Rakuten vs. Lotte @ Tokyo Dome Placeholder Post

I am currently so tired I can barely hold my head up. I got home, grabbed photos off my camera, cropped a few, and then realized I had been up since 6am and was going to pass out shortly.

The Rakuten Golden Eagles hosted the Chiba Lotte Marines at the Tokyo Dome tonight, and beat them 8-2. For whatever reason, they seriously got around 41,000 people to come there. Unreserved seats completely sold out. I still don't know why, as the Fighters typically can't even sell out the lower level when they play, and the Marines certainly don't sell out Jingu when they come there. My guess is that there had to be some kind of coupon deal going on, because yesterday I bought a Reserved A seat for today's game, and I was literally in the second row behind the Marines dugout. This is a better seat than I ever had for a Marines regular-season game outside of when certain former managers left me tickets in Chiba. WTF.

The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Randy Johnson, but there's no way he was the reason everyone was there. The real starters were Satoshi Nagai and Yuki Karakawa -- again, I don't get it. Anyway..




Randy Johnson


This is where I was sitting. I could see Kenji Morozumi giving signals for the entire game, and I could see into the TV camera viewfinder.


Shoitsu Ohmatsu


Karakawa on the sidelines


Norihiro and Kusano laugh together as Karakawa gets taken out of the game, not sure what they are pointing to in the Marines dugout


Naoki Matoba, who is two days younger than me


Bryan Corey


Oh yeah, Norihiro Nakamura hit a 2-run homer. That was nuts. I guess he isn't QUITE done yet.

I took a whole lot of photos but since it's the Tokyo Dome, a lot of them didn't come out. I only brought the camera because I figured it'd be a waste of a 2nd-row seat otherwise.

Really, I am collapsing. I hope to write more about this game later and put up more photos, but it may not happen. Tomorrow night my favorite Rikkio University stringbean pitcher Kenji Tomura is making his debut with Rakuten, starting for the Eagles as they play their next game against Lotte in Koriyama. Hopefully it won't rain.