Japanese Sports-Baseball

I will admit it upfront: I'm not the biggest fan of sports. I occasionally will watch the World Series, because it's the only baseball games that I find somewhat interesting. I grew up in Cooperstown, NY- the supposed "Home of Baseball", complete with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the Dreams Park. Every summer, tourists flood in from various places and overcrowd the downtown area with their white sneakers and baseball uniforms. I worked a couple of summers during high school as a sales clerk in a few baseball stores. I hated it. Baseball pervaded everything about my town, so I tried my best to ignore it. It's not that I disliked the game itself-it's fun to play, and as I said before, I don't mind watching the World Series sometimes. But, the oversaturation I experienced because of my hometown has trained me to ignore it, becuase I found the whole sports scene irritating.

Of course, the Japanese love baseball. I could not ignore this, because this was the first time that I've seen another country besides the US actually giving a crap about this sport (the rest of the world seems to like soccer a whole lot more, heh). From the little I've seen of the KG team practicing as I pass the athletic fields on my way to class, they already look like they put in more effort than my high school team ever did. However, this could be because they're a college team. The movie we watched in class, Kokoyakyu, definitely showed the amount of work and dedication that high schoolers here put into their sport. This is something that was a stark contrast to my own high school-sports were important, but the effort (at least to the extent that the Japanese kids had) wasn't really there.

Also, from what I've seen of Japanese baseball games, they seem to have a different atmosphere than the few I've experienced at home. I don't know how to describe it, but it seems "friendlier", if that makes any sense. If I get the chance, I hope to go to one someday and see for myself how different it really is.