Yomiuri Giants VS Hiroshima Carpenters

Now where else would you find baseball teams with those names !!! Went to a baseball game last weekend. It was not planned, just happened. I had just come back home after spending the afternoon window shopping in roppongi. I did end up buying stuff from the Hard Rock cafe store. It was around 5.30 and I had nothing to do. So i just picked up my backpack and left for Korakuen where i knew there was a game on at the Tokyo dome between the Giants and the Carpenters.

I reached around 15 minutes late from the scheduled start at 6.00 p.m. After much hand talk with the ticket counter girl, I got in at a ticket of 1000 yen which was a standing ticket. It worked out great as i could roam around the whole circumference of the dome and catch the action from all angles. The tokyo dome is home to the Giants team. They are much like the real madrid of football. Big club, lots of money, great history and no credible performances in recent years. The carps were the minnows comparatively. The giants are the only team in Japan, that has all of it's games televised nationally.

As i put my foot in the stadium, I instantly knew what japanese baseball was all about. I do know the technicalites a bit, and that helped. The first innning was over and the giants were leading 2-0. The crowd was on their feet, which they would be for the entire game. They kept singing and playing their trumpets all the time.
The whole atmosphere was mind boggling. Well it was not half the crowd you would get at wankhede for an India - Australia match or one fourth of the noise when sachin would come in to bat. They say aamir khan recorded the crowd sound in an India - Australia match at wankhede to use in Lagaan. But the japanese had their own way of enjoying the game.
They had something of a japanese wave going which was similiar to the mexican wave. As the match progressed, I noticed one thing. The fans would cheer only when their team was batting. When the other side came to bat, they would just sit there patiently. It seems the japanese play a very conservative style of baseball. Not once during the game did i see someone try to steal a base. I picked up two chants, maybe wrong , but they sounded somewhat like this
" Se Se Hirose"
" GO GO Tamago"
I know the secound sounds english, but i am not sure. By the end of the seventh, I sat down at a place as my feet were killing me. In front of me was a man recording all the action on his two camcorders. It was pretty strange, cos he would change cassetes in one as they got over and start recording in the other. He had both cameras placed on tripods, and hardly changed the angle !!! Thankfully the guys sitting next to him also thought it to be funny, so I did'nt feel totally lost. There were the girls selling beer and hotdogs, all in matching uniform. They looked cheerful right till the end of the ninth.
As far as the game goes, the Giants were leading till the end of the sixth. The carps came from behind and made it 2-2 at the top of the seventh. I saw my first home run, being scored and it was quite a thing. On getting back to home base, the batter was gifted a doll by a cheerleader which it seems is customary. God, there seems to be a custom involved in everything here. The carps got another one at the top of eighth, and by the end of the eighth inning, the giants could not comeback. The crowd already started to leave at the start of the ninth, but I waited till the end. The carps did win eventually.
I hung around outside the dome for some time. Was really hungry, so decided to grab a bite. Walked into Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant but didn't feel like seafood. The restaurant has all kinds of soevinuers from Forrest gump. Will get back here to get the "Run Forrest Run" license plate. It seems they have a chain of these around the world.
Stepped into a chinese restaurant and had seaweed chicken fried rice. With chopsticks. They come joint, and you have to split them into two. I did a really bad job with the first one and ended up with one and a half chopsticks instead of two. The waiter was kind enough to offer me another one to break, and this time I split them like pro. The chopsticks are disposable anyway, so I could have broken a few more. It seems they do have some problems in clearing garbage in Tokyo cos of all these chopsticks and other disposable stuff. The rice was good, and I think I can handle chopsticks now.
Left for home at around 10, and must say was a weekend well spent.