elementary schoolers sat before us (well, eager-faced except for the twins, who were babbling excitedly to each other as usual, and for Hinata, who was crouched under a table eating paper as usual).

"OK, guys, when you go to Kochien to see the Hanshin Tigers play, and you get hungry, what do you eat?" I ask, miming with one hand, green whiteboard marker clutched in the other. As always, Aimi is the first to shout, "I know!" "Yakisoba!" she volunteered. I nodded and wrote it on the board. More hands shot up: "Osushi!" "Edamame!" "Obento!" "Popcorn!" I praised them for volunteering, then proceeded to describe the weird stuff we eat at games in the States to cries of "Eeeeee?!" And I didn't even know where to start with Dippin' Dots.

Baseball day at Harumidai Kindergarten. We had them make pennants for imaginary teams like Fire and Witches, then tried to teach them the words to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (lyrics came from a faulty online version with weird, un-American perversions like "EVER get back" and an unpluralized form of "Cracker Jacks"). Fortunately, I knew something of where to start comparing the American game to what the kids would be familiar with. The week before, I had
been to see the Hanshin Tigers under the most Japanese circumstances possible: a work-mandated employee motivation outing.

Osaka is absolutely crazy about the Hanshin Tigers. Seriously. Now, Osaka does have another team, the Orix Buffaloes, but I've never heard anyone express even the slightest opinion about them. I'm not too strong on my sports analogies, but I guess they're like the White Sox of Japan? Or, to use something I'm a little more confident in, if the Tigers are Superman, the Buffaloes are Aquaman. To truly understand Osaka's degree of fanaticism over the Tigers, you have to know about the Curse of the Colonel. Truly, this is a land of mysticism and intrigue.

My co-workers and I were treated to only the finest: the cheapest, farthest seats available, in the last row behind 3rd base. Fortunately, this was also the home of the professional fans, the ones who make it to every game and whose monthly budget comprises tickets, beer, memorabilia, more beer, and rent. We gaijin became the sort of beloved mascots of the section: one of the Tigers' biggest fans (in terms of square volume) took it upon himself to enthusiastically photobomb us. Picture unavailable.

Now, I can't give you much info on how the game itself went because of an interesting quirk of Japanese-rules baseball: they let you bring your own food and beer into the park. Of course, there was one unbreakable edict of drinking at the ballpark: no matter what you do, you must not bring shame upon the hallowed grounds of Kochien by carrying glass or aluminum into the stadium. Hence, PET bottle beer:

My team spirit quickly grew three sizes. To illustrate the effect of beer on Harry's degree of caring about baseball before:

...and after:

Pretty much all I can bring you about the game is that every player has their own song and chant, and instead of clapping your hands like some oafish barbarian, we use these:

And, as is the custom, at various points in the game this happened:

Then, inexplicably, I started to hallucinate returning to a trippy mystical all-womb.