Chiba is a town a short train ride away from Tokyo. Some background about why we went there. I'm a New York Mets baseball fan. The team used to be managed by a man named Bobby Valentine. He earned my respect and affection as a fan, and was also entertaining. At the time, the Mets were doing awful and the manager was quite boring. They were in the market for a new manager. Bobby Valentine is, at the time I write this, managing the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan and very highly respected out there. In fact, they treat him like a god, and present him with flowers before every game. He even has a statue of his likeness in front of the stadium. I was hoping maybe I'd get to see him and convince him to come back to New York. When we arrived at Chiba though, our first mission was food, and we found the Long Branch Saloon.
We had a waitress with a bright smile and a fashionable hat. The food was okay.
Here's some of the food. Taco salad I think. Not nearly as Japanese as the restaurant's name suggested.
Here's the Marines' stadium.
The mascots of the Chiba Lotte Marines, me, and Miller.
Here's that statue of Bobby Valentine I mentioned. Everything is actually fairly close to life-sized, except the thumb. I bought a Marines jersey by the way.
I bought tickets for this game well in advance in the states, through japanball.com, and had the tickets delivered to our ryokan (hotel) in Tokyo.
Warm-ups on the field before the game. I was just trying to find Bobby Valentine.
Some wore a cozy-looking Marines yukata at the game. The flower in the hair is certainly something you wouldn't see often at a baseball game in the states. That's too bad.
Found him! The dude on the fence is Bobby Valentine, who wears the number 2. I took this picture at full zoom (16x), so I couldn't tell this picture was of him until later, when I could see the full resolution photo. I could sort of tell it was him by the mannerisms and how people acted around him.
The mascot, Bobby Valentine, and a kid. What's that guy in blue? I think that was the Orix Buffaloes manager, also presented with flowers. I'm glad for that, because it'd be a little weird if Valentine was the only one who received flowers.
This is Bobby Valentine, displayed on the scoreboard, walking back to the dugout with the flowers presented to him.
The two bright-eyed mascots, and some girl with a baseball. I totally forget why she was out there.
Here's a shot of a lot of the Marines baseball players in the dugout.
Cheerleaders accompanied the mascot, marching around, rallying up the fans.
More practicing on the field before the game.
Players started to get to their positions on the field as the grounds crew put the final touches on the field.
The home plate area is being fixed up and repainted as the mascot and her hooligans wreak more havoc on the field.
Here are shots of various players during the game. The first one, labeled "Benny", is Benny Agbayani. He's a somewhat stocky Hawaiian guy who used to play on the Mets when Bobby Valentine managed. He was good but never really that impressive. I can see him being a success in Japan, which is admittedly a bit less competitive than the Major League teams in the US.
Batter, catcher, umpire, all waiting for the next pitch.
When a pitcher got pulled from the game, this silver Volvo drove out to the pitcher's mound with the new pitcher, and the current one jumped in to be driven away. Big time-saver I guess. It's different, so I like it.
More action shots from the game, along with that car again. You can see Benny Agbayani reaching first base in this shot.
The stadium was saturated with Japanese girls selling beer. If you want to buy beer from pretty women, perhaps you should get into Japanese baseball. One older fan near us had a favorite beer girl and got all giddy every time she approached. A bit creepy, but who am I to judge anyone? So the Marines were leading something like 9-1 and finished the game 9-8. As a Mets fan, this felt normal to me. Trust me. The amazing thing was there was a grand slam by each side. The fans were absolutely amazing, having a different theme song for every Marine that went up to bat. I had a wonderful time, and I think that's the most important thing, even if Japanese beer isn't that good.
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