Source: Sankei Newspaper (October 4, 2023)
“What’s All the Ruckus About?” A Canadian Delivers Tigers News as Kansai Celebrates Hanshin’s Pennant
The passionate fan base of the Hanshin Tigers, winners of the Central League pennant for the first time in 18 years, is not limited to Kansai or even Japan. A Canadian living in Nishinomiya, Trevor Raichura (48) has been putting out English information about the Tigers for the whole world to read for roughly ten years. The site is chock-full of information that is not limited just to game results and player profiles – he says he has even received positive feedback from families of the foreign players on the team.
September 14, Koshien Stadium. On the day that the Tigers clinched the pennant, there he was, wearing his yellow jersey with the “player name” GAIJINS on the back and the numbers of 16 players adorning both the front and back. “This is the first time ever that the team has ridden an 11-game winning streak as it clinched the pennant. This is one of the happiest experiences of my life,” he raved, unable to contain his excitement.
Trevor currently works at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies as an English lecturer. He landed in Japan on Ie Island, Okinawa, in his early 20s on a teaching exchange program as an Assistant Language Teacher. He moved to Kansai in 2011 and a year later, married a Japanese woman.
Upon moving to the Kansai area, he realized that every single day, the Hanshin Tigers were featured on the front page of the sports papers. He wondered exactly what the big deal was about these Tigers, that they would be the talk of the town day in and day out.
Now a Famous Tigers Fan
But an English web search of the word “Hanshin” yielded no results. Trevor thought to himself, “The families of the team’s foreign players probably have no way of getting any news about their guy.” So in May 2014, he launched an English fan site to cover the Hanshin Tigers for overseas fans and the families of the team’s foreign players.
He actually did not make it to Koshien Stadium until about a month after he started the site. On June 18, 2014, he watched the Tigers face the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters with his wife. The Fighters’ starter on that night was Shohei Ohtani, who was still in NPB at the time. The Tigers got shut out, but the Tigers’ fan cheering section and the all-dirt infield were things he had never seen before. It overwhelmed him to the point where he became a fan for life on that day.
“We don’t have that kind of cheering section with instruments in Canada. We don’t sing in unison. So when I watched Japanese baseball in person for the first time, it broke my stereotype that singing like a choirboy was something only kids did,” he said, chuckling.
Since then, he has been glued to TV broadcasts of games, and makes his way to the ballpark 10 or so times per year. Initially, being a foreigner at the games was a rarity, and people would ask to take pictures with him, or they would buy him a beer or give him a jet balloon for the 7th inning launch.
On his site, he would give detailed results of every game, focusing more on the foreign players’ performances than others, and also name his own MVP of the games. He also has a section on team history, a list of every foreign player who ever was part of the club – everything on the site exudes Hanshin love.
Appreciation from Foreign Players’ Families
As the team clinched the pennant this year, Osaka was feverish and security guards were ready for it. Trevor was invited to jump in the Dotombori Canal, even. He didn’t jump. That said, his reports garnered him messages from the families of current Tigers players Colten Brewer and Kyle Keller.
The Tigers will next play on October 18 as it hosts the Final Stage of the Climax Series at Koshien. If they make it to the Japan Series, they will be aiming at their first title in 38 years, with the last (and only) one coming in 1985.
“Hanshin baseball is a good reflection of life itself. There’s loss, there’s broken hearts, there’s frustration, and a whole lot of detours and rerouting. I feel like in some ways, there’s overlap between the Tigers’ arc and that of my own life.” This, Trevor says, is what makes the Tigers so compelling, and what drives him to keep on updating his website.
“Japanese professional baseball is a microcosm of Japanese culture. Through the Tigers, I hope to get more people around the world interested in Japanese culture and help them feel a connection with Japan.” (by Ms. Miki Kinoshita)
