On Sunday, Risa and I met with my friends T. and M. for a Tokyo Giants
vs. Yakult Swallows baseball game. T. is a huge Giant’s fan, and I’ve gone
with him once a year to see a game. I was excited to go this year because I
hadn’t seem him and his wife in quite a while, and it was the first time I would
go to a baseball game with my wife.

We got to the stadium pretty early. Strangely, there were lots and lots of
people dressed up in anime costumes. So-called “Cosplayers”. Risa and I ran
into the American Version in Seattle where I commented that I thought that
American anime nerds were pretty low, lower than the Japanese ones because it
isn’t even their culture. But Risa countered today with her appraisal that the
American nerds are at least learning something about the Japanese culture
(outside of their own) while the Japanese nerds were just nerds. She’s got me
there. (Of course, I have to confess that I myself am a huge nerd, and probably
incurable.)

Anyway, I snapped a few shots, but I didn’t really feel like trying to do the
full question and shoot treatment. I did talk to one group, who didn’t seem all
that happy to talk to me, and found out that there was a … “thing” for
“people” that “dressed up” like “that”, and it was not related to the baseball
game. I was pretty clearly not in the target audience (you were either someone
in a costume, or an overweight balding man with an awesome DSLR taking pictures
of the cute girls in costumes, and I didn’t fit either of those categories.)

Anyway, on to the game.

The Tokyo Giants are my favorite Japanese Baseball team. I don’t really like
baseball. I’m a huge basketball fan, but don’t really care too much about
baseball. I enjoy a game with friends though. I’m a Giant’s fan not by
default, but because I have a good reason: I hate the Hanshin Tigers with a
fierce passion, and that means I am by necessity of Tokyo Giant’s supporter. I
definitely have to see a Giants – Tigers game sometime soon. Anyway, I have
enjoyed all the games I’ve seen live.

This game was no exception. Before I knew it, it was the 7th inning. The
Giants demolished their cross-town Tokyo Jinguu rivals, who have an open-air
stadium right near where I work. I prefer Tokyo Dome though because it is a
dome and as humanity has developed better and better technology I am all for
using it to keep us out of the rain and humidity, which Tokyo has in abundance,
especially in the rainy season, which it is now.

In the end, the Giants won 7-2 (wow!) and we went to dinner, and drank a lot,
and then went to a bar and drank more.

The next day at work was difficult.