From the Daily Sports Online column / デイリースポーツオンラインの連載コラムから
So this is what it feels like to be a fan of the champs. The Tigers nation, myself included, is still basking in the glory of it all, in part because of the frantic pace at which the team went from tenuously holding the lead in the Central to outright clinching it. I mean, I came back to Japan from vacation on August 29, and the Tigers proceeded to lose two heartbreakers at home to the rival Yokohama DeNA Baystars.
“Here we go again,” I groaned, and I’m pretty sure most of you did, too. September swoons are so common that they are expected, just like the rainy season in June and the unbearable summer heat of July and August.
Then… 11 straight wins. ELEVEN. They hadn’t done this in 41 seasons. And so, they went from not even having a magic number (with 26 games left on schedule) to completely eliminating everyone from contention in one fell swoop. In other words, the magic number of 18 after the game on September 1 dwindled down to zero in 13 days.
I was so blessed and fortunate to have been in attendance at the clinching game on September 14. I bought the tickets way back in early March with an inkling that the team might somehow magically win the title on that day… but with 18 years between titles and a third-place finish last year, that was just a pipe dream. Or so I thought.
Anyhow, I was one of several dozen non-Japanese Tigers fans in attendance. That’s how it felt, anyways. I saw a LOT of them circulating the stadium before game time, and it got me pumped. But did you know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign Tigers fans living across Japan?
I want to share a bit about some of them, but I should start by acknowledging that I received many responses to my Facebook request for foreign fans across Japan to share their stories with me. There were too many to properly include in this article, so the least I can do is mention them by name and location before digging a little deeper on a select few: Jacob (Vermont, USA → Kyoto), Joe (New York City → Wakayama), Richard (Manchester, UK → Nishinomiya), Matt (New York → Nara), Ben (California, USA → Osaka), Hans (Sweden → Osaka), Alastair (New Zealand → Kyoto). Thanks for taking the time and for being such dedicated fans! Now, on to the featured ones!
We start west of the Tigers, in Okayama. Jamie is a native Australian who came to Japan in 2002 for a month. During that time, he was invited to a game at Koshien by some friends, and the fan atmosphere hooked him. He became a fan for life, and moved to Okayama in time to be in Japan for the team’s first pennant in 18 seasons (2003). He does not get a lot of opportunity to watch games at Koshien anymore, but still gets the same chill up his spine when he is able to. The connections made with fellow fans are unforgettable, and he appreciates that the locals are curious about his history as a fan. The most gripping part of the pennant win was clearly when the team brought the late Shintaro Yokota’s jersey with them into the huddle and it got hoisted into the air with pitcher Suguru Iwazaki.
Having grown up as a Chicago Cubs fan, Ben’s fandom was not swayed by the fact that he lives in Ishikawa Prefecture. The numerous connections between the Tigers and his MLB team (Matt Murton, Kosuke Fukudome, Kyuji Fujikawa, and more) made it a fairly natural choice. He has not been able to make his way to Koshien Stadium at all this year but is waiting for the opportunity to come up. He has been following the Shintaro Fujinami saga for its entirety and wishes him nothing but success in America. Ben is also pushing for an all-Kansai Japan Series, to which we say, bring it on!
Pau becoming a Hanshin Tigers fan is about as unlikely as anything. He came to Tokyo from Spain, which has zero baseball culture. But it was on a trip to Japan in early 2003 that he understood that both his football club in Barcelona and the Hanshin Tigers were up against the same type of enemy (powerful, popular, and polarizing). That sense of fraternity fueled his love for the Tigers, and to this day, helps him instantly break down cultural walls with people in Tokyo. When they find out he is a Hanshin fan, there is instant camaraderie (or in cases where the other person does not care for Hanshin, at least a good point of conversation). Despite only one trip to Koshien in his twenty years of being a fan, he has seen the team play at nearly every ballpark in Japan.
Alejandro hails from Texas and also lives in Tokyo. His introduction to the Tigers came at a college sporting event he was attending in America. One of his classmates, an exchange student from Osaka, explained to him that the crowd energy there reminded him of his Tigers back home in Japan. They talked about it some more and watched clips from the previous season (2014) together. With the Tigers coming close to breaking the Curse of the Colonel, but falling short, he became enamored with the team, its fans, and the devotion they had to the team. That love became cemented when he attended his first Hanshin game (at Jingu Stadium). He says he felt completely at home in the frenzy. If all goes well, he hopes to bring his father (who will be visiting from Texas) to Koshien stadium for a Japan Series game.
Adam, a native of New York, calls Aomori Prefecture home now. He says he became a fan of the Tigers in part because he and his wife (at the time) automatically cheered for the other’s rival teams, no matter the sport. Since she was a Giants fan, he defaulted to the Tigers. Despite having been a fan for just eight seasons now, his favorite all-time Tiger is Randy Bass. As you know, the most recent Hall of Fame inductee took care of business in the 1980s for the Tigers, leading the team to its lone Japan Series championship in 1985. Methinks it’s time for these Tigers to create a new legendary figure in 2023!
Let’s end close to Koshien with a story of someone who became a Tigers fan from about as far away as you can get (within Japan). John lives in Ashiya, just one train stop from our home ballpark, but became a fan of the Tigers back in the 1990s in Hokkaido. “I was living in Sapporo in the late 90s before [Hokkaido] had a team. Other (NPB) teams would play games at Maruyama Stadium. I wasn’t so interested in Japanese baseball at first, but my friend invited me to a Tigers game, describing them as ‘a terrible team with crazy fans!’ After that first game (1998), I knew I found my team in Japan.” John makes an interesting connection between that season and the present situation. The year of his first game, the Yokohama Baystars won its first Japan Series in 38 years. How long has it been since the Tigers last won the Japan Series? 2023-1985 = 38 years! This is a great chance for it all to come full circle, is it not?
So there you have it. All these years I thought I was the most devout, one-of-a-kind foreign Hanshin Tigers fan in the land. Turns out, we’re everywhere. May this be the year that we all get to celebrate the big one, as even the most experienced of us fans have never experienced a Hanshin Tigers Nippon-Ichi. Let’s go, Tigers!