Buy me some edamamme and curry rice...

My host father is a Yomiyuri Giants fanatic. Every night he watches them religiously and I've been joining him because the Yankees haven't been in an exciting race for a month and are now sitting on a beach and playing golf. The Giants on the other hand are .5 game behind the Hanshin Tigers for a playoff spot with four games to go. Now that's baseball. We went to the game today and it was great. 3-0 win by the Giants with a little tension in the end. All runs were scored via the home run. The closer, a fool name Koonz, walked the bases loaded before getting an inning ending double play. My host father does not like him at all. He blew many many games already.

Japanese baseball is a little different. They bunt more, games are lower scoring, and after 12 innings everyone goes home if there is a tie. Biggest difference though is the cheering. You only cheer for your team when they are up. If they are playing defense, you sit quietly and don't wave your towel, chant, etc. When they are up, the entire stadium rocks with the organized and customized chants (Oenka) of the cheering squad station from left center to the right field foul pole. The other team had the rest of the outfield. Every player has is own fight song. There are trumpets, banners, flags, drums, and towels involved. And it goes on constantly during the team's respective inning. Honestly, a college football game couldn't keep up with it. It was insane and a great time.

Another difference was concessions. First of all, everything is immaculately clean...no surprise. We could choose from various donburi, curry rice, edammame, and bento boxed filled with everything imaginable. On my host father's recommendation, I got the curry rice. Concession stands sell beer, but I don't know why you would buy it there. The hawkers in the stands are not hawkers as we know them. Fat, loud, sometimes disturbed Bronx individuals. They are all young attractive Japanese women carrying kegs of beer on their backs dispensed by a hose. Depending on the beer (or soda) they wear different uniforms. Asahi had red and yellow, kirin was a bright green. The biggest shocker for concessions was whiskey, yes, the hard stuff. Imagine the disaster if there was whiskey at MLB games...

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