Baseball 野球

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The weekend that Joe moved up to Yokohama was a three day weekend, as we had Monday the 20th off for Ocean Day. The weather was lovely, and we took the opportunity to go see a baseball game, Yokohama Bay Stars vs. Chunichi Dragons. The photo above is Joe exiting the subway, below is us in our general admission outfield seats. Even though the Bay Stars are the worst in their league, the game was really crowded, so we had a hard time finding seats. As we stood near the top looking for a place to sit, two kids (behind us in the photo) came up to us and told us to come with them. They and their Mom had two seats near them, and gave them to us. Their Mom was a former English teacher and was using the opportunity to have the kids practice their English. They were really cute, and we scored first row seats!
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As most people do, we brought in snacks and drinks from the convenience store across the street (no bag check, no ban on outside food and drink), but Joe still wanted to buy a beer to have the full baseball stadium experience. We decided against buying food, as it was hot dogs or takoyaki (fried octupus balls), neither being a favorite of ours. His beer came with an almond and fish snack packet, which he said was good. I stuck with my conbini peanuts, though I do love the almond and fish shaking hands on the packet.
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Literally, almonds and fish.
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It's Hoshi, the Bay Stars mascot!
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The field at Yokohama Stadium; all astroturf except for small areas of dirt right around the bases and the pitchers mound.
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Scoreboard. They had a Hamster Dance Competition, and this guy, perhaps in a hamster suit, won. It was hilarious.
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The fans in the outfield were crazy. Each player has their own cheer, and there were cheerleaders in the crowd who organized the chants for each player. There were also two bands in the outfield. You can get a better idea of the crowd unity and enthusiasm from the video I posted below.
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The outfield crowd. We didn't win the game, but there were lots of exciting moments, and it was really fun to see how enthusiastic people were. We also thought it was interesting how the gender ratio of the crowd was almost even, and there were not many intoxicated people, it was a very family-oriented atmosphere. Go Bay Stars!
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