Rakuten Eagles’ fans sitting out in left field
by Gen on Oct.13, 2009 @ 4:00 pm, under NPB
Andrew, over at TheEaglesBlog.com, was at the last regular game of the season and mentions how the fans in left were upset at Nomura and the team for walking off the field before acknowledging them.
At the end of the game there was a brief presentation of gifts to Nomura and some players in front of their dugout, after which the team promptly exited the field to the locker room. The team didn't even come over to left field to acknowledge their biggest and loudest cheering section!!! Mind you, most of the Ouendan are season's ticket holders as well, and they were NOT happy that Nomura didn't make an appearance. There was lots of angry yelling and jeering from Rakuten's most faithful supporters, who were visibly shocked that he didn't even give them a wave. I left the Ouendan before things got really ugly.
What I'd like to present below are a number of video streams I've found of the event. Very interesting stuff.
Here's a video of the flower presentation I found on YouTube.
If you fast-forward to about 2m 42s, you'll see that one of the players steps out of the line in the direction of the dugout. He then quickly gets back in line when he notices no one else has moved yet. This leads me to believe that this was decided before hand. The question is who decided it: was it the front office? Nomura? Or the players? This, we may never know officially.
There's another non-YouTube video over here.
The fans out in left wanted to know why they were being ignored, or more to the point, why Nomura didn't make his usual end-of-the-year speech and why the players didn't take their usual walk around the field.
The club's explanation:
- The regular season is indeed over, but there is still the Climax Series so they felt it wouldn't make sense to hold an end-of-the-year ceremony.
- The usual end-of-the-year ceremony will take place at the end of the Climax Series.
The site I linked to above is a fan blog written in Japanese. The author of the blog goes into a bit of an explanation as to what may have triggered the fans to stage a sit-in in left field and here's the gist:
The fans in right were surprised when the team didn't hold their usual end-of-the-season ceremonies during the last game of the season as they usually do. And while the fans felt that an end-of-the-season ceremony would simply be something to mark the end of the regular season, the front office felt that it wouldn't be fitting because the season actually wasn't over yet.
There's also more to the story that includes fan frustration building up over the years stemming from bans that don't allow fans to bring in their own food and drinks into the stadium to yearly ticket price hikes.
And in the end, the fans just wanted one last chance to see their team take a bow on the field for their amazing season.
It's a matter of semantics I suppose (end-of-the-season vs. end-of-the-regular-season), but the fans have a case. I mean, would it have been so awful for Nomura to take the mic at the end of the game and say a few quick words before walking off the field?
And it's not like it would've been something that was unheard of. In fact, quite the opposite.
The Fighters appropriately held a ceremony after their last game of the season (10/10). And like the Eagles, it was the very last game on their schedule.
The Softbank Hawks also held a ceremony at their last home game (10/6).
Even the Giants held a ceremony at their last game of the season at Tokyo Dome (10/3), even though they still had 3 away games on the schedule.
The Swallows did as well (10/12).
And while the Dragons' ceremony at their last home game did focus on Tatsunami, it did give the fans something to cheer about.
All of these teams are moving on to the Climax Series and all of them, except for the Eagles, held ceremonies at the end of their last home games.
Why the Eagles couldn't, I have no idea.
It really is a shame how all of this unnecessary junk is spilling out at a time when Eagles' fans should be celebrating and enjoying the team's amazing run.
October 13th, 2009 on 4:45 pm
Gen, I know how much you love informal polls with small sample sizes, so I conducted a couple of my own while I waited in my local Lawson from 3am to 10am to buy playoff tickets.
After the first three hours were spent in a sexually charged atmosphere with the elderly female clerk, eventually fans started to line up behind me for tickets and of course the conversation turned to baseball.
Out of all the discussion, two salient opinions became apparent. First, the Eagles were going to be in big trouble without Linden. Second, not one person in the group of 25 or so said that they wanted Nomura to return as manager. The general consensus among the fans was that Nomura thought himself to be more important than the team. The real kicker is that it’s the fans who are going to be ultimately screwed by what has transpired this month.
As for the ticket sales this morning, we were told that after the season’s ticket holders and fan club members finished with their priority opportunity to buy tickets, only about 3,000 remained for the general public. Basically it was going to be a lottery to get one’s hands on the remaining tickets. Out of the 25 that waited behind me, NONE of them got to buy any tickets. I was the only one that got tickets, and only a pair for Friday’s opener at that. The asking price for a pair of tickets on Yahoo! Auction is already approaching 60,000 yen… ludicrous.
October 13th, 2009 on 6:15 pm
“Gen, I know how much you love informal polls with small sample sizes…”
I don’t actually “love informal polls with small samples sizes.” I only post what I see online for people that want to know what’s being said in the media.
October 13th, 2009 on 8:02 pm
Andrew, that’s actually pretty typical, and why it’s such a big deal for people to join fan clubs. I actually know a guy who is a member of all 6 Pacific League team fan clubs… but whenever the Fighters go anywhere, and also in the postseason as well these last few years, he has never, ever had trouble getting a ticket to any game he wants to go to (but we do make fun of him when we see him waiting in the fan club line in his Fighters gear).
The Rakuten situation is interesting just because the stadium is so small, though. The Fighters and their 45,000-seat dome had a decent chunk of tickets left for the general public, but they also have a huge stadium, so.
October 13th, 2009 on 8:44 pm
Yeah, I knew it was gonna be a hot ticket. The kind soul who let me budge in the Ouendan line with him on Sunday was a season’s ticket holder, and over the few hours that we waited and chatted together he pretty much said I’d be lucky to get my hands on some tickets, which led to me showing up 7 hours early and lying on the floor of a convenience store.
Just wondering now what the protocol is on how early I can reserve my place in line for the Ouendan seats by sticking a cardboard sign on the ground at the stadium. Heck they’re probably already filled up! Looks like I’ll have to find my new friend again…
They should scrap the Loppi section in right field though, turning it into a jiyuuseki area for the playoffs and interleague play when the games are overflowing.