Marinerds, etc.

Saturday, November 7th, my half-birthday, the Yomiuri Giants won the Japan Series by beating the Nippon Ham Fighters 2-0 at the Sapporo Dome. Yet again, just as in 1981, the Giants beat the Fighters in the Japan Series 4 games to 2, and for the Giants, this was their 21st Japan Series title, which of course is still almost double the next-highest winning team, the Seibu Lions with 13 titles.

If you want to know about what actually happened in the game, I recommend reading up on it in other places:

Japan Times: Giants scratch seven-year title itch
Daily Yomiuri: Giants finish off Fighters / Capture 21st Japan Series title as 6 hurlers combine on shutout, MVP Abe provides punch
Japanball: Giants down Fighters in Game 6 to win Japan Series title
Yakyu Baka: Giants shutout the Fighters 2-0 to take the Nippon Series in 6!
and even Bleacher Report: Japanese Yankees Win Their World Series Too, where I want to punch the author by the end but he does have a valid point: have the damn Yankees and the damn Giants play each other already! Seriously!

As for me, what I'm going to share with you is the fan experience of watching the game at Fighters town Kamagaya on Saturday night, since I didn't keep a scorecard and the only moments of the game I really remember very well are Shun Tohno getting knocked down in the first inning and being replaced by Utsumi, and I remember when Ejiri came out to pitch, and I kinda remember the Giants scoring their runs because we were all like "OMGWTFINABA", and of course the last inning, where we really hoped the Fighters could put one or two of the guys on base into home plate for once but I think we all knew in our hearts it wasn't going to happen.


(More photos and videos at the end of the post.)

Kamagaya, for those tuning in for the first time, is a small town in Chiba prefecture, about 30-40 minutes out of Tokyo by train. The Fighters built a minor-league stadium and training center and dormitory there back in 1996, when their major-league team was still based in Tokyo. When the team moved to Sapporo, they kept the minor league team in Kamagaya, and as such, it has become a bit of a gathering place for the relatively large remaining contingent of Tokyo-area Fighters fans.

I read on the Fighters website that they would be having a free "Public Viewing" of Game 6 (and 7) at Kamagaya. They would set up a big TV and seating outside the stadium, and they advertised that there would be merchandise tables with special postseason stuff, and food stands and "fun events" and the minor-league mascot Cubby and some "presents" and whatnot.

So I emailed Hiromi and she emailed Ojisan, and by the time we arrived at Kamagaya around 5:30, we found Ojisan and another friend Chizaki sitting at a picnic table, and they had also saved some seats up front for us as well!

Before the game, I wandered around, said hi to friends I saw there, looked through the merchandise (there was a LOT, but none of it screamed out to me that I HAD to buy it), went to the food stand and bought some curry and rice, and sat down with my friends to have a little mini-picnic, since we had all brought snacks and whatnot to share with everyone. Chizaki had even brought a huge thermos full of hot water and some packets of powder to make coffee out of.

The "presents", by the way, turned out to be plastic folders, which you could get for free if you wrote your name and address and phone number on an information form for Tokyo Dome and Kamagaya 2010 season tickets. The PL championship folder is pretty cool though, has the entire team on it and says "WE DID IT" in big letters.

I was interviewed by a lady reporting for Chiba TV. Or more like, Ojisan dragged her over like "You HAVE to talk to Deanna! Get the international angle!" So after clearing up that yes, I can speak Japanese, I was filmed for about 3-4 minutes. Oddly, most of what she asked me was things like, who is your favorite player? Why is Imanari your favorite player, what do you like about him? Do you come to Kamagaya a lot? How long have you been a Fighters fan? Stuff like that, rather than about the Japan Series itself or anything. I'm just hoping that it didn't actually make it onto TV, or at least that nobody I know SAW it.

The pre-game festivities included having EVERYONE throw out an imaginary first pitch, and then singing the entire Fighters sanka (team song), all three verses, with the lyrics up on the big screen karaoke-style. They also lit up some strings of Christmas lights behind the screen to look like Mt. Fuji, and we did some cheering with Cubby, the mascot. Almost everyone had brought cheer sticks and wore jerseys, usually over several layers of jackets. Some people brought signs. A group of guys in the back even had big Fighters flags on poles that they waved as if we were in a real ouendan at the stadium.

During the game itself, the atmosphere was not entirely unlike being spread out in the Fighters side of the Seibu Dome outfield, just without the trumpets and drums. Most of us tried to do the cheer songs along with the TV as we could hear them, including the Kensuke call and Inaba jump and the chance themes and even just clapping and yelling "Kattobase" and "Go go let's go" and so on. Guys waved flags in the back when Fighters got on base, and we all generally cheered as appropriate, although for the most part people stayed seated rather than standing up to cheer, partially because the seats were on flat ground and standing up would really get in other people's way.

Between innings, the TV display kept showing Kamagaya mini-commercials. Occasionally, there were even little mini-events between innings. Notably, we did YMCA at the same time they did it at the Sapporo Dome, and another time, they called out, "We have a special timed discount starting now! It's the 38 discount! Does anyone know what 38 is for? Yes, it's Masaru Takeda's uniform number! So from now, we'll be selling hotdogs for the next 38 minutes for 100 yen each! So hurry up and buy some!"

(You would be surprised how many people don't want a hot dog for 200 yen, but when you make it 100 yen, the entire place storms the food counter.)

They also often walked around yelling out advertisements for the merchandise there. "See the super-warm and comfortable Fighters 2009 Pacific League Champions parka she's wearing? Oh, it's very comfortable and so fashionable! And if you buy it now, along with a scarf and bag and cheer sticks, it only costs 5000 yen! What a deal!"

Cubby was out there for pretty much the entire game, cheering along with everyone. In the 8th and 9th innings when things were starting to look pretty bad, Cubby was going up to people and patting them on the head and high-fiving and making motions of "Come on, we can do it!"

Anyway, here are some photos and videos from the evening...


Here we are about 10 minutes before the game, doing the "first pitch" together.


Lighting up "Fuji".


And this was the view from my "seat" in the front.


Utsumi coming into the game after Tohno was knocked down and out.


Here's another view from sitting at our picnic table, towards the side.


One of the flag-waving guys way in the back.


Out in back, near where some charcoal grills were set up for people to come warm their hands by, people had hung out all of the normal big banners that they hang in the stadium during games during the season.


I got a photo in the midst of the "We Love Fighters" one.


Here's the merchandise tents.


A display of Fighters bears in various outfits, on a table with Japan Series programs. They also had the Cubby pinbadge capsule machines out as well.


Food stand.


Food stand being swamped by 600 people trying to get 38 hot dogs.

And, as promised, some videos...


Here we are doing the Inaba Jump in the 9th inning. (It starts with us waving cheer sticks for "I Was Born To Love You" though.)


And the Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme, for Naoto Inada's at-bat in the 9th inning. He eventually walked, and you can see how excited the crowd got every time Kroon threw a ball instead of a strike.


In case you are wondering, by the way, I do believe there were a few Giants fans watching the game there, but for the most part, they weren't vocal. (One guy was fairly vocal in the first inning, and he was either escorted out or told to stop it by the police.) I don't think there was any particular ban on Giants fans, but as someone else put it in Japanese, "Can't that idiot read the atmosphere? This is NOT a place to be cheering for the Giants."

(Seriously, if you're a Giants fan, shouldn't there be a better place to watch the game than sitting out in the cold with 600-700 Fighters fans at their minor-league facility?)

And overall, it was actually a pretty neat experience to be sitting out in the cold with a few hundred Fighters fans. I had been waffling about going because it takes me almost 2 hours each way to go there, but in the end I think it was worth it to finish off the season with my friends.

Thus the 2009 season comes to an end, and in theory in the worst possible way, having the Giants beat my Fighters and the Yankees beat my hometown Phillies, but really, I think I'm already over it for the most part, and focusing on how unbelievable the year actually was. Sometimes I think being a Fighters fan has actually turned me into a nicer person and mellowed me out a lot.

And don't worry, there's still more baseball on the horizon for me in 2009, even if it's not pro yakyu. Jingu Taikai next weekend, fanfests and the JUBF-U26 game after that, Master's league and other crazy things after that. Also some hockey, hopefully. I love this place!

I thought about just posting the following:

The Fighters got a run in the 2nd inning off of two Giants errors, and held the 1-0 lead for most of the game, which became tied 1-1 in the 8th off Takahiro Suzuki's clever baserunning and Noriyoshi Ohmichi's pinch-hit single. Shinji Takahashi hit a go-ahead home run in the top of the 9th to make it 2-1, and then closer Hisashi Takeda gave up two home runs to the Giants in the 9th, the second one being a walkoff shot by Shinnosuke Abe, and the Giants won 3-2.

Because seriously, I don't really want to think about this game any more. The entire game really did come down to that totally devastating last 20 minutes where the Fighters were suddenly not winning, then winning, then completely not winning.

Both starters were really good -- Shugo Fujii and Dicky Gonzalez both went 7 innings and didn't give up an earned run.

I was sitting in the second row of the Fighters cheering section in the outfield for this game, actually, thanks to a friend of a friend scoring excellent tickets and being nice enough to offer one to me.

And you know what the crazy thing is?

It honestly didn't feel any different from any other game this year, aside from being more crowded.

I mean, back in June, I also sat in the second row of the visitor's cheering section for the Fighters-Giants games in interleague, and for the most part, this felt exactly the same -- lots of people who all love the Fighters and hate the Giants united in the purpose of yelling and screaming and singing cheer songs until our team won or lost. I'm really not sure there was any big change in atmosphere between this game and the other ones. Maybe we were slightly louder than usual.

I guess the only main difference is, back on June 5th when last we saw Fujii vs. Gonzalez as a pitching matchup, Shugo Fujii gave up 4 runs in the first inning and it was pretty clear we were unlikely to come back from that, so it was a slightly different mood.

I'm not sure how to explain it, but when you're behind for the entire game and lose, that has a completely different feeling than being ahead for the entire game and then to suddenly have it all yanked out from under you at the last moment.

The worst thing was, I think, having this happen at my last Fighters game of 2009. (For real. I know I've had four "last game of 2009" games this year, but this is REALLY the last one.) Afterwards, outside Gate 11, there was just a huge congregation of Fighters fans, and everyone's mood was some combination of:

- "I really wanted them to win their final game in Kanto..."
- "It's not over yet! Are you going to Sapporo for Games 6 and 7?"
- "I can't go to Sapporo."
- "I hate the Giants so very very much."
- "I hate Shinnosuke Abe so very very much."
- "I hate the long long winter with no baseball so very very much."
- "It's been a great year anyway, hasn't it? We'll all be back next year together, right?"

(And a little bit of "Why do you have 嫌 on your t-shirt?" to which I'd turn around and display the "俺はジャイアンツが大っ嫌いだぁ！" ("I HATE the Giants!") message, generally to laughs.)

So there were a lot of goodbyes, a lot of people exchanging contact info to maybe get together over the winter, a lot of "see you next year", some "see you in Sapporo", things like that. Some of us already have a plan to get together for dinner in a few weeks. (And a whole gang of us headed to an izakaya together afterwards anyway.)

I mean, that's the thing: this really HAS been an amazing year. Running around before Game 3 saying hello to a bazillion people really knocked that into my head. I went to 60 Fighters games this year, counting minor league, and all over the country. Everywhere I went, I met amazing new people and had a great time cheering and hanging out and being a Fighters fan.

Win or lose, the bottom line is still that this was a great year for the fans. It would have been a great year even if we'd finished in last place, I think, but finishing in first certainly made it that much better.

On that note, I'm going to Kamagaya today for their "public viewing" of Game 6. It's going to be pretty chilly this evening, and Kamagaya's pretty far from where I live, but I figure that it'll be a good place to be watching with everyone.

Wednesday morning, I went to an English speech contest with a few of my students. One of them is a big Giants fan and we talked about the Japan Series on the streetcar over, since she grabbed my cellphone and was looking through all of my Fighters charms and straps dangling from it. When I asked who her favorite player was, she told me she likes Tetsuya Matsumoto. I had to admit that of all the members of the Giants starting lineup, she did pick the only one that I don't have any reason to dislike, aside from that he displaced Takahiro Suzuki, who used to have the honor of being the guy in the Giants lineup that I didn't dislike.

I said I was heading back to the Tokyo Dome for the game in the evening, and that the Fighters were going to win.

She seemed unsure whether trash-talking her English teacher was a good idea or not, but assured me she would be watching on TV and that her beloved Matsumoto-kun was going to kick ass.

Well, she was right. Matsumoto was the only player on either team who reached base all 5 times he came to the plate.

Fortunately, it didn't matter.

The game started out as an epic battle between two lefty starters -- Hisanori Takahashi for the Giants, and Tomoya Yagi for the Fighters. Hisanori started out by striking out the side in the top of the 1st, which was a bit ominous.

But then the Fighters totally beat the crap out of him in the 3rd, which made up for it. Shinji Takahashi came up with the bases loaded and hit a single to left which scored Kensuke and Hichori to make it 2-0 and two batters later Eiichi Koyano hit a triple to center which scored Inaba and Shinji to make it 4-0.

The Giants answered that with one run in the bottom of the 3rd, as Hayato Sakamoto led off with a double and advanced on a wild pitch and then scored on a Matsumoto single to make it 4-1.

Shinji Takahashi hit a solo home run in the 5th to make it 5-1.

Kimura Takuya, who had allowed Hichori to get on base in the 3rd, also got himself picked off first in the 5th, a really embarrassing tagout on the base path.

The Fighters added one more run in the 7th after Kensuke Tanaka hit a triple and Hichori Morimoto squeeze-bunted him in, 6-1, and two more runs in the 8th off of reliever Shota Kimura, who gave up three hits and two runs in three batters before being escorted off the mound, a Shinji single, Sledge double, and Koyano 2-RBI single. 8-1.

I think I need to take a brief break from describing the game action to actually talking about my situation at the ballpark. See, I was sitting in the infield for this game again, about 21 rows up from the field behind the 3rd-base excite seats. This time I was there with a friend of mine from college, Shin, who also hates the Giants. Last year we watched Game 7 of the Japan Series together on his Sony PSP because it was the best option at the time. This year we had a slightly better vantage point.

While it wasn't quite the same as Tuesday, there were a fair number of Fighters fans scattered around the area we were sitting in, so during the scoring frenzy in the 3rd inning, we all kept standing up and singing and yelling. There was a lady sitting a few sits down who had a Shinji sign, so when Shinji got his home run in the 5th, we got up and banged cheersticks together and also got the people in the row behind us. By the 8th, I was actually running up a few steps up the aisle to bang cheersticks with some other small groups of Fighters fans a bit further up.

So the bottom of the 8th started with the Fighters holding a huge lead and me answering an email asking whether I could come up to Sapporo on Saturday for Game 6 (the answer: no), and Takayuki Kanamori taking the mound. Amazingly, Yoshinori Tateyama had come out for an inning with nothing disastrous happening, and Naoki Miyanishi also had a 1-2-3 inning aided by a nice double play.

The first batter Kanamori faced was Hayato Sakamoto, who hit a huge foul ball out to right field, and Atsunori Inaba chased it down and DIVED headfirst into the Excite Seats, but made the catch.

The second batter was Tetsuya Matsumoto, who was 3-for-3 at that point. Matsumoto hit the ball to short, and Yuji Iiyama, a late-inning defensive replacement, dropped the ball, so Matsumoto was safe at first yet again. Ogasawara followed that up with a single, and then Alex Ramirez came up to bat with two guys on, and BLAM, he sent a line drive into the Giants cheering section. Suddenly it was an 8-4 ballgame.

Kanamori walked Kamei after that, and I wrapped my towel around my head. "We survived Tateyama... why is Kanamori doing the honors today?"

Yoshitomo Tani singled, and I said "Okay, they're bringing out Masanori Hayashi next to face Abe." Shin said, "Really?" I said "Yeah. I have no idea how he'll DO, but I can tell you for sure that he's going to be the next pitcher."

And Hayashi was the next pitcher. And he got the next two batters out. Whew.

Despite a 4-run lead not being a save situation, Hisashi Takeda came out to pitch the 9th inning. And he made things interesting by giving up a leadoff hit to Shigeyuki Furuki, though Sakamoto hit a pop fly out after that. Tetsuya Matsumoto grounded to short, Iiyama making a FANTASTIC play to snag the ball and get it to second base in time for the force on Furuki, though there was no chance on a double play against the speedy Matsumoto, who reached base for the 5th time that day.

Michihiro Ogasawara's clean-shaven doppleganger came up to the plate as the only thing standing between the Fighters evening it up at 2 games each and the Giants taking a 3-1 lead. And Ogasawara stared at his former teammate and then proceeded to hit a single to right field...

...and get himself thrown out at second base trying to stretch it into a double. GAME OVER and the Fighters win it 8-4.

Shin kind of raised an interesting question at that point though -- it seemed like Matsumoto had made it home before Ogasawara was thrown out, and it WAS a valid single, so it's curious they didn't count him as scoring. I don't think it really matters either way, as the Fighters still won the game, though it might matter for Hisashi's postseason ERA someday or something like that.

Either way, woohoo!



Shinji Takahashi and Eiichi Koyano were the game heroes for knocking in those 4 runs in the 3rd inning. Shinji was 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs, and Koyano was 3-for-4 with 4 RBIs, accounting for almost all the Fighters runs.

And once the legions of Giants fans cleared out from the section a little, I also made Shin take the following picture:



which is not a very good photo of me because I was too tired to hold a smile at that point, but at least it serves well enough as a "No really, I was at the Japan Series" photo.

After the game we made our way outside, with me running into a whole bunch of people on the way, including some of the English newspaper writers I hadn't seen in a while, and then a whole bunch of Fighters fans I hadn't seen in a while. I ran into my one friend who carries a Fighty stuffed animal with him to all the Fighters games and whose son is named Yukio, and he lent me the Fighty so I could go up and get a photo over the Japan Series sign. Sadly, it didn't really come out, but it was pretty funny at the time:



Anyway, onward to Game 5! Let's hope the Fighters win this one too -- it'll make the weekend that much more interesting!

Hooray! I finally got to go to an actual Fighters Japan Series game! How cool is THAT?

Now if only they hadn't LOST, it would have been even better.

Because November 3rd is a Japanese national holiday, Culture Day, the area around the Tokyo Dome was already full of people several hours before game time. This was the crowd outside Gate 22 (where lots of people get their photo because the big Nippon Series sign is up there):



I got inside around 4:15pm, after going through some serious security measures -- metal detector scanners and people ACTUALLY looking through my bags.

Went to try to take some photos of batting practice, only to discover the following things:

1) The Dome lighting sucked even more than usual, and
2) It was already retardedly crowded. There were at least a hundred media-pass-wearing folks on the field, and then several rows deep of fans trying to take photos of the entire thing:



This is the only clear shot I got during BP at all, go figure:


(It's Sho Nakata, if you don't know/recognize him.)

So I gave up and decided to go look for friends instead. Partially because people had tickets for me, and partially just because it had been a full month since my last Fighters game, and almost TWO months since our final Fighters game in Kanto, not counting Kamagaya.

First I went upstairs since I knew a few people would be up there. I found a nice uncrowded shopping stand and got a Japan Series pen and keychain and program (which came with a ticket holder -- convenient!), and then went to hunt down a Giants thing I saw during the playoffs and wanted to take a photo with. Fortunately, just as I found it, I also found a Fighters fan friend of mine who took the photo for me. It might have been a little hard to convince a Giants fan to take this one:



If you tapped the fists with your fists, it said various Giants-supporting messages in Hara's voice. Me, I just wanted to pretend I was going to punch Hara.

I also bought dinner, my new favorite Tokyo Dome bento, the "Hit-and-Lunch" bento. It's a funnier pun in Japanese. Honest.

After that, I snuck into the outfield Fighters cheering section (I had an infield ticket, and technically was not supposed to be there). It was like some crazy reunion, seeing a whole ton of people I hadn't seen in weeks or months. I couldn't even walk more than a few feet without seeing someone else I knew or having someone come up to me like "Hi! Long time no see! How are you? (Do you remember me?)" It was great to find everyone there, though -- people had come from all over the country due to the holiday, I think. Some people had just taken off work this week and come to Tokyo for all 3 games. In addition to pretty much ALL the usual suspects from the Kanto area, I saw folks from every ouendan group, and a lot of fans who live in Hokkaido, and people from the Sendai cheering groups, and the women from Osaka who had reserved our group's dinner at Nakatani, and a friend from Fukuoka, and I even met up with my friend from Nagoya who I hadn't seen in two months.

I also met a few people who read my blog -- I was very surprised, I don't really make a big deal about it around my Japanese friends for the most part. That was really cool!

So I was feeling pretty happy and well-loved by the time I got back to my seat for lineups and the pregame ceremonies. I can't say enough how much the Fighters fans have meant to me, especially this year. In some ways it takes "summer family" to a whole new height.

My seat was really good, and in a pocket of Fighters supporters in the 3rd-base infield, which was great. The people to my right were a couple with a one-year-old daughter who was adorable, and they even recognized me from Kamagaya, so that was nice to have people to talk to.

I tried to take some photos of the opening ceremonies.
Here are the Fighters being introduced...


Yet again, Sho Nakata is the only person my camera seems to have gotten a clear shot of.

This was a kind of weird exchange that happened when the Giants were coming out.


Hichori yelled something and made some gesture at Marc Kroon...


...and Kroon smiled and yelled something back, and this went both ways for a few lines. Both guys were smiling.


(Just the two lineups. Actually, the shot after this, which was blurry, had Konta smack Murata... they were joking around for most of the time on the field.)

Some famous model came out to do the traditional pre-game flower-giving:


(Here's Nashida receiving a big pile of flowers which he is just going to hand to Kensuke Tanaka, who is going to give it to some bat boy, who is going to put it somewhere that nobody will ever remember it exists.)

Then a famous singer sang Kimigayo, and I swear I somehow completely missed who it was. Oops.

THEN the craziest part of the opening ceremonies happened -- and as it turns out, the reason for us to get scanned by metal detectors and so on...



...the ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by George W. Bush!



You know, I wonder whether people should be looking at that like "Wow, there's Sadaharu Oh standing behind George Bush" or "Hey, that's George Bush walking by Sadaharu Oh..."

Actually, his first pitch was FAST. It was like, one minute, this white guy is walking out to the mound, and by the time most people in the stadium realized who he was or what he was doing, he had already thrown the ball to home plate and was being rushed off the field.

(I bet some people are already wondering if he'll appear as a First Pitch card for BBM next year, or in the Japan Series card set...)

Since I was in the infield for a change, I took a few photos of the Fighters ouendan during the first inning. (I don't usually get to see what this looks like from the other side.)


Before the game, the "駆け抜けろ王座奪回への道" banner we've had up at most games this year -- roughly, "Running Down The Road To Recapturing the Throne" or something like that. I find translating "kakenukeru" into English difficult for some reason.


Kensuke Tanaka banner.


Atsunori Inaba banner and flags!

Fans aside, the starters for the game were Wilfin Obispo for the Giants, and Keisaku Itokazu for the Fighters. The lineups:

Fighters                 Giants
--------                 ------
Kensuke 2b               Sakamoto ss
Itoi cf                  Matsumoto cf
Inaba rf                 Ogasawara's Clean-Shaven Doppleganger 3b
Shinji 1b                Rami-chan lf
Sledge lf                Kamei rf
Koyano 3b                Lee 1b
Nioka ss                 Abe c
Tsuruoka c               Wakiya 2b
Itokazu p                Obispo p

(Makoto Kaneko is mildly injured, so Tomohiro Nioka got to make a start in the Tokyo Dome against his former team.)

And for the first half of the game -- literally the first 4 and a half innings -- all the scoring in the game that happened was on home runs. By the end of the top of the 5th, the game was tied 3-3:

1st inning top homerun by Atsunori Inaba: 110 meters to left field, 1-0 Fighters
2nd inning top homerun by Eiichi Koyano: 120 meters to centerfield, 2-0 Fighters
2nd inning bottom homerun by Seung-Yeop Lee: 135 meters to right, 2-1 Fighters
2nd inning bottom homerun by Shinnosuke Abe: 115 meters to left, 2-2 Tie (and these were back-to-back)
3rd inning bottom homerun by Michihiro Ogasawara: 110 meters to right, 3-2 Giants
5th inning top homerun by Kensuke Tanaka: 120 meters to right, 3-3 Tie


(The towel-waving Giants fans, after Ogasawara's home run.)

It was a little strange, to be sure. Not only were all the points on home runs, but on SOLO home runs at that.

Then things changed for the worse.

Itokazu was pitching the bottom of the 5th, and he got two quick outs from the bottom of the order before walking Hayato "Wonderboy" Sakamoto, and then Tetsuya Matsumoto (who I am fairly sure is smaller than several of my 9th-graders) singled to left, moving Sakamoto to second. Michihiro "Clean-Shaven Doppleganger" Ogasawara came up to bat at that point, and, BOOM, he hit a shot to center that wasn't a home run but bounced off the wall for a double, scoring the other two guys. 5-3 Giants.

That was not particularly good.


Itokazu pitching.


Ogasawara at bat (note a theme, the only clear pictures are guys I have grudges against?)


Ogasawara back out at 3rd base, bowing to the stands for his 2-RBI double.

Things got even worse a bit later, and I don't mean in terms of strange guys stalking the Giants dancers:


(This was really funny, actually -- the Kroon jersey guy had been yelling to Alex Ramirez every inning asking for a ball until he got one, and then when the Giants dancers came out, he seriously pretty much was just stalking this one dancer girl taking photos of her on his cellphone. Unlike most people who surreptitiously take one or two photos of the cheer girls, he was just ogling her. It would have been freaky if it wasn't so funny. He was clearly pretty drunk even before the game started.)

Anyway, former Giant Masanori Hayashi pitched the bottom of the 6th against his old team. He did okay. And Kazumasa Kikuchi pitched the bottom of the 7th just fine, too. But the Giants were still ahead.

Tetsuya Yamaguchi came out to pitch the top of the 8th, being left-handed and all, same as most of the top of the Fighters lineup. But he started things out by hitting Kensuke Tanaka with a pitch. Then he tried to pick Kensuke off first, but his throw went wild and Kensuke ran to second instead on the error. Following that, a pinch-hitting Hichori hit a grounder to shot, but Sakamoto's throw to first ALSO went wild, and Kensuke was able to run home while Hichori was safe at first on THAT error. 5-4.

Something pretty funny happened at that point: the ouendan finally had the opportunity to do an Inaba Jump, and as I mentioned, I was sitting in an island of Fighters supporters in the middle of a sea of Giants fans. So we all spontaneously got up and jumped too... looked at each other... laughed, and sat down afterwards. Inaba walked, and then what may have been the pivotal play in the game happened -- Shinji Takahashi came up with no outs and runners at the corners, and it seemed he should bunt, but he DIDN'T bunt, and by the time it became clear he wasn't bunting, the Giants fielders got set up to turn a double play. Ugh. Sledge also grounded out after that, and that was pretty much it for the Fighters' chances.

And to make things worse, Kikuchi returned for the bottom of the 8th, and things started to break down. After Matsumoto grounded out, Ogasawara walked on four straight pitches, and then Ramirez hit a scorching grounder to third that Koyano was able to dive and stop but wasn't able to stand up in time to make a throw anywhere. That was it for Kikuchi, and the lefty Naoki Miyanishi came in to face Kamei.

Kamei hit a huge shot to center that Hichori caught in front of the wall, and Matsumoto moved to third. Yoshitomo Tani was announced as a pinch-hitter for Lee.

Miyanishi left the game and Shintaro Ejiri replaced him. The people sitting next to me were apparently friends of Ejiri's, and we were all like "Oh god, please don't let him give up a run here!!" But he walked Tani, and then gave up a single to Shinnosuke Abe, and that brought both Ogasawara and a pinch-running Takahiro Suzuki home, making it 7-4 Giants.

As expected, Marc Kroon came out to pitch the 9th, now with a 3-run lead instead of a 1-run lead...


I swear the new Giants catcher gear makes Shinnosuke Abe look like freaking Batman.


Marc Kroon.

Anyway, Kroon closed out the game. That's really all there is to it. I'm not sure he's ever blown a save when I've been at the stadium watching him pitch. Koyano hit a pop out, Nioka lined out RIGHT to his younger replacement Sakamoto, a pinch-hitting Naoto Inada got on base after Kroon threw over first base on a grounder to the mound... but then the last batter of the game was this guy, pinch-hitting for Ejiri:



And it shouldn't surprise anyone too much, but Kroon struck out Sho Nakata to end the game.

(It's kind of sad that the Tokyo Dome would probly be a decent launching pad for Sho, but he can't field so there's nowhere to really put him into a game in this series.)

So the Giants won it 7-4.



I left pretty soon after the game ended, going out to Gate 25 after that to commisserate with other Fighters fans.

And then I went home -- it was a pretty long day full of way too much baseball, as I also spent the afternoon hanging out with some people at Jingu watching Hosei's underclassmen get beaten by Keio at the Rookie Tournament. And I didn't even get to see Kei Tamura, so I was kind of grumpy about that. (I did, however, get to see a kid named Eiji Egashira from the Saga Kita miracle squad who I remembered seeing in Koshien 2 years ago, so that was kind of neat.)

I am not going to bother bringing my big camera back to the Tokyo Dome for any more of the games, but I will be there for Games 4 and 5 too.

Okay, I made an executive decision this morning to go Jingu for Soukeisen (the Waseda-Keio rivalry grudgematch), on the hunch that something weird was going to happen and it was going to involve Tatsuya Ohishi. I was right on both counts, but I'll be writing a separate post about that.

As a result, I'm at home tonight again, and I'm going to semi-liveblog much like yesterday, which is a lot less stressful than trying to write down every play of the game. As usual, you can come join the chatroom on japanesebaseball.com or comment here or whatever.

                     

Sakamoto ss                Kensuke 2b
Matsumoto cf               Hichori lf
Shaven Doppleganger 3b     Inaba rf
Rami-chan dh               Shinji 1b
Turtleface rf              Sledge dh
Tani lf                    Koyano 3b
Shinnosuke c               Itoi cf
Lee 1b                     Tsuruoka c
Furuki 2b                  Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Utsumi (9-11, 2.95)        Darvish (15-5, 1.73)

Yes, Darvish is starting for the Fighters, so apparently all of that DOOM AND GLOOM we have been hearing is either the Fighters trying to deceive the media, or them just not wanting to get our hopes up, or... who knows.

All I have to say is, if he struggles out there, they BETTER pull him the minute it seems he's having trouble.

6:17 Game on. Sakamoto hits a pop fly out to lead off. Hooray.
6:18 Matsumoto grounds out to short.
6:20 OGASAWARA'S CLEAN-SHAVEN DOPPLEGANGER STRIKES OUT!!!!!

Well, that's a good start so far. Let's hope he can keep it up!

6:28 Inaba two-out single followed by a Shinji single to right, advancing Inaba to third... I'll take that!
6:31 But then Sledge strikes out and that's the first inning down. 0-0.

6:33-6:41 Rami leads off with a double to right, followed by a Kamei strikeout that takes bloody forever, and a Tani strikeout, and an Abe groundout. Darvish still looks good!

6:46 My once-per-game moment of "Thank GOD we converted Itoi from being a pitcher" just happened, of course (he singled to right-center). And Tsuruoka bunted him up. Now we're just hoping Kaneko can drive him in...
6:50 Nope, strikes out. So that's two innings down, still 0-0.

7:05 I was getting all ready to write "Nothing interesting happened in the third inning except SY Lee getting caught stealing second, ha ha" except then with two outs INABA LAUNCHED A HOMERUN INTO THE RIGHTFIELD STANDS right at two Giants-towel-wearing people, making it 1-0 Fighters!! and Shinji followed it up with a double and this is getting exciting!

Also after hearing the Fighters ouendan sing "Shiroi Ball Fantasy", which is the Pacific League renmeika (official league song), I am wondering, does the Central League have a renmeika too?

7:09 Sledge launches a single to left, scoring Shinji! That makes it 2-0 Fighters!!

7:11-16 Weird play there, Koyano hit a hard grounder up the middle and the throw didn't beat Sledge to second. Ha! So still with two outs, the Fighters are attacking... two on for Itoi... who BOOM! Double to right! Sledge and Koyano score! 4-0 Fighters! And Utsumi is being summarily escorted off the mound for being unable to get left-handed batters out. Shun Tohno enters the building. And strikes out Tsuruoka.

So that's 3 innings down now, Fighters have a 4-0 lead!

7:26 Um, Ramirez got a hit and Yoshiyuki Kamei hit a two-run homer to left field that bounced off the foul pole, so now it's 4-2 Fighters. Doh.

7:34 Kensuke walk, Hichori hit, Inaba pop out,
7:38 Shinji strikes out :( So still 4-2 Fighters, now through 4 innings.

7:44 Giants are pulling this two-out stuff too now, with Furuki and Sakamoto AND MATSUMOTO getting hits, three in a row... luckily Matsumoto's was to shallow center and Itoi was able to charge it but... DANGEROUS...
7:48 OGASAWARA STRIKES OUT! YAY! And leaves all 3 guys still on base.

Darvish's best pitch tonight, by the way, seems to be his curveball, which has actually been landing for strikes almost all of the time, and seems totally unhittable. 148km/h might be the fastest I've seen a pitch of his, too.

7:53 Fighters go down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 5th, so it's still 4-2 Fighters, now through 5.

8:15 Still 4-2 through 6. Darvish is finished for the evening and Naoki Miyanishi replaced him. Also, I HATE "Toukon Komete", the Giants song.

8:35 Still 4-2, now through 7. Kiyoshi Toyoda pitched the bottom of the 7th, anyway, and Takayuki Kanamori comes out to pitch the top of the 8th...

8:50 Finally some CHANCE MUSIC! Genghis Khan theme for Kaneko, who comes up with one out in the bottom of the 8th. (Itoi singled -- he's 3-for-4 today -- and Tsuruoka bunted him up.) Unfortunately he grounds back to the mound. By the way, Kimura Shota is pitching the 8th apparently.
8:52 No he's not. Norihito Kaneto replaces him to pitch to the lefty Kensuke Tanaka.
8:54 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang chance music.
8:56 Fly out, inning over, still 4-2 after 8 innings. I think it's Hisashi Takeda time...

8:57 Why yes, it is Hisashi Takeda time.

9:06 ...and now it is two outs in the top of the 9th with Kamei on first. SO close. Come on...!

9:08 Shinnosuke Abe hits a pop fly! Out to right! Right to Inaba!

FIGHTERS WIN IT 4-2!!!!
Darvish gets the win and Hisashi gets the save, I believe.

Well, that at least guarantees all three games will happen at the Tokyo Dome! Hooray!

Nashida admits in the manager's interview, "Brian Sweeney was prepared to start today as well -- if Darvish hadn't been okay..."

Few TV shots for fun:


Hisashi time!


Final score, and ouendan.


Darvish interview!

For various reasons I'm home to watch the first game of the Japan Series. At least this year I *can* see it on BS1. I probably won't be home for any of the other games, though.

I'm liveblogging, but I'm not going to be translating every batter -- more like, as stuff happens that I want to call out, I'll note it here. To be honest, I'm still working on Draft photoposts as I watch the game. I've been discovering neat things about some of these guys as I work on it.

There's also a chatroom on japanesebaseball.com if you want to come in and chat about the game.

                     

Sakamoto ss                Kensuke 2b
Matsumoto cf               Hichori lf
Shaven Doppleganger 3b     Inaba rf
Rami-chan dh               Shinji 1b
Turtleface rf              Sledge dh
Tani lf                    Koyano 3b
Shinnosuke c               Itoi cf
Kimutaku 1b                Tsuruoka c
Furuki 2b                  Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Gonzalez                   Masaru Takeda

6:16pm: Sakamoto strikes out to start the game. That makes me happy.

6:21pm: Hey, how many former Fighters can you spot in the Giants' lineup? (There are three.) Or more like, can you guess how many guys in their lineup were actually DRAFTED by the Giants? (There are three.) Whereas the Fighters lineup has exactly one guy in it that has played for any other teams in Japan -- everyone else came up through our system or in the case of Sledge was signed with us first.

Anyway, three up three down in the first for the Giants. Whee.

6:26pm: Three up three down for the Fighters in the first. Also, Shinnosuke Abe looks like freaking BATMAN with this weird orange thing on his chest protector. WTF.

6:31pm: uh, Yoshitomo Tani just hit a ball into the front row of the Fighters' cheering section in left field. So uh, 1-0 Giants. But everyone else went down peacefully in the top of the 2nd.

6:39pm: Terrmel Sledge shows Tani how a REAL MAN hits a home run and sends one about 10-15 rows back IN CENTER FIELD. YEAH! 1-1!

6:48pm: Two on! Two on! Two hits! And sadly Makoto Kaneko is rung up on a called third strike to leave Itoi and Tsuru-chan standing there. Two innings down.

6:54pm: Highlights from the 1981 Japan Series on BS1! Korakuen showdown! And the Fighters ouendan are singing "Shiroi Ball Fantasy", the Pacific League song, which is usually only for interleague. Cool!

7pm Inaba singles, Shinji hits one to short that even Wonderboy can't come up with, Sledge... grounds out. Oops. That's three innings...

7:05-9pm Soka-soka boy Koyano dives for a nice play on Matsumoto. Ogasawara's clean-shaven doppleganger singles, and it's really weird seeing him standing next to Shinji both wearing #2. Rami hits one out to the gap in left-center but Itoi is too good to let it fall. And Kamei grounds out to Kensuke!

7:24pm I don't like how the Giants have so many guys on base. But at least Shinji saved Masaru from totally bobbling a bunt there. Now if only he could strike out Wonderboy to end this threat.... CRAP, Wonderboy hits it to left. At least it's not a home run, it bounces against the wall just below the yellow line, but that's gonna be a double and score both of the dudes currently on base. 3-1 Giants.

7:38pm Hey, Kensuke and Hichori singled and now Inaba's up and there's an Inaba jump and only one out in the bottom of the 5th, I should pay attention! Except Inaba strikes out :( And Shinji grounds out. And that's 5 innings gone.

7:58pm Bottom 6th, two on, Itoi at bat, no outs, Genghis Khan chance theme!

7:59pm BUNT FAILS. Two on, Tsuboi pinch-hitting, one out, still chance theme.

8pm ...Gonzalez has left the building. Now introducing Yamaguchi...

8:04pm ...now introducing pinch-hitter Nioka instead...

8:08pm and Nioka singles to left, Koyano scores! 3-2 Giants still, but we're catching up!

8:11pm Chitty Chitty Bang Bang chance theme sees Kaneko strike out and Kensuke hit a fly ball out to center. Sigh.

8:15pm Great, Yoshinori Tateyama takes the mound for us. Fortunately the Giants already have the lead, so he can't possibly give it to them.
8:18pm And Hayashi is already out there. So both recent former Giants have appeared.

8:21 Shinnosuke on second, Tani on third, and Kimutaku batting, no out. I hates Giants, I do.

8:29 I went away for a minute or two and suddenly Ejiri is pitching and Seung-Yeop Lee is batting and singling in a run. Grr. 4-2 Giants.

8:31 Ejiri strikes out Wonderboy!

8:56 It's the bottom of the 8th and nothing's really changed. Though Daisuke Ochi is out there now, so maybe they will.

9:15 I'm so lazy. Now Marc Kroon is out there, for the top of the Fighters order...

9:17 Kensuke hits a weird grounder just over Kroon that takes a weird bounce that Wonderboy can't get either! Infield single.

9:21 Hichori grounds out to short (on like a 3-1 pitch), Kensuke to second. Mound conference for Kroon, eh?

9:23 Inaba, fly ball to right, Kensuke tags up to third, but...

9:25 SHINJI HITS A DOUBLE TO THE WALL! Kensuke scores, 4-3 Giants. Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme continues...

9:29 Sledge walks, on a pitch in the dirt, after a full count and some fouls. OMG SUSPENSE.

9:34 Koyano gets called out on a third strike. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT CALL?

Man, that sucks. I hope the Fighters win tomorrow, they really need to at least split the Sapporo games.