Saturday, September 19, Part 2

Yes, I had to leave shul at 11:30... But why? Since there are hardly any semblances of Judaism in Japan, I actually forgot that the Jewish New Year was this Saturday, and I told one of my friends a week ago that I would go to a baseball game with him. So after worshipping all morning, I headed to downtown Osaka on a crowded train to watching the Hanshin Tigers on their home turf go head to head against the Hiroshima Carp.

Koshien Stadium holds somewhere around 45,000 people, and the stands were almost completely packed. Just about every fan at the game seemed quite devoted. Many people were wearing yellow and black colored uniforms with players names on the back, or just regular t-shirts or baseball camps with the Hanshin Tigers name and logo prominently displayed. Everyone had noise makers, plastic, mini baseball bats with "Hanshin Tigers" written on them, and they knocked the bats together, creating a lot of noise, and sang when Hanshin Tigers players were up at bat. The fan base was incredibly devoted, one of the most devoted fan groups for any baseball team in Japan, so I've heard.

In addition to food and drink that you'd expect to see at a baseball game, vendors also sold such items as friend octopus and bento boxes with sushi.

The seats were very small, smaller than the seats in the stands in U.S. stadiums, and there were no chair backs, just benches. We sat in left field, near the visiting team's section, so we saw a fair number of fans clad in red uniforms cheering for the Hiroshima Carp.

The Hanshin Tigers lost the game 4-3, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and consider the baseball game a unique culture experience during my stay in Japan.