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
Earlier this month, I had the privilege of being invited to Koshien Stadium two times in three days. Both were job requests of sorts, so I had an agenda upon arriving at the ballpark.
The first of these was CNN – that’s right, Cable News Network. They have a travel program and they had planned a feature on the Osaka region for an upcoming episode. Their thinking was that the most popular team in Japan, complete with its notoriously rowdy fan base, would make for good television. The host of the show, Richard Quest, is a British man who lives in New York, but takes very little interest in baseball. In fact, he knows next to nothing about the games rules, and has (in his words) no athletic ability whatsoever. And so a few months ago, they contacted me and asked if I could hook them up with some of the cheering squad, and maybe even a baseball team with whom Richard could learn (for the first time in his sixty-or-so years) how to throw, hit, catch, and field a baseball. To which I said? GLADLY!
And so, on Monday, May 6, I met up with the small crew outside of Koshien Stadium at around 2:30 in the afternoon. The game that night was scheduled to start at 6:00 pm but we needed to do some filming around the ballpark beforehand. We met up with some old-time Tigers fans, one of whom I have had personal contact with for years. It was in this moment that I was somewhat blown away by the Tigers’ fan loyalty. I mean, I had always known that these folks gave their very lives to the team, but the extent to which one man did so was mind-blowing to me.
Decked out in a custom-made Fumihito Haraguchi jersey, the man rallied his friends (and me and Richard, too) into singing Haraguchi’s cheer song, and for the sake of the TV crew, he started emptying out his bag of merch and laying it all out on the ground at Mizuno Square, one by one. There were literally more than twenty Haraguchi towels, a Haraguchi biography (protected by a plastic covering on which were written the words “The Bible”), a Haraguchi cap (on which there were no fewer than three Haraguchi pins), and who knows what else. His words hit me like a dagger:
“The rest of the world can have Shohei Ohtani. The only one for me is Haraguchi.”
Wow. So this is what devotion looks like. You marry the team, and as it gets older, and as more attractive players show up on other teams, you stand firmly on the commitment you made years prior. You dance with the one who brung ya. Props to that man.
Methinks, as I spend my days criticizing this year’s Tigers for not producing at the levels they once did, as I compare other teams’ #4 hitters’ numbers with that of ours, as I contemplate selling my Sato jersey and replacing it with a different one, that I have a lot to learn from this old-time fan.
Well, two days later I found myself right back at Koshien Stadium on official business. This time, it was JapanBall who requested my services. A group of Sports Management (and/or Hospitality) majors from University of South Carolina, along with three chaperone teachers, took in a baseball game as part of their whirlwind tour of Japan. Naturally, Koshien not only offers the best look at baseball history in Japan, but the students would be given a sneak peek at the best fans in Japan, not to mention the defending champion team.
I dutifully brought the students to Mizuno Square, where they could see that Babe Ruth had in fact set foot on stadium grounds back in 1934, plus showed them Susanoo Shrine, as well as the Koshien Museum. But those were just appetizers for them (and, it turns out, for me). While watching the game from the 3B Alps, I got to speak with many of them about their impressions of the game, the stadium, and more. The answers I received game me plenty of food for thought.
Every single one of them that I interviewed raved about the experience they had, despite the disappointing final score (3-1 for the Carp). The most impressive thing was the crowd noise and electric atmosphere. Some said they liked the food, others the merchandise. I heard a lot of “We don’t have ___ in America,” or “It’s so much cheaper here,” or “there’s more energy for this regular season game than there is for some playoff games in the States.” They gobbled up the food (including surprises like cold ramen and edamame in a plastic batting helmet), downed the beer (served right there at their seats), and purchased all the merchandise they could (mostly a variety of caps and shirts).
I realized as I listened to them, that I take a lot of what Koshien offers for granted. Fan loyalty, cheering right until the end, no booing, respecting the other team’s fans’ right to cheer, and even cuter mascots. You know, even though the Tigers lost that game, this whole group of students went back to their hotel feeling they had gotten more than their money’s worth. I, on the other hand, have become spoiled by this championship team, and have found myself bellyaching about the team winning low-scoring games in which the bats did not provide my heart and mind with enough of an adrenaline rush to satisfy my needs.
Sometimes we need that kind of shake-up in our lives, do we not? A different social circle can give us new perspective on something we have been finding a little bit pedestrian in recent days. And that is exactly what the USC group and the hardcore Haraguchi fan did for me. Thanks, folks, for helping me renew my fervor for this team.
Now let’s go out there and win the championship again, Hanshin Tigers!