A few weeks ago, after arriving here at Nina’s apartment in Southern Japan, I decided that I needed to go visit Hiroshima. I knew it wasn’t going to be particularly enjoyable—the clue’s in the name—so I did some research as to what else one could do in the infamous city.
Turns out a lot—it’s a weirdly happening place—but what caught my fancy was that the Hiroshima Carps baseball team had a game. It should surprise no one to know that baseball is huge in Japan, the top player in American baseball right now is Japanese, and I think I even remember seeing it mentioned or maybe being played on US television in the past.
Add to that, I can’t even remember the last time I went to a baseball game in America (to be honest, anything other than once every five years can be a snooze), so I decided to go. After all, it was a baseball game that made a Japanese jazz club owner sell it all to become Japan’s now-best writer, so there had to be something exciting in a game, right?
I was excited to go.
An easier-said-than-done type thing at the time, seeing how buying a ticket online meant:
1. Going to the baseball website and using Google Translate to buy a ticket
2. Realizing I couldn’t buy a ticket online so emailing their office
3. Trading a few emails back and forth making sure of the schedule, as well as where I could buy a ticket
4. Taking that advice and going to Family Mart, where a confusing computer spat out a few pieces of paper that I then had to go up to the register and dumbly shrug my shoulders to all of the friendly lady’s questions as she tapped away at yet another computer, finally ending up with a bill for me, finally ending up in my ticket to the Hiroshima Carps vs. ths Hanshin Tigers.
I arrived into Hiroshima on a Monday to absolutely terrible weather. It’d been grey and rainy for the past week down at Nina’s, but with what I’d heard about Japanese summers being brutal, I assumed it was going to be getting hot and sticky quick. It was not, and my entire first day walking around the tortured city was even more depressing because of it.
I was also beginning to get worried that my baseball game was going to get rained out. The previous day’s game was canceled, and the morning of, it wasn’t looking too great. But the sun held out and every time I nervously checked their Instagram account, no news of cancellation was given, so I ran to the Family Mart once more to buy some Carp socks, race home to change + a quick sake in my capsule hotel room, out the door and to the stadium.
The rain hadn’t appeared, but it also wasn’t far off either and I hoped to at least get a few innings in—just to experience a little of it. As I neared the Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium (real name), I began to notice a lot of people carrying a lot of bags, food, drinks, even large pizzas, so asked a group of younger guys if things were allowed to be brought in. Yes, anything, they told me, but if it’s in a bottle or can, it has to be poured into a cup, so I ran to the nearby 7-11 and bought a beer, a sake, a bento box + water, and then hurried back to the stadium.
First stop was the quiet, clean and orderly cup tent, where many a beer were being transferred into many a cup.
And then to the stadium, admittedly gorgeous - the Chugoku Mountains providing a nice backdrop to the city, albeit one with some still worrying cloud cover.
I found my seat—two rows from as high up as you can get, but with the aforementioned view and right in the middle of all the die-hard fans, as I was surrounded by jerseys. Not bad for the cheapest ticket available.
10 minutes later, a young lady appeared near home plate and sang the national anthem, while everyone stood. She finished, the crowd cheered and the drums and flags of Hiroshima fans (from all over Japan) began to clap, cheer and chant.
(And if you thought this, the clapping and chanting was a one-time happening, you’d be joining me and we’d both be wrong. It carried on throughout the entire game, but more on that later.)
The next thing that happened were some synchronized bat bangings (if that’s even the right descriptor?) - up and down and sideways and together and all sorts of movement. Any other country, I’d ask myself “Where did they learn all of these moves?” but this is Japan and they were probably taught by some awesome robot in middle school.
A quick three outs for the Hanshin Tigers and it was our turn to bat.
First batter.
First pitch.
Homerun!
And that’s when Japanese baseball went from being something familiar, to something quite bizarre.
It was a homer!
From the first pitch and the first guy!
This would have any crowd in a frenzy!
But not Japan.
They cheered and high-fived, of course, but there wasn’t the… fever pitch, I suppose, that you’d assume. Just a quick celebration as the hitter quickly ran around the bases—never stopping to celebrate himself or point at anyone or thank god or Nike or anything—and then it was sitting down and back to quiet and normal.
A few seconds of silence while the next batter came up to the plate and then chants and flags and bats still continued on.
A few innings in, I opened up my Sushi Box and a nice little sake and had to laugh at the setting.
Baseball and bento.
Strikeouts and sake.
A crowd seemingly more into their songs than the actual game.
Some notes I took with one hand and a tuna roll in the other:
- Batter got hit. No emotion. Shrugged it off and got on with it.
- Wind-up time for pitcher is literally a second. No waiting for signs or anything else. Super quick.
- No crazy Jumbotron stuff. A tiny screen with some cool stuff happening, but considering what Japan is known for when it comes to amazing 3D screens and whatnot, a bit surprising.
- No foreign players—all Japanese.
- There was a moment when everything was quiet and the bullet train flew by and my beer was still half-full and cold and I had to stop for a second and think “How about this?”
A few innings later, I ran downstairs for another beer (a very expensive beer, which both explains why everyone brought theirs in, but also is a clap clap clap emoji for the stadium and higher ups for letting that happen), stopping to admire the tale-tell cleanliness and all of the recycling bins.
Back up and I noticed my neighbor—a nice kid named Zhuzu from South Korea who worked in Tokyo and was a huge Carps fan—blowing up balloons. What’s this for? I asked him. The 7th inning! he exclaimed, as excited as he was befuddled that I didn’t know.
So what happens in the 7th inning?
Well…
A bunch of chants.
A bunch of balloon-blowing-ups.
More chants.
And then a bunch of balloons are held up and let go.
(We’ll tackle Japan’s use of plastics some other time, yes?)
And then the 8th inning came and went and the chants and songs and awkward silence still continued, but, again, it was never the high emotions one comes to expect in a baseball game.
And then the 9th and then it was over.
We got trounced, btw - 6:1 - but then again, the Hanshin Tigers won the pendant last year.
It should come as no surprise that everyone lined up nicely to exit—allowing the row below them to file out first—allthewhile picking up balloons and any other trash.
As I walked out, I made a point of taking a photo of a near-pristine baseball stadium.
On my way home, I began to try to make sense of what a familiar yet completely different game I had just watched. I don’t know what I was expecting—baseball, of course—but what I witnessed was more of a picnic with live entertainment in the background. The cheers seemed for the team and never the individual. There were no celebrations afterwards from the visiting team. No personalities that stood out the entire game. It was, in fact, two baseball teams playing one another.
And it was a special experience.
Special on its own, of course.
But special for two reasons that we’ve yet to get into.
The first is the history of the Hiroshima Carps—a gorgeous, nail-biting and heartwarming history, it should be said. Four years after having their city decimated, the Carps—taking their name from the fish who swims upstream, thus, a place on the mend—was introduced. Needless to say, fanfare was infectious and almost immediately, the population embraced a sign of being a real town again. Unfortunately, the Carps weren’t that good and, to cut a long and complicated financially-bewildering story short, faced being booted from the league. They didn’t have the money to continue, and being last in the league meant no revenue was coming in. Enter: Said local fanbase, who essentially went door-to-door raising money to keep the Carps afloat. Hollywood ending. So while, yes, it’s a sports team, there’s also a historical backing of Hiroshima and its Carps that made this more than just a normal baseball game.
But the second is something much closer to home. A few days before I arrived in Hiroshima, word reached me that one of my best friends in high school—one of the cool kids who took a frightened skinny poor fella under his wing upon arrival—didn’t have long to live, and was being moved from hospital back home, but not in the good sense. He was, among many other things, baseball crazy. With a capital c. Lived for it. Loved it. Couldn’t shut up about it—even when asked to. Experiencing it in Japan was going to be fun, but in the midst of all that surreality watching the Carps, I was able to enjoy it a little bit more thinking of him. Wondering what he’d think about it all. His nasal laugh if I brought him a bento box in the bottom of the 3rd. His dry sarcastic comments the entire time. Some sort of passive revolt against The Man. All the things that made him such a character. And having him on my mind the entire time just made it… oh, I don’t know, maybe just glow a bit more.
He’d pass two days later.
Leaving behind a wake of stories and appreciation for who he was.
What he did.
And who became because of it.
And I’m fortunate that I got to have a little bit of him with me that evening.
(In loving memory of MM)
