Yokohama

This week was a relatively local team South of Tokyo, only a couple of hours by slow train (if you take the right one). A couple of guys from Columbus were here (Dan and Dustin), and unfortunately we didn't get the trains exactly right. Mostly I think we just changed trains more than we needed to, but kept moving in the right direction. I think we were about half an hour later than planned, but it wasn't a big deal.

We had about 2 hours til game time, so we ran through Yokohama's Chinatown. Ate fast and had to run to the game. I only had time to pick up an awesome Bruce Lee T-shirt as a cultural memento before we had to go.
I made a slight miscalculation in buying the tickets and didn't get reserved seats. We got to the stadium about 45 minutes early to sit in the fan section, but that wasn't early enough, so we had to stand the whole game. Had a railing, at least, and the view was nice.
I've confirmed the Baystars suck. I've seen them 3 times now (luck of the draw) and the lost every time. It was also the 2nd time I saw the Rakuten Eagles beat them, and it wasn't even that close, 5-3 on a meaningless 9th inning fielder's choice. But they do have a lot of spirit in the cheering section. What the trumpets lacked in talent or rhythm, they made up with stamina. Plus, they were nicely coordinated, each pointing in a different direction.So, that leaves the current standings, as far as I know, at:

1. Rakuten Golden Eagles, 2-0
2. Yakult Swallows, 1-0
3. Softbank Hawks, 1-0
4. Hiroshima Toyo Carp, 1-0
5. Hanshin Tigers, 0-1
6. Orix Buffaloes, 0-1
7. Yokohama Baystars, 0-3

Other Japanese news, they finally got banned substances here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/26/sports/BBI-Japan-Doping.php

Also, since there's no guns, we get crazy people running around stabbing people:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080609/ts_nm/japan_stabbing_dc_9