Rakuten Eagles Baseball Game

Over the Fourth of July weekend, we traveled about 5 hours south to the Sendai area to watch the Rakuten Eagles play the Chiba Lotte Marines. This was our first time attending a baseball game in Japan, and it was quite the experience. We were cheering for the Eagles, the team from the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan, where we live.  For those of you wondering why you've heard of Sendai, it's because it was the large city hit by the tsunami in March.  It suffered the most damage and life lost.  But they are recovering and living their lives, and they love their baseball. 

The game is the same as in the states, but spectators are much more active, like a college football game. Section leaders facilitate organized cheers throughout the entire game, and fans use pairs of plastic bats as noise makers.

Like sports games in the states, refreshments are sold by roving salespeople. But here in Japan, the salespeople are all young girls, and those tasked with selling beer are decked out in special gear. They wear knee pads that allow them to kneel as they serve up the beer from the keg on their backs.  Yes, KEG ON THEIR BACKS.  This is brilliant, I can't think of a reason why this shouldn't be the norm in America.  

 

The most memorable moment came during the top and bottom of the 7th inning.  Fans of the leading team gets the honor of setting off white sperm balloons, while the trailing team sets off team-colored sperm balloons.  The white sperm balloons are especially memorable for reasons you can imagine.  They have special nozzles at the base, designed to slowly let the air out so they fly straight and longer than normal balloons would (that's what she said).  Seriously, the tip top of the balloon is larger, just like the head of a real...I give up, enjoy the video. 

In addition to all of the cheering props, we were surprised to see that around a third of fans were wearing Eagles jerseys. Needless to say, the souvenir shop must be doing quite well.   

It was a fun day, filled with a mix of American and Japanese culture (e.g., a hot dog and sushi for lunch, the music of Journey and Japanese cheers filling the air; even the Colonel got dressed for the occasion), and we were happy to have experienced it.