Sports Daze

In Japan the most popular sports are baseball, soccer and sumo in that order. There are tons of other minor sports such as golf, K1, boxing, badminton, long distance running and ping-pong which have their fans and brief moments of glory but they aren’t nearly as popular.

Baseball

Japan has twelve pro teams in two leagues. Every team has a sponsor attached to their name, for example, Yakult Swallows, Softbank Hawks and the Nippon Ham Fighters. I can see this happening to the cash strapped and/or greedy MLB teams in the near future. Most of the stadiums are already named after corporations and pretty soon the Verizon Pirates, Taco Bell Padres and Milwaukee’s Best Brewers will be a reality. I'm calling it.

Every day the tv news sports section has an update on how the Japanese MLB players are doing even when nothing really happens. Wow Hideki Matsui hit a sacrifice fly and Ichiro caught a ball he had to run for. They're really team players! With a Japanese player on both sides the media had a field day during the last world series. Every nuance of every pitch was analyzed and reanalyzed and when the two Japanese met on the field it made the front cover of every newspaper and was the top news story for a week.

Last weekend we finally went to the Tokyo dome to see the Yomiuri Giants play the Lotte Marines. We had to sit in the Marines cheering section because the Giants cheering section, which is four times larger, was sold out. If you’ve never seen a Japanese baseball cheering section it is really something to behold. So please behold it.



They are chanting 'Jose Ortiz', one of the gaijin players allowed to play for each team whose main job is to hit homers. Luckily he and a foreigner from the Giants both did their jobs and slapped a couple over the fence that game to make things interesting.

Along with organized cheering another cool thing about Japanese baseball is that the vendors walking up and down the aisles aren’t crusty old men screaming PEAAAAAAANUTS and tossing them in your face. Hell no! In Japan the ones hocking eight-dollar beers and squid chips are cute young women in tight brightly colored skirt suits, very eye catching.

The cheering sections aren’t content to simply chant and sing a batter’s name. Oh no. In the 5^th inning when the Giant’s pitcher was relieved the Marine’s fans did this,



This madness lasted three to four minutes. I got tired just watching them.

Soccer

Japan has a pro soccer league that is pretty popular, however since I’m an American I couldn’t care less.

Sumo

We haven’t been able to see sumo live yet, only on tv. The sport is nauseating yet fascinating at the same time, like a car wreck I can’t seem to look away and without noticing minutes and even hours slip away. The two current yokozuna are from Mongolia and are pretty damn good, especially the beefy Asashoryu. The winner of the last tournament however is an ozeki Bulgarian guy, the first European to ever win a major sumo tournament. Many Japanese newspapers and acquaintances have commented that he is very handsome and reminds them of David Beckam. I don’t see it.

Hmmmmm maybe Steven Seagal in his leaner years but not David Beckam.

I was talking to a co-worker that LOVES sumo and adorns his desk and classroom with sumo posters, a sumo calendar and several wrestler's pictures about the last tournament. He hung his head in shame and told me, “Today’s sumo is dominated by gaijin. Gaijin sumo is here,” raises his hand above his head, “and Japanese sumo is here,” lowers hand past his knee. “It is a GREAT shame.”

Sports Day

All of my Elementary schools recently had their Undokai or Exercise Event or how I like to translate it, Sports Day. Sports Day consists of half the school as red and the other half as white performing regular sports such as a relay race as well as American Gladiator type wacky sports like pushing giant balls around, grabbing logs, and tossing as many beanbags into a hoop in twenty seconds as possible. The emphasis is not on individual merit but how the team performs. There are also musical events complete with terrible choreography; terrible choreography is a Japanese trademark not only in schools but by “professional” Japanese musicians as well.

Here are the cute first graders playing the beanbag hoop game. It may look like the white team in the foreground isn’t doing too well, but out of the four groups that one took 1^st prize both times.



Much to my surprise The Love School’s principal wanted me to participate in a PTA event. The event was the beanbag hoop toss with a pole twice as tall as the first graders. Since I am at least a head taller than every other participate there was some pressure on me to perform. Unfortunately my group consisted of diminutive obasans who would toss the beanbag halfway up the pole then runaway as the bags rained down on their frail bodies. Our team lost badly both times. However, due to my effort in scoring half the points for my thirty odd member team I got a couple high (low) fives from the short statured Japanese grandmothers and THAT was awesome.

At The Love School the red team had won five years in a row. But this year white kicked red's ass. Is it a coincidence that the year I show up that the white team manhandles the red? I don’t think so.