A Picture is Worth 2009 Words

Happy new year, everyone.



Just like last year and every year, I saved every ticket from every game I went to.

And well, the final count was 122 games attended in 2009.

Teams I saw the most games:
1. Nippon Ham Fighters, 58 games
2. Chiba Lotte Marines, 32 games
3. Yomiuri Giants, 15 games
4. Yakult Swallows, 11 games
5. Meiji University, 10 games
5. Seibu Lions, 10 games
7. Orix Buffaloes, 9 games
8. Hosei University, 8 games
8. Chunichi Dragons, 8 games
(the next one is 7 games, a tie for Softbank Hawks, and for Waseda and Keio university)

I think this is fairly representative of my year -- I saw a lot of Fighters games and a lot of Marines games, a lot of Pacific League ball in general, and a lot of college baseball. The Giants games were all pretty much cheering against them -- the Fighters interleague and Japan Series, plus going to Jingu with the Tsubamegun guys to cheer against the Giants, plus going to Dragons games to do the special Yomiuri Taose cheers at the Tokyo Dome, and this also counted a few preseason games when I got free tickets to see the Marines-Giants and such.

I'm a little surprised to realize I didn't see the Rakuten Eagles more often (only 4 times). I think what happened is that I saw them on TV a lot, and this year I didn't see their minor-league team nearly as much as I did last year, basically.

Stadiums I saw the most games:
1. Meiji Jingu Stadium, 34 games
2. Tokyo Dome, 29 games
3. Chiba Marine Stadium, 17 games
4. Fighters Kamagaya Stadium, 7 games
4. Seibu Dome, 7 games
5. Koshien, 5 games
6. Sapporo Dome, 4 games

Jingu is being a little bit inflated by the fact that I often sit through two college baseball games in one day there.

I went to 18 different stadiums in 12 different prefectures on all 4 major islands of Japan, so that was pretty good.

My goals for 2010 in terms of watching games are:

1) Go to some Hokushinetsu/BCL games, definitely one in Niigata's new stadium
2) Go to Okinawa (this may not happen because of timing with a trip I'm taking back to the US, though, I won't get back until Feb 23)
3) Take a train to Hokkaido and see a game in Tohoku inaka somewhere on the way
4) See a home game for every minor-league team in Japan
5) See the Ibaraki Golden Golds
6) See more industrial league ball than just the Toshitaikou
7) See some college ball besides Tohto and Big 6

I *think* that's it. I should in theory add trying to see the Girls Pro League and trying to catch Eri Yoshida somewhere, but I'm not sure how serious I am about that. I think I want to go back to Koshien again next year now that I understand how it works, too, but we'll see.

And for the record, the hiatus in December mostly happened because I was having a very stressful time finishing up my job at the junior high school I was at, along with writing a lot elsewhere and not really having a lot to say here -- there doesn't seem to be a point in me translating articles anymore now that someone else is doing it, although I guess I could add some commentary on things. I still read baseball magazines and keep up with stuff, but December is a pretty dead month for actually doing things per se. However, I'm hoping to do a few things with the blog in the next month or two. We'll see. The offseason SUCKS.