Let's Exciting Baseball Time Together Funess For Happy - Internal Park Viewing System Pt. 3 (aka - You tell me this isn't a cult)

Ok, enough mucking about - time to see what 50,000 people moving in unison looks like...in otherwords, it's time to see a Japanese pro baseball game. I opted for the cheap seats in the outfield where the fans are loudest, and the players are smallest.



To my right was the score board in center field.



And now presenting your starting line-up:


Batting first and playing center field - Murton!
Batting second and playing second base - Sekimoto!
Batting third and playing short stop - Toritani!
Batting fourth and playing third base - Arai!
Batting fifth, just in from Seattle - the catcher - Johjima!
Batting sixth and playing first base - Brazell!
Batting seventh and playing right field - Sakurai!
Batting eighth and playing left field - Kanno!
And batting ninth, the pitcher - Shimoyanagi!

Ok - so the game is underway and it's time to cheer these guys on! So how do we do it in unison?

Well, first we need a cheerleader - actually - we need a whole mess of cheerleaders ringing the front row and communicating with hand signals and whistles like these champs here:









Note the trumpet around his neck - he and a bunch of other trumpeters and drummers are positioned around the stands to help play the fight songs for each player.

So let's see these guys in action!



The sign on the bottom of the screen is letting people know to chant "Let's go XX" where XX is whoever is currently at bat (In this case it was the lead-off man Murton) - for each chant there is someone waving a sign cluing the fans in as to what the chant will be.

As you can hear, the crowd is following along in lockstep - like an orchestra following it's conductor.

And what does the crowd look like following along?




Indeed.

So what about the opposition fans? In this game, Hanshin did battle with The Hiroshima Carp whose uniforms and logo are modeled on the Cincinnati Reds (Hence the "C" on the cap, and I suppose the "Carp" name since the Hiroshima Cincinnatis would be an odd name unlike Carp...It makes me wonder what other "C" words were considered - I can see the board meeting now

Owner: Gentlemen, we need a nice "C" word for this team - something that says baseball, victory, and strikes fear into our opponents hearts!
Marketing-san 1: How about the Hiroshima Combine Harvesters!
Marketing-san 2: No, too long - how about the Hiroshima Christ-punchers!
Marketing-san 3: Scary, but maybe lacking meaning for a non-Christian nation...How about the Hiroshima Cillers!
Marketing-san 1: I think that's spelled with a "K" (consults dictionary) yup, "K"
Marketing-san 2: Crunchers!
Marketing-san 3: Consultants!
Marketing-san 1: Cataclysm!
Owner: No, no, no...look, let's just go with Carp so we can all get wasted on sake.
Marketing-sans 1,2,3: Hai!

Anyhow - in Japanese stadiums, there is a special section of the left field stands reserved for the opposition as seen here:



They too get to cheer (the cheers are reserved for your team's at-bat - while your team is fielding you politely wait your turn)




Note the Hanshin fans all waiting (relatively) quietly.

To Be Continued...