Lets go Tigers!

I always thought cheerleaders were girls in super short skirts with toxic smiles who entertained drunken sports enthusiasts during lulls in the game, like half times and what not. Granted I am not a sports enthusiast, maybe you can tell, but I have grown to tolerate baseball, maybe even like it, a little. I have no choice, I am surrounded by people who love the game. Anyway I've always been glad that baseball has no cheerleaders, except the fanatic in the stands who desperately wants to marry the shortstop and jumps and jiggles waving a poster board proposal above her head. Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, in Japan I have discovered the true meaning of the word cheerleader, and it has nothing to do with long legs.

Uta and I went to a Hanshin Tigers game (the local big league team). (In the above photo Uta is seated with his great Aunt and Uncle. Jiji and Baba could not accompany us because of the funeral mentioned previously.) The experience put American baseball to shame. In Japan every stadium has cheerleaders, I mean real cheerleaders who actually lead the crowd in cheers. They are more like conductors, the whole stadium packed with fans their orchestra. They are dressed a lot like soccer referees, sporty track suits in team colors and bright white gloves. They are spaced at even intervals around the stadium so that no matter where you are seated several are easily visible. Trumpeteers and drummers in the same uniform are positioned close by, together they have the entire stadium cheering, and singing (and even taunting the other team) in unison from the start of the game to the finish. The vendors double as roaming cheerleaders, singing out at the top of their lungs, all the while selling beer and ice cream without missing a beat.

Uta observed the following differences between NY baseball and that in Japan. The ball boy chased after the batter once on base to retrieve his glove. When the pitcher is changed, the new one is driven out in a tiny golf car shaped like a baseball. Everyone in the stands brings these baseball bat shaped clackers with them that they bang along with the cheers. For Uta, the highlight of the game was the releasing of screaming balloons. Around the seventh inning all the fans blew up enormous balloons and then on cue released them. The balloons went spiraling straight up into the sky, whistling loudly until they ran out of air, and then plummetted to the ground, where a crew of people were waiting to collect them.