Japanese Baseball Game

We finally made it to a professional Japanese baseball game.  I've heard so much about them but between needing to plan ahead and covid it just hasn't happened until now.  I bought the tickets months in advance and we ended up having so many things planned on this day that we had to miss out on, I wish I choose a different day. But there was nothing to be done about that.  

Right when we walked in we say that everyone was wearing pink.  At first I thought the Japanese are just diehard fans and it is typical for Japanese people to dress up more than Americans would.

After seeing signs saying it was pink day and realizing that everyone is wearing the exact same pink shirt I started to get suspicious.  Bob investigated more and found out they were giving away the pink shirts and he got one for each of us.

The dome was closed on the game and it was hot.  It was beautiful outside I have no idea why it was closed.  It was probably 70 degrees and sunny.  Perfect weather.  But inside it felt muggy.

The game was long and the kids got bored.  There was only one point scored by the other team during the 8th inning.  After that there was a little excitement hoping we would catch up.  But it didn't happen.

There were a few cultural differences in the way the game was watched.  One was that each batter had their own theme song that the audience sang and drummed along with.

Every time a ball was hit into the audience an employee went to retrieve it.  

We barely heard the announcer.  There just wasn't much said over the speakers.  

Other than that I'm not really sure, I haven't been to many professional baseball games in America to compare too.  I think I've been in Japan a long time though because I was annoyed and upset that there were Americans sitting behind us.  They were so loud and rude, not to mention every other word was inappropriate.  Bob was irritated as well.  When they left they left garbage everywhere.  They made Americans look bad.  They were sailors and I wonder how much of the world thinks Americans are all like the young military, who they probably encounter most often.  I was happy when they left early.  Calista moved their beer cups aside to lay on their seats.

At the end of the game there was a speech by the winning team and the fireworks. 

It took us about 40 minutes to get out of the parking garage and cost us about $75 to park, not to mention the small fortune we paid to get 8 tickets to the game.  There is a reason people say it is expensive to have a large family.

Overall we had a good time and I'm glad we went.  I asked the kids the next day if they wanted to go to a game again and they all said no.