Japanese Baseball

It may be the American pastime, but the Japanese take their baseball seriously.  Actually they take pretty much everything seriously, and baseball is no different.  Even when it was TERRIBLY hot outside this summer, you would see Japanese men and boys in uniform, off to play baseball.

Road Trip!

For our first Japanese baseball experience, we choose to go see the Yokohama Baystars.  Just getting there was by far the most challenging part.  Especially parking the GIANT (really just a normal American-sized) minivan that we rented while Poppy and BB where here.  

Just imagine driving here... from the passenger seat... and all road signs look like gibberish to you

But we made it and I was even able to figure out how to buy us tickets!

Though a mid-week game, the stadium was mostly full

Each team is only allowed 3 'foreign' players on the roster.  One is almost always the clean-up hitter/first baseman.

They have cheerleaders and mascots

It's blurry, but this is D.B Baystar on the left and 'his sister' according to Leyton 

We really enjoyed the hot dogs

A flyover by an American helo.  Daddy was out flying that night, and we knew he liked to fly over the stadium, so we snapped a picture hoping it was him.  It was not.

Go Baystars!

We left after the 7th inning stretch.  Ellis wasn't too impressed with baseball.  She played on the iPad for most of the game.  And Leyton liked the characters and the Ferris wheel that lit up cool colors that we could see from our seats (side note: the Japanese are big into Ferris wheels).  It was a cool experience.  For each batter, there was a band that played a special song and the crowd would sing along -a different song for EVERY player.  And though we couldn't understand much more than 'Let's Go!' it was fun to clap along.  Even now Ellis will do a fist pump and a hardy 'Let's Go!' on occasion.  And it was a good night for the Baystars.  The rules of baseball are exactly the same, so we could follow along easily.  They got a lot of hits and scored some runs and I am assuming they won.  And I successfully relocated our car and got us back home -thanks Google Maps!