Arigato Lola Sports Talk reader San.
Welcome to the Tokyo Dome. It’s the home of defending Champion Tokyo Giants. As we all know, baseball is (wait for it)… big in Japan, so the defending champs home opener is about as big as it gets in the Land of the Rising Sun.
The Tokyo Dome is situated in northern Tokyo. It’s perched atop an elevated platform and is flanked by a full on amusement park, Michael Jackson style. It was built in 1988 and has housed an incredible array of events ever since.
I went with my friend Emmett, who one time in Little League beaned my younger brother while my Dad was in the crowd.
Yankees fans remember “Godzilla”, Hideki Matsui. Prior to being a huge part in their 2009 World Series victory, he was the face of the Giants (who are coincidentally, the Yankees of Japan).
Since it’s opening night, I’m sure he is tucked away in a skybox watching.
2012 Champs.
Today’s opponent was the Hiroshima Carp. Their merch is about as cute and anime-y as you could expect from Japan.
The Giants mascot is apparently an anime rabbit. Maybe something was lost in translation?
Because it was Japan, you are expecting everything to be futuristic, but the stadium was rather antiquated. This place is 25 years old and has dingy ceilings, it kind of had that Georgia Dome vibe.
They had an older gentleman, who I’m sure is famous here, throw out the first pitch. He was dressed in some form of traditional Japanese garb. 
He ended up throwing out the worst first pitch this side of Carl Lewis.
The entire left field was a Carp supporter section (fans in red) while the rest of the outfield was Giants fans (in orange). They would battle back and forth with chants and noisemakers. The infield seemed to be the quiet family section.
Also, doesn’t that look just like a Japanese Bill O’Reilly on the second photo?
Not trying to be all Brent Musburger, but really pretty female beer girls cruised the stadium with kegs on their back, dispensing fresh suds right at your seat. At Jets games the beer man is a thugged out guy with tattoos on his neck and forearm. Advantage Japan.
I couldn’t contain my excitement to try Japanese stadium food and I exploded out of my seat in my pursuit of rating foreign stadium nourishment.
No idea what this stuff is.
The crepes smelled amazing.
I’m not sure if this is made of bread or jerky, but it’s a life sized baseball bat made of food.
The line at Gindaco drew me to it. The only think they served was takuyaki. It’s a piece of octopus, put in a kind of pancake dough. It’s then fried into a ball (the dough on the inside is still raw) and topped with (for lack of a better word) stuff.
As a huge octopus fan that had seen this on Travel Channel shows, I was very excited to try. A little too excited as my mouth was scorched with molten batter as I immediately hustled one into my mouth. After the initial shock I was able to enjoy the small piece of tasty octopus. I wish they had way more octopus in them, stop being stingy.
Everyone neatly stacks their trash. #Japan
In the standing room only section people took off their shoes.
The smoking section.
Here’s a mascot that Americans are familiar with, Colonel Sanders. There’s apparently a Curse of Colonel Sanders in Japan. Hanshin Tigers fans threw a Colonel Sanders statue into a river during the celebration of their teams first (and now only ) league win. The Colonel was displeased and according to legend hexed the team. They will not win a league title again until the statue is retrieved from the river. So far the curse has held true.
When you use a bathroom here, you can be pretty sure that George Michael did something skeevy in it back in 1991.
USA!
People can argue Michael Jackson vs Prince, but the Tokyo Dome got the best of both worlds.
Everyone knows about Mike Tyson losing to Buster Douglas here, but did you know he mopped up Tony Tabbs in two rounds in ’88.
Basically, if you were a kid in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s, someone you liked a lot came through this building at some point.
I checked into the Carp section just as they were scoring a run to take the lead. The fans were ecstatic.
Here we see ex MLB player Fred Lewis, one of the Carps Americans. I vividly remember watching the movie “Mr Baseball“. The culture clash, the different view on sports and the hot foreign women were emblazoned into my nine year old brain who already had interests in sports and travel. 21 years later, here I am, watching the team that Tom Selleck team in the end of the movie (the Giants), this is awesome.
Here’s what the mayonaise chicken (fried chicken, lightly poached egg, pepper mayonaise, dry seaweed over steamed rice) is supposed to look like, and here’s what it actually looks like. It was kind of gnarly because the egg was pretty cold (so was the chicken now that I think about it), but at least the what it was supposed to look like looks delicious.
One of the downsides of being a beer girl is that your knees get dirty.
The coolest part about Japan is how well everyone dresses. They put a ton of time and thought into their every look. Well except for this guy with the graphics on the front of his jeans. Go back to Vegas with that.
I checked into the Giants fan section just in time to see them take the lead for good. I’m like the anti Colonel Sanders in Japan, when I show up in your cheering section, runs are scored.
I was only in Japan for 5 days, but older Japanese people were not too friendly on the street. At the game was a different story as people were hugging me and being friendly as all hell. Sports is a language of togetherness (or division) around the World. It’s even strong enough to get the Japanese to bend the rigidness towards foreigners that their culture can be known for at time.
(Actual top view of the Tokyo Dome)
They sell and ice cream version of their stadium. Now we all know what it’s like to be Godzilla.
The Giants would go on to win, they picked up where they left off, winning. It was really cool to see a culture on the other side of the World take something as American as baseball and make it their own. I’m glad I got marginally clo
Look for a photo essay from a rugby match in Tokyo (7′s) coming up and this Saturday I’m going to Yankees Stadium to watch the Champions League Finals (GO BAYERN!) on the big screen and then Chelsea vs Man City on the pitch.
The outfield had an amazing view of the Miami skyline. The only way this view could be more Miami to mewould be if a helicopter flew over and threw out Omar Suarez. And I mean that in a good way.
While circling the food stands, nothing really stood out to me, but in fairness to the stadium, I didn’t check out the “Taste of Miami” section. I’m sure it was tastier than normal stadium food (Levy Restaurants > > Aramark). I was pleased with my decision to cook on the garage roof.
As it got later and later, more reporters perused the line, trying to find the drunkest fan to look foolish on TV. It was like shooting fish in a barrel
I took a load off while JoJo dug in the sand box down the right field line. It’s cool that the bull pen is right there but as a parent I would worry about foul balls.
I left Phuket, but life goes on as there are fights every night.
