I know I know, "Where is the guy stuff?" Typical guy reader, "I'm a dude and I read the Wags Party of 6 blog regularly, yet I can't find any guy stuff." Rest easy my fellow Y Chromosomal amigos, here is your posting, and one for the gals who like baseball.
On July 14th I (Mick) went to my first Japanese "major league" baseball game in Hiroshima with my wonderful father in law, Royce Ingram.
Royce only has one real fault, he's a Yankees fan, but since the Bronx Bombers were not in town it wasn't an issue, and yes I realize the "issue" mentioning a Yankee, Bombers and Hiroshima in a paragraph will make some say "Too soon!" I can honestly say nope, we actually talk about WWII with our Japanese friends when it comes up, but it isn't everyday, as in, Japanese friend: "Want to go to Taco Bell today?" Me: "Nah maybe Subway, but hey what about you guys starting WWII and us dropping the first atomic bomb on a city?" It really isn't that overt but for newbies to Hiro with a sense of history it is a subject that is mentioned and the Japanese to their credit do not deny their part in the war. But I digress as usual, this is about Baseball: Carp Baseball to be exact.
I'm now an official fan of the Carp. This is like now being a fan of the Kansas City Royals. They had some good years in the past and some good players and now they have some young talent, but they ain't lookin for free agents to add at the trade deadline for you hard core MLB fans, like Wammer. They also have one of the newest stadiums in the Japanese MLB but are also one of the poorest teams or maybe cheapest, depends on the fans you talk to. Either way the system is built here, even more, to favor the rich over the poor teams. This goes for the draft, the draftees get a vote, "No, pick me to play for a crappy team" vs our (MLB) worst team picks first, etc. The free agents are the same as us, they go to the money, which means usually Tokyo, where about half the teams play their games.
The stadium is called Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium. No really. It is. Mazda family from the car lineage has a share in the team, but won't pour money in. It has a grass infield which is so much better than other Japanese parks that have the all dirt infield. You feel like you are in a small MLB park as the concourses aren't as big and the roof area is much smaller and more open.
We took the train from Iwakuni and it is the good call, parking is crazy; spend 16 bucks for the round trip and walk 10 minutes to the park. We got there an hour before the game and both teams were essentially practicing before the game. This included taking bunting practice behind the batting cages in a separate area. I'm talking they were hitting fungos to the outfield and working on cutting throws to third, home etc for 20 minutes.
I went to buy my Carp gear to fully culturally immerse and you CANNOT find a hat that is fitted. They all have the velcro straps to adjust. I learned to accept it. The Carp of course look a LOT like the Cincinnati Reds, at least the caps with their "C," which is identical. I don't think that was a mistake on the drawing board. But since I don't like the Reds, sorry Beau, the real difference is the Carp hat has a very thin blue vein in the bill of the cap and the trim around the C is navy blue as well, unlike the Reds which either go with nothing or black trim, an easy distinction for the disseminating Carp fan. The jerseys however are 60 bucks, so I bought a towel like the soccer (football) fans in Europe have. I asked the girl vendor her fave player and it happened to be the starting pitcher and Ace of the staff Kenda Maeda #18 in your program and #1 in your Hiroshima Toyo Carp hearts.
Hiroshima Toya is the official name of the team. Part locale, part business owner in the name. Another not quite pure MLB baseball thing. Similar example, the next closest town and furthest southern team is the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. Fukuoka is a city and Softbank is one of the leading cell phone companies. So in the US it would be the Chicago Ameritrade Cubs, for you Omaha fans.
Okay to the game for cryin' out loud. Tonight's game featured a similarly poorly situated team, the Yokohama Bay Stars. While Yoko is the 2nd largest city, the Bay Stars are not the #2 team. But unlike the hated Yamiuri Giants (JpMLB equivalent to the Yankees/RedSox) these guys are more like the Oakland A's, so a chance for a W for the home team. The Bay Stars did have 30-50 fans sitting/standing in the left field upper deck which is where I guess you put the opposing teams and their flags and drums and singing fans.
Note here, all teams have flags, drums and singing fans and this is the fun part we want to learn more about. I WILL learn the hard corp Carp cheers before the Wagoner Japan tour is over. But the opponents do have fans and in the early innings they can make some noise.
The said named Kenda Maeda started and I think this alone caused a larger crowd than normal. He's a young, skinny guy but they love him judging by the jerseys fans wear. Note to Padres fans, these guys usually leave during bad times, save Tony Gwynn. So Homeboy goes out and is fanning Bay Stars at the Nolan Ryan rate and checking his speed on the scoreboard he is throwing about 85-88 MPH, not exactly smoke but he has some movement on his stuff. He really seemed to go with the heat to strike guys out. He ended the night with 11 Ks but had 8 through 4 innings. The Bay Stars had 2 US players including a huge, compared to JP counterparts, 1B who played fine.
The other US guy hit the only HR and scored their only run. I was looking for the Carp US guys but they didn't come out until the end, when the closer came in for the 9th and struck out the side with some 94-5 cheese. The Baystars were completely overwhelmed by him.
After some "research" aka Google, into the US players in Japan, most of the dudes are high AAA, low MLB guys who are seeing a chance to play ball over here and maybe be a bit more than they would be in the US. They look like MLB guys, size-wise, but reading most of their bios you see some commonalities, up to AAA, some MLB time, got hurt, team wanted to go another way etc. I can so relate to that ;-) But one of the Carp pitchers was actually the #1 pick back in 2001-2 timeframe by the Pirates. He obviously wasn't David Price.
I texted Sue during the game to get info on the US guys and have found out that the Carp have several
and I am working with another LtCol buddy, Charlie Redden who knows a lot more about this than I do, to get the US Carp players down here for a little US time and maybe get the US folks more into Carp ball, like everything it makes sense but making it happen takes time and patience.
OK a couple of crazy differences with MLB games.
1. The starting pitcher comes out between innings, starting in the 2nd inning and starts throwing to a back up catcher while his guys are up after the first out. So much for pitch count. Maeda is the ace and he threw an ungodly amount of just throws in general, Still can't figure it out. He wasn't throwing even 90% but he was throwing between 20-30 throws.
2. 7th inning stretch. Not the same song but the fans blow up balloons and sing and them let them go at the end of the song.
Some fans gave me one because I seemed so Carplike. Fun fans are the same everywhere.
3. Beer, 7 bucks a cup, not the end of the world but you can
bring beer in. You can't bring cans or bottles, you have to transfer to cups, but a good idea for the 1 or 2 beers to start the night and save 10 bucks. The girls who primarily sell the beer to the fans in the stands have mini kegs on their backs and pour the beer for you. Two types, Asahi and Kirin, that's it, no craft brews here, you Rockie beer snobs ;-)
4. The batting order, drove me crazy until I can learn more. .200 hitters hitting 1st and 2nd while .260 hitters hit 6th or 7th. The Carp clearly play small ball with a small s and b but tonight it payed off. Who am I, after 1 game, to declare their manager all screwed up, but it makes me go hmmm. The pitchers are atrocious at hitting and they bat 9th. The BS pitcher's average was .000; he was horrible at the plate. I need to start a pitcher's hitting school.
5. After the game the fans stay around and they have player(s) of the game come out and talk to the fans with the team "reporter"
and project it on the big screen and everyone stays around for this.
This is after the team comes out and bows to the fans in thanks for the support. US purists would LOVE this.
6. Right field fans. Similar to soccer fans this is where the HARD CORE fans are at. They wave flags and have chants for each player. Imagine the little ditty each US player gets when he comes up to bat lasting the whole at bat but being sung by the fans,and THEY ALL KNOW EACH ONE. They don't have NFL so these guys are at the top of the sports ring in Japan yet they appear humble to the new fan.
7. Squid for snacks, I stuck with "fries" and edamame. If only all those soybean farmers in Nebraska knew that by calling soybeans "edamame" and pouring snobby "Sea Salt" on them they could charge the equivalent to 80 dollars a bushel since you pay 5 bucks for about 20 beans.
8. The grounds crew sweeps everything in the infield. Hard to explain but funny when you see folks sweep dirt. 18 people during infield "cleaning" that goes on around the 5th inning in US parks.
9. 7th inning stretch dance. Lot of folks in the outfield but they leave pretty quickly after the ceremony.
10. Pregame had the Carp mascot (philly fanatic rip off) playing soccer, not even wiffleball, with numerous power ranger type characters in costume, soccer..really...at a baseball game.
Beyond those small things if you want some US familiar stuff, the Carp can give you that. Baseball is basically baseball no matter where you are. The bigger the fan, the more you will get out of seeing this baseball over here, looking for the small differences.
Note to selves, never start reading a Mick blog, they last 36 damn minutes.
Go Carp!
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