Chris Brandt, an avid baseball fan, estimates that he’s attended 75 MLB games in his lifetime. He roots for the Seattle Mariners.
As a sports columnist, I’m always seeking fun storylines for Odds and Evens, and I stumbled upon one during Brandt’s recent trip to Japan. The Seattle-area police officer was planning to attend his first-ever NPB game.
Random people, of course, attend their first-ever (fill-in-the-blank) activity throughout the year. But what piqued my interest in interviewing Chris was the fact that one of his friends told me how much he liked baseball, and how excited he was to make plans to attend a Nippon Professional Baseball game.
On Friday, April 24, Chris, Jasper and Spencer, who became good friends during high school in the US state of Washington, went to the Yokohama DeNA BayStars–Yomiuri Giants game at Yokohama Stadium.
The 28-year-olds got their money’s worth. Sitting in the 15th row between third base and home plate, Brandt and his pals witnessed an exciting ending: an 11th-inning triumph for the BayStars. Yasutaka Tobashira delivered a sayonara double (aka walk-off hit) in the hosts’ 2-1 triumph.
For Brandt, getting a chance to see a former prominent MLB hurler in action was one of the most exciting aspects of his first baseball game in Japan.
BayStars players celebrate after Yasutaka Tobashira’s walk-off double in the 11th inning. (©SANKEI)
Fun to See Tanaka Pitch While on Vacation
Starter Masahiro Tanaka worked 6⅔ scoreless innings for the Giants, scattering eight hits among his 87 pitches.
The 37-year-old was a member of the New York Yankees from 2014-20.
“It was nice to kind of see a guy who’s really well renowned and one of the great Japanese pitchers who’ve pitched in the United States kind of at the tail end of his career after he returned back to Japan,” Brand said on Sunday, April 26.
Giants starter Masahiro Tanaka (©SANKEI)
In an interview two days after the BayStars-Giants game, the lively atmosphere at Yokohama Stadium and details of the game were fresh in Brandt’s mind.
“As he was leaving the game, he got a pretty good applause, especially from all the Giants fans, of course,” Brandt said, referring to Tanaka.
During his 10-day April vacation in Japan, his second time visiting here, Brandt recalled the big regret from his first Japan vacation. He was here in the wintertime during the NPB offseason.
“My one mandatory [activity] is I have to go to a baseball game,” he said at a bar/cafe in Tokyo’s Ota Ward.
Starting lineups for the April 24 game are displayed on the scoreboard. (©SANKEI)
Insights from an Avid Baseball Fan
Even during his trip to Japan, Brandt set aside time to keep track of how his beloved Mariners were playing.
“I was waking up in the morning and watching the Mariners on my MLB app,” he stated. “[For] a lot of their games, I’d get up and they’d be in the sixth or seventh inning.
“But thankfully, they started winning against the [St Louis] Cardinals since the last series,” he added with a chuckle. “So I haven’t started my day out with a bad note.”
Brandt watches between five and seven Mariners games a week. And he checks out scores and statistics whenever he’s unable to watch a game.
As a spectator, it’s easy to quickly notice some of the trademarks of an NPB game.
Such as?
“Every player is going to have their own chants,” Brandt said, referring to NPB games.
“I think that’s unique to Japanese and Asian baseball in general. At an MLB game, you might get fans chanting a player’s name, and it’s usually because the stadium is doing the beats like ‘I-Chi-Ro, I-Chi-Ro’ (for Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki), and getting the whole stadium to do it. But other than that, you’re not going to have every single player have their own unique chant.”
Also, he said, “the stadium atmosphere is going to be a lot more comparable to like a soccer game.”
Specifically, what was most fun for Brandt at his first NPB game?
“Definitely being able to see a walk-off [hit] is special,” he told me. “They don’t happen all the time.”
Veteran infielder Yota Kyoda scores the game-tying run in the eighth inning. (©SANKEI)
Observations During the Baseball Game
Recognizing that Brandt watches a lot of baseball games, more in fact than many sports reporters I know, I asked him for his thoughts on the quality of play at Yokohama Stadium.
I cited the fact that many people used to describe NPB as a level between Triple-A (North American minor leagues) and MLB for some context.
“It’s definitely still between Triple-A and MLB, but it’s a lot closer to MLB than Triple-A,” Brandt offered.
Twelve pitchers (six per team) participated in this clash of Central League rivals.
So what stood out about the pitching for both teams on display during the 3-hour, 47-minute game and how it compares with MLB pitching?
“MLB is a lot more fastball-based,” Brandt pointed out. “The fastball’s at a higher velocity, and [NPB] has a slightly smaller baseball, which allows for more manipulation of the balls. And as a result, you have better off-speed stuff.”
He went on: “And also, I think hitters in Japan play more like traditional classic baseball where you are playing for contact. It’s not like MLB, where you’re either trying to get a strikeout [as pitchers] or you’re trying to hit a home run.”
Chris Brandt, who says he watches several Seattle Mariners games each week, wears his new BayStars cap in Tokyo on April 27. (Courtesy of Jasper Lommen)
Enjoying Food and Beverages
In addition to drinking a few beers with his pals, Brandt also mentioned that he enjoyed trying a lemon-sour cocktail, which is generally made with shochu in Japan.
At an MLB game, a lemon sour would be labeled as hard liquor, he said, and thus, it would have to be consumed at designated spots in the stadium.
Whereas at Yokohama Stadium, drink delivery was available in all seating sections. He enthusiastically endorsed this policy.
As for the ballpark food, karage (Japanese-style fried chicken) was a big hit for Brandt and his friends. They munched on two separate orders of karage ― shiso flavor and cheese flavor.
BayStars reliever Yasuaki Yamasaki pitches in the ninth inning. (©SANKEI)
Rooting for Familiar Players
With the conversation shifting back to the game, Brandt told me that he was familiar with BayStars reliever Yasuaki Yamasaki, who has had a career-high 37 saves in three separate seasons (2015, 2018 and ’22).
“It was cool to see him pitch because he never pitched in the United States, but he’s a multiple-time All-Star here in Japan,” Brandt stated.
Yamasaki was the fourth Yokohama pitcher in this game, working a scoreless ninth inning. He walked two and struck out two.
In addition to Yamasaki, Brandt enjoyed getting to watch American outfielder Cooper Hummel, a former Mariners player, make a pinch-hit appearance in the bottom of the ninth.
Yomiuri’s Trey Cabbage hits a solo homer in the fourth inning. (©SANKEI)
A couple of hours earlier, Trey Cabbage smacked a solo homer to left, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning.
“I thought it was pretty funny seeing, because Trey Cabbage hit a home run and you look over at the Giants fans and there’s like five little American flags people are holding,” Brandt commented.
“It was just something as an American, you know, you see like a Japanese fan when Ichiro was playing for the Mariners. But it’s just unique seeing the other perspective.”
The BayStars’ Yasutaka Tobashira hits a walk-off double in the 11th inning. (©SANKEI)
On the Winning Sequence in the 11th
As the home team, the BayStars put themselves in position for a possible dramatic victory in the bottom of the 11th.
Outfielder Ryuki Watarai had a leadoff single, followed by a Kazuki Kamizato sacrifice bunt. The next batter, Dayan Viciedo, was intentionally walked.
With runners on first and second and one out, Tobashira clubbed a double to center off Yomiuri’s Yuji Akahoshi to score the winning run, thrilling a large percentage of the 33,481 spectators.
The BayStars finished with 11 hits; the Giants could only muster four ― and none after the fifth inning.
“Pretty much all game, the BayStars had been getting in [scoring] position, but just hadn’t been able to punch it in,” Brandt said. “It was like, they’re building momentum, they were able to tie it up [in the eighth inning].”
He then said, “It definitely felt like momentum was swinging their way, and it was only a matter of time.”
BayStars player Yasutaka Tobashira is seen after the 11-inning game. (©SANKEI)
A Fun Conclusion at Yokohama Stadium
Rooting for the home team gave Brandt a focus for his first baseball game in Japan.
When it was over, he was happy to see and hear a custom that made the experience unique.
“The winning song at the end, they have the light show and everyone lines up [on the field] and then bows for the crowd,” the former high school infielder said. He called it “really cool to see.”
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Author: Ed Odeven
Follow Ed’s [Japan Sports Notebook] on Sundays, [Odds and Evens] during the week, and he can be found on X (formerly Twitter) ＠ed_odeven.]
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