The following comments don't correspond with the pictures but tell of the entire set of 8.
[From July 5, 2003] I saw my first ever live baseball game in Japan. The Hanshin Tigers were playing the Chunichi Dragons and somehow Eri managed to buy tickets at the game when it was a sold out game. The baseball fields seem a little smaller than the North American counterpart but that's the only thing that doesn't measure up. The stadium was sold out as mentioned two sentences ago. That's 50,000 people. About 5% of the stadium dressed in blue - the Chunichi colours. The rest were ALL Hanshin fans. Now the thing about them is, if you take 50,000 football (soccer) fans right out of the craziest, most rowdy countries (you know, England, Italy, France, etc etc), made them speak Japanese, take out the rioting, you'll have Hanshin fans. They were making noise throughout the whole game. Every time a Tiger came up to bat, they sang a personalized song with their name in it (it was the same song all over but with different names). Everytime the Dragon's pitcher was pulled, they sang some sort of "Sayonnara" song. It was one eye opening experience. The Tigers won 14-3 - the Tigers are kicking ass this season and they're not taking names. One fella, Hiyama Something, hit a "cycle" - that is, 1 single, 1 double, 1 triple, and 1 homerun. I forgot what we North Americans call it - it might be "cycle" too.
Here are some pics I took at the game. All the balloons are from the 7th Inning when the Tigers came up to bat - all of a sudden, fans blew up balloons and released them in one big massive balloon release. It was quite impressive.
The Hanshin Tigers are doing incredibly well - they're number one this season with not too long to go - they're kicking their rival's ass (the lowly Yomiuri Giants).
