Baseball is in English!!!

Saturday, March 28, 2026

Since we didn’t use our breakfast coupons yesterday, we took Mike and Kristine to breakfast in the hotel today. Mike used his dictionary and was able to get the eggs for Kris and I cooked through. Delicious. He and Keith enjoyed using the rice machine – you set a bowl under it and push one of the buttons – a bite, a little, medium, or more. Kristine found dressing for the cabbage. Things were really getting fancy at that point.

We check out of the hotel and to the subway to the main train station. They all had suitcases to carry down the many steps (yes, at one point I did volunteer to help Kristine) (she said she was fine. Only one knee was hurting) (She didn’t just give me her bag, so I just let her carry it. I am realizing now how crappy I am) while I just tagged along behind. (I also volunteered to carry our backpack. Keith said it balanced him. He wouldn’t let me help if his arms fell off).

Anyway, we got to the train station and the lockers were full. We thought it would be a little less congested because it was weekend. There were so many more people. We are silly. They all studied their phones looking for more lockers. I stood there. We zoomed to more lockers that had availability. They did have availability. We went to a bounce place that we had passed. It is just a room where they will store your bags. It costs a little more, but it was available. Available is worth everything.

We trained to the stadium to go to a baseball game. Yesterday was opening day – just like back home. Our team, the Orix Buffaloes, lost 0-10. Sad day. I can’t help wondering if they know that “buffalo” is already plural. It’s pretty interesting to me that We got there early to experience all the things that might be happening. The first thing we did was get a slice of Dominos pizza for me. It did not taste anything like pizza from home, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Keith and Kristine got fries from Grazy Fries (a portmanteau of gravy and crazy). “Gravy” seemed to mean toppings because there were lots of choices, but none of them were gravy. Kristine got sour cream (she did not previously know about the joy of sour cream and fries) and guacamole. She said it was good, but she didn’t need to have it again. Keith got three cheese. There was a cheese sauce, plus shredded cheddar and parmesan. The parmesan was awesome. I need to eat more good parmesan. The cheese sauce made the parmesan stick to the fries and that was great.

We saw that they had a 30cm hot dog. We figured that was about a foot, because of math. It seemed longer when Keith got one. The funny part (to me) was that it was actually two hot dogs in one long bun. They overlapped a little and then stuck way out of the ends. They had mustard and relish (and more) so Keith could dress it like he wanted. He said it was good.

Beer girls carry around insulated packs with kegs of beer on their backs. When they make a sale, they pull out a cup and use the hose to pour a beer. Voila.

When the announcer started introducing the teams, he was speaking English. I am not sure I even noticed until Kristine asked why he was speaking English. Huh. I asked my phone why and it said that English is used to cater to the high volume of international tourists (that’s us!!) visiting Osaka. Attending a Japanese baseball game is a popular cultural activity for tourists. I’m going to give that a double huh. I mean, yes, tourists (us) probably like to go to games, and probably like that they can understand the announcing (we did), but a vast amount of the crowd was wearing team jerseys, so tourists are a drop in the bucket of the people there. I liked the jerseys and spent quite a bit of time picking out whose name would be on my jersey. Kristine said I repeated everyone’s name after the announcer and then said I liked it. I don’t seem to be very discriminate. Nakagawa had a really good game and that sounds good, but his number is 67 (six seven!) and that seems just a bit too trendy and off topic for my special, imaginary jersey. The girls in front of us had Ohta – he was definitely the cute one -(although pinch runner Watanabe (number 0!) seems like he might be the new cute guy) and was a good player, but that is so short. Anyway, it was quite interesting to me through the game.

At one point, I heard the announcer say the next batter’s name was Toh-dai. I looked on the scoreboard and saw that it was spelled Today. I said he could not be on my jersey because it looked like today and would be confusing. Kristine agreed. I was sitting there for a minute and realized I was reading the stats from today and that the guy’s name was not Today. Kristine said, “You know, I don’t think that’s his name…” I could hardly hear anymore because I was laughing so hard. Today!!

There were so so so many people wearing team shirts. These people come ready to support their team. The “fan” sections (home and away teams) were all decked out in the appropriate wear. There were bands – primarily trumpets (the bag check area specified no trumpets. Hmmm) and drums. They played and played and played whenever their team was at bat. Each player has his own cheer!

A lot of fans had towels with player names or logos on them and there was a choreography that everyone would do. The fan section was wild with enthusiasm, but the people in front of us all had towels and very quietly did the choreography. I thought they were adorable.

Keith had so much fun he clapped along!! They gave us a team picture on heavy cardstock that had places marked to accordion fold it. It made a slapper to make noise. Keith used the slapper too! What was happening?!

The game was great. We took an early lead with a two-run homer in the third inning. There was a stolen base, a double play, a guy got hit, the other team went through 6 pitchers (SIX), bases were loaded to end the first and second innings, there was a broken bat that almost cleared the infield, pinch runner, pinch hitter, a really wild pitch, and I’m sure more I can’t remember. The POTD is a moment after our guy hit a blooper up the third baseline, scoring two. The next guy got a hit too and the play at the plate was so close they had to look at the tape to decide if the call of out was right. We saw it on the big screen from many angles, closer and closer, and I couldn’t tell. Kristine was confident he was out. She has good eyes. They ruled him out.

It ended with a complete game for our pitcher, Allen Kuri. Coooool! Nobody left before the game was over, and then no one left then either. There was fan cheering time after the players left the field. Everyone held up their blinky lights (I would definitely have one if I lived here) and they strobed together many different colors. The team brought out a dais for Kuri and Nagakawa – the obvious MVPS of the game. An enthusiastic interviewer talked to them and they must have given great answers because there was a lot of laughter from the crowd. Yay.

We retrieved the bags and trained to Kyoto. We are staying at a more traditional style Japanese hotel here. We don’t have a shower in our room, so we are supposed to use the common baths. Hmmm. That is not really our style. I checked on the included breakfast – it is fish, miso soup, and some other things I won’t eat. I’m looking forward to 7-11 already.

Other stuff from the day

My heart is with the people doing the No Kings rally today.