Update

Tigers lost the 3rd game. They are out. The good news is their idiot of a manager won't be back next year because he retired. Hopefully they won't suck in the post season with their new manager.

Playoff Game Video

Read the previous post, I talked about the game there. I am sorry for the poor quality of some of the videos. You tube only allows 10 megs or 10 minutes. So the quality is kind of low. If anyone has any suggestions for a website that allows higher quality and longer videos please tell me and I will upload a higher quality version of the videos.


First Inning Craziness!
Part 1



Part 2





Us




End of the game and shout outs!





The speech at the end of the game. It would be called MvP in America but they call the player of the game the Hero of the game. This games hero was Toritani with 2 homeruns and 5 RBIs.

PLAYOFFS

It has now been about 24 hours since the start of last nights game. I must say that this had to be one of the most amazing sporting events I have ever been to! Amber and I went with Tom and his girlfriend Kozue. We knew our seats were good but we didn't realize how awesome they were until we got there and sat down. We were smack dab right in between the batting circles just barely offset closer to the visiting circle. We were close enough that the foreign English speaking player on the dragons team could hear our crap talk. Tom and I were relentless in the crap talk. Finally I think on his(Woods) second at bat he turned around to see who was talking and we waved at him so he knew where it was coming from and he smiled. The Japanese home fans do not talk trash about the visiting team like they do in America, so I think he liked it. All the Japanese fans were staring at us like we were crazy but eventually a few of the Japanese fans started asking us what to say in English to him and the proceeded to join in with the badgering. We might have started a new trend in Japanese sports! The crowd was just absolutely nuts. I was surprised that the fans go crazy while their team is at bat but is absolutely quiet with the opposing team is up to bat.
Just so you know the Tigers destroyed the Dragons last night 7-3.
The games so far:
Game 1 : Dragons 2 - Tigers 0
Game 2 : Dragons 3 - Tigers 7
Game 3 : Just started.
I am working on uploading the video to my computer and will post it within the next few hours or tomorrow, depending on how long the process takes and how involved I get watching the 3rd game..
The 3rd and final game of the series is tonight. Evidently I was informed wrong about the playoff rules. It is only in the second stage that the 1st place team gets a bonus win. The first stage is best 2 out of 3. So it is still weirdly complicated but not as bad as I had made it seem before.

BASEBALL CONTINUED!

I got tickets today for us to go to a Japanese playoff game for the tigers. The seats are amazing. We are behind home plate offset to the left and 6 rows back. So we might end up on TV a lot every time a right handed batter comes to the plate since the cameras will be pointing in our direction. I will hopefully get someone to record the game so that we can have a tape of us at the game. Each ticket was so cheap compared to going to just a regular season baseball game in America. I am really excited for this game; Amber is as well.
The Japanese playoff system is a little weird. I will try to explain for those that care.
So each league(two leagues Central and Pacific) has 3 teams that play for a bid to go to the Japan world series. They have what they call stages leading up to the world series. So stage 1 consists of the 2nd and 3rd place team battling it out to play in the next stage with the 2nd place team getting a 1 game advantage. So stage 1 consists of 3 games. Meaning the third place team has to sweep all 3 games to win that series. The second place team only has to win 2 games to move on to the second stage. The first place team gets a bye from stage 1 plus a 1 game advantage when stage two starts. Stage two consists of 6 games. So the league winner only has to win 3 games to move on and the stage 1 winner has to win 4 games to move on to the Japan World Series.
Did you follow that? I had a hard time understanding it my first time.
We are going to Stage 1 game 2 in hopes that the Tigers will beat the dragons and move on to the second stage. The second stage will be hard for us to go to since we are only able to go on Sundays due to that being the only day Amber and I have off together.

Baseball Baseball Baseball

Amber and I were lucky enough to go to a Hanshin Tigers game. The Tigers are Osaka's biggest sports team. It was a ton of a fun. I am going to try to get playoff tickets to see another baseball game but it could be rather difficult. The feel and the energy was similar to a college football game back in the states. People are constantly cheering, and making noises with sticks, mini bats, or those blow up sticks that make that drum noise.

Here is the video as promised.



Here is a video of the field, players, the game, and crowd.





Here are the Tiger mascots. I don't know their names or remember them. I didn't even know there was a female tiger until we were at the game.





Proof that Amber and I were there and not just taking these videos from you tube.





Here is a video of zambonis. (Mostly for Steve)





Video of the 7th inning stretch and its craziness. Amber and I absolutely loved this and thought it was the coolest thing.




Well that is all the video I have. The Sports Day Festival was canceled because of rain. The rain never came. I think they will be doing something tomorrow for it but we will not be around since we will be going to USJ(Universal Studios Japan) for my birthday.

Crazy Time and Catch Up.

Since I have been back it has been pretty busy. Our weekends are packed, work for both of us has been really busy. I have a sports day festival at one of the kindergartens that I work at. I will be taking video and pictures of the festival and put them up here. We did, however, get a chance to go to a baseball game and will hopefully be going to a Japanese playoff game soon. I will get around to getting the video (when I finish the editing) that we took as well as some of the pictures up this weekend. Look out for some serious updates full of video and pictures over the next week or so.