Fighting Ham, Hokkaido-style

Just one word: FUN!

..but here's the long version:

On Monday night, a group of about 30 of us from PMF trekked over to the Sapporo Dome, the local pro baseball venue, home to the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Of course, even though the "ham" part comes from the name of their corporate sponsor (Nippon-Ham), it's preferable to introduce ambiguity and call them the Ham Fighters instead. (are they fighting on behalf of the ham, or against processed meats?)

The whole thing was really cool- much different from American Major League baseball. Each team has a section of the outfield seating allocated for their most dedicated fans, who wave flags and belt out songs and chants with military precision. In a way, it's all very courteous- you're supposed to let the at-bat team do the cheering and chanting, so everybody gets their turn to make noise.


Plus, there's better food- don't you wish that you could get bento box dinners at MLB games? For beer, too, they have a smart system- beer vendors (representing all of Japan's major breweries) roam the aisles with keg-backpacks instead of bottles.


To top it all off, the Ham Fighters won the game! Last time I checked, they were still narrowly in first place in the Pacific League (the Japanese equivalent of the AL, since they use a designated hitter).