The Legend of the Fearsome Doala

This past Saturday I took a trip to the Nagoya Dome to catch the next to last home game of the season for Nagoya's baseball team the Chunichi Dragons.

I had received a request from my brother to get a ball from a Japanese game, so I arrived early at the dome to watch practice (and with some luck get a ball).

I stood out in left field for a while, and eventually a batting practice home run fell into my hands. Mission accomplished . . . but not quite. Apparently the protocol for the Dragons is that all balls (foul, home run etc) that leave the field during practice MUST BE THROWN BACK. Even after a skillfully butchered "ni-hongo wakarimasen" (I don't understand japanese) and maintaining said farce by explaining in broken englishified japanese that the ball was for my little brother back in the US . . . the whistle toting foul ball nazis made me throw the ball back. So close and yet so far. I also hung around until they killed the lights in the dome to maybe catch someone post game to grab a ball, but no luck. Maybe next season.

Anyway, after that business I walked over to the backstop immediately behind home plate to finish watching practice. As the game started, I stayed in that seat (2nd row immediately behind home), and figured I'd hang around until someone made me leave. That never happened, so my $15 nose bleed ticket plus an early arrival got me the best seat in the house.

Action Shot

The crowd for the game was awesome. It was more like a college ball game than a major league game. Each team had a fan club (each equipped with giant flags and a band), and the entire stadium joined in when they would start a cheer (subsequently they had a cheer for every single player). This meant that whenever the Dragons were at bat, the entire stadium was chanting non-stop.

Visitor's Fan Club

Dragons' Fan Club

On top of all that, it was actually a really good game. Both teams scored 4 runs in the first couple innings, and it ended up coming down to a bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded full count. The guy fouled off about a half a dozen pitches before he got walked (not quite a winning home run, but a close game and a lot of fun).

A piece of the last at bat

As for the Doala . . . the team is the Dragons, and as such they have two big puffy dragons (pink - faolong and blue - shaolong) as sub-mascots. However the main mascot of the team is a blue koala with a blue baseball tail. Apparently he is half dragon half koala (hence Doala). He did some entertaining tumbling (flash kicks and a reverse full), made especially impressive by the fact that his giant mascot head went almost as high as his extended arms . . .

A shot of Doala (shamelessly pulled from the internets)

I think I forgot to mention the cheer squad

On an unrelated note, I finally got a rice cooker
(now I don't have to eat noodles every day)