Tokyo Giants

On Sunday, we went to a Toyko Giants game. Although baseball is supposedly America's Past time, the Japanese have made some significant improvements. For example, you can bring anything that you would like food or beverage-wise into the game. If your drink is in a bottle you must pour it into a paper cup provided by them and then bring it to your seat. As a result of this policy, the markup on park food over any other store is only about 50 to 150 yen. This is in sharp contrast to American stadiums where the markup is much higher. It is also interesting to note that fans do not cheer derogatorily in Japan. When a team is at bat, their fans cheer positively, and the opposing fans watch, sometimes acknowledging a great play by the other team. This is not the case at any professional sporting event in the United States, where fans will defend the honor of their teams and fight to the death.

By far the most interesting part of the culture for me, however, was the fact that at the end of the game, the stadium was just as clean as when we first entered. Nobody left trash lying around their seats and some even picked  up the trash of others. As most of you probably know, this would NEVER be the case in the US. There would be trash EVERYWHERE and nobody would think to pick up the trash of their neighbors. Overall, it was a fascinating study in culture and a great game of baseball!

view from our seats, right down the third base line