My Japan Baseball Diary - Know Which Side You're On

Going to my first Japanese baseball game was the result of two life goals becoming one.  One goal, as a science fiction fan and writer, was to attend a full week of WorldCon.  World Con, or by its full name, the World Science Fiction Convention, is a science fiction convention which is held in a different city somewhere in the world each year.  It is where the Hugo Awards for the best works in science fiction are voted on and awarded.  

The second goal, as a student of Japanese and a lover of Japanese culture and history, was to visit Japan.  To see the places I had been talking about in my lessons and read about in history books.  To use the language I’d been studying with the people that spoke it day in and day out.  

In 2006, attending the WorldCon in Los Angeles for a single afternoon, I discovered that the convention next year, 2007, was going to be held in Yokohama, Japan.  My dreams of “someday” had become “Now!”  Forgetting that I had always thought of myself as someone who would never go to a foreign country in their lives, I did what I needed to do to get there.  

One thing I wanted to do while I was in Japan was to see a baseball game.  I was going to use it as a sort of Rosetta Stone.  I understood the game of baseball.  Going to a game in Japan would give me insight into Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking.  

I got my first lesson when the tickets were being purchased.  

“Which side do you want?”  

This was a phone call from a friend I’d made online during the process of setting up my trip.  She’s a German woman who has lived and worked in Japan for decades, who was also a science fiction fan and writer.  She agreed to buy the tickets for the game for me.  

“Hmm?”  Her question confused me.  “What ‘side’ do you mean?”

“The Giants side or the Baystars side?”

That didn’t help.  I knew the Yokohama Baystars were the home team.  And that they’d be playing the Yomiuri Giants, from Tokyo.  But “sides”…?  

“Uh…  Which are the better seats?”

“Ah!  Got it!  Got it!  I’ll get tickets on the Giants side.  Got it!”  

She hung up.  I gave my phone a look.  I shrugged.  I carried on with whatever I was doing at the time.  

We caught up with each other during the convention.  She gave me the tickets.  A couple other friends I’d made through the convention and I got into a taxi and headed to the stadium.  

I found out what the friend that bought the tickets meant by “sides” when I stopped dead in my tracks at the top of the steps above our seats.  

It was a sea of Orange and Brown.  From behind home plate, all along the left field foul line, across the left field bleachers to half way across the seats behind center field.  That’s where it ran into another ocean of color, Blue and White, that took up the other half of the stadium.  

This is how I discovered that seating in Japanese baseball stadiums is segregated.  Seats for visiting fans are reserved somewhere on the left field side of the stadium.  The size of the visitor’s section depends on the distance between the cities of the two teams and the number of people willing to travel. 

This game was in Yokohama.  Downtown Tokyo was about a hour away by train.  And the Yomiuri Giants from there are the most popular team in Japan, with fans everywhere that are willing to travel.  They had come out in force.  

A fan of baseball in North America might recognize that the colors of the Giants from Tokyo are the same as the colors as the Giants from San Francisco in the MLB.  It went beyond that.  The uniforms of the Yomiuri Giants were IDENTICAL to those of the San Francisco Giants.  The same “Giants” across the chest, stitched in the same font.  

And the colors on the other side were familiar to me as well.  The blue was a softer shade than Dodger blue, but at that moment it didn’t matter.  Looking across at the fans on the other side of the stadium I made an immediate decision.  

“From this point on,” I said to my companions as I stabbed the air emphatically pointing to the fans in Blue and White.  “I am rooting for THAT team over there.”  

One of them, who lived in Phoenix and was a D-Backs fan, looked back at me and nodded.  “I get it.”  

We got to our seats.  The game started.  That’s when I discovered something else different about Japanese baseball games.  The Giants Fans, who had been sitting patiently in relative quiet, started to make some noise.  A LOT of NOISE.  They clapped.  They banged drum.  They blew horns.  They cheered.  They chanted.  A different chant for each batter that came to the plate.  They didn’t stop.  When one batter got out, they’d applaud his effort then start cheering for the next guy in the lineup.  

And on the other side of the stadium, it was quiet.  The only noise they made would be polite clapping at a defensive play that got someone out.  Kinda like fans at a golf tournament.  

The Baystars retired the side quickly and that’s when the atmosphere shifted.  The Giants fans were now watching intently in relative silence while the Baystars fans now clapping, banging drums, blowing horns, cheering, and chanting a different chant every time a new batter came up.  And they had more to cheer about this inning, getting to their feet with a roar when someone got a hit to get on base.  With two men on, the next batter caught pitch and sent it high into the air.  Taken up with the moment, I got to my feet to add my American style of cheering the fans on the other side.  

“Go!  Go!  Go!”  I was yelling at the top of my lungs as the ball sailed over the field and into the seats behind left-center field.  “Yeah!  Yeah!  Yeah!”  

I kept cheering right until the moment I realized I was the ONLY PERSON on their feet in that half of the stadium.  

I looked around.  Everyone around me was staring at me.  I dropped to my seat.  I took a pick and found the woman in the seat to my left was staring at me.  Her expression seemed to say, “Should I worry about this crazy American sitting next to me?”  

I decided I needed to explain.  I took a moment, gathered my meager Japanese at the time in my head, and turned to face her in my seat.  She scooted back in her seat as much as she could.  I bowed my head toward her and said, in stilted Japanese…

“Excuse me.  I am from Los Angeles, California in the United States.  The team I root for there is the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Our strongest rival is the San Francisco Giants.  Because of that, throughout the world, I must oppose any team called ‘Giants.’”  

The woman narrowed her eyes at me.  She looked away to think.  She glanced back at me quickly, as if she’d caught me in a lie.  She looked away again and thought a moment more.  Then…

“Sou desu ka?!”  This is Japanese for, “Oh!  I get it!”  She was looking at me, mouth open, eyes wide with sudden understanding.  

Her friend, sitting on the opposite side from me, leaned forward.  “Nani?   Nani-nani?”  “Huh?  What is it?”  

The woman turned toward her friend and started talking in a rapid blur.  

“NanikananikananikananikaLOSANGELESnanikananikananikaDODGERSnanikananikananikaSANFRANCISCOnanikananikananikananikaHEHASTOOPPOSETEAMSCALLEDGIANTS.”

Her friend’s eyes got wide and her mouth fell open.  “Sou Desu Ka?!”  

Her exclamation got the guy in front of her to turn around in his seat.  “Nan desu ka?  Nani?”  The woman’s friend leaned forward quickly repeating what she’d heard.  Only the words, “Los Angeles,” “Dodgers,” “San Francisco,” and “Oppose all teams called ‘Giants’” were clear.

While she was doing that, the woman had been tapped on the shoulder by someone sitting behind us, and was repeating what I’d told her to that person.  My explanation started to travel like a wave around me, front and back, as it was passed from one person to another.

“Sou Desu ka!”  

“Sou Desu ka!”  

“Sou Desu ka!”  

“Sou Desu ka!”  

“Sou Desu ka!”

Then, it was quiet again.  Everyone, apparently satisfied with what they’d been told, were watching the game intently again.  I looked around.  No one seemed to be paying attention to me anymore.  So…  I guessed…  I was…  Ok?

I got my answer a couple of innings later.  The Baystars had another rally in the bottom of the inning.  With men at the corners, the batter at the plate drove a ball into the right field corner.  The fans in blue and white went nuts.  I started to get to my feet, but stopped myself as I remembered what happened before.  I glanced at the woman I’d given my explanation to.  

She was clapping and smiling at me.  “Omedetou!  Omedetou!”  Congratulations!  Good for you!

I smiled and nodded back at her in thanks.  I didn’t get up to cheer.  It would have felt like I was rubbing it in.

The Giants scored in later innings to tighten the game up.  The Baystars scored again late to put it away.  The final score was 6 to 3 for the Baystars.  

It would be nine years before I saw my second baseball game in Japan.  These are the things I took away from my first visit.  

The Baystars would remain the team I cheered for in Japan.  They became my adopted team in the moment of discovery about the segregation of the fans and rewarded me with a win.  And like my team at home, they were a team that wore blue and white that had a hated rival to the north of them called “the Giants.”  

The atmosphere of the game was a blast.  The fans are friendly.  And they have a passion for the game that often exceeds what can be found at home.  

The stadium was as clean when we left as when we arrived.  Every third inning stadium employees would walk the aisles carrying trash bags and the fans would pass their trash down the seats to give to them.  

Finally, I really wanted to come back and experience it again.  I had already made up my mind at this point in my trip that I wanted to see more of Japan anyway.  

And seeing more Japanese baseball was now one of the reasons I had to return.