Green Seat
The seats of the Hanshin Tigers home stadium, Hanshin Koshien stadium are named Green Seat behind backstop under the famous Silver Roof, Yellow Seat at the first base side, and Orange Seat at the third base side respectively. Each seat is colored by the color of its name.
As most seats are occupied by Tiger fans in the case of this Koshien stadium, there’s no difference between first base side and the third. However, fans try to sit down at the first base side, as the Tiger bench is located at this side. Some Tiger fans dare sit down at the third base side to dump on opponent players, though… So, if we see the stadium from above, we can see brown sands and green lawns on the ground, black heads, and orange seats at the stands when the stadium is not full. Yellow seats can not be seen as the crowd occupies them.
It is hard to sit down at the bleachers or at the infield stands of the Koshien stadium as one advances in years, as young and energetic Tiger fans stand up all the time and continue yelling for the Tigers.
The ticket for the Green Seat is very expensive and it was difficult for Yumi to buy it, when she was young. Yumi, a Tiger fan, always bought a Yellow seat ticket which is less expensive than the one for the Yellow Seat.
Yumi always wondered why some middle-aged ladies occupied the Yellow Seats and cheered or booed the Tigers. She guessed that they were singles and their sole anchorage was the Tigers. She would think that she would never become such a lady when she got old.
As Yumi was born in Nishinomiya city where Koshien stadium is located, the Hanshin Tigers is the only professional baseball team for her and the Koshien stadium is the only stadium for the professional baseball.
Now most stadiums in Japan have artificial lawns and roofs. It seems the stadium like Koshien built in 1924 is out of date. Especially the Japanese ivies surrounding the outside walls make us feel retro atmosphere.
There happens very few irregular bounds thanks to artificial lawns. However, at Koshien, some grounders may decide the game or even change the life of players regardless of professional baseball or high school baseball. She always heard staff of the stadium always checked the ground condition and leveled the ground.
It was 2 years ago when Yumi got married and moved to Tokyo. The partner for Yumi who had grew up near the unroofed stadium was a fan for the team whose home stadium is roofed. The guy working for the company in Tokyo temporarily worked at their Kobe office. During his stay in Kobe, they met each other. It did not take much time for Yumi, just before 30 years old at that time, to decide the marriage with the guy. He proposed to live together. She would also think she may get married with somebody when time comes. The guy happened to show up in front of her at the age when most women consider marriage seriously. Just after their decision of marriage he went back to headquarters in Tokyo.
The puzzlement Yumi had in her Tokyo life was much bigger than she expected. She now does not know if it was really big or not. For persons who have anxiety, trivial issues might become big issues.
The names for the same foods were different. The size of tatami mat was different. The color of noodle soup was very dark… Finally, she was warned not to stand at the right side in the escalator.
Her husband never came back home until midnight once he left home in the morning. All neighbors are strangers in the big city like Tokyo. It was a stressful life for her not to speak with any persons.
Then, she remembered the Tigers! She thought the stress may be lightened when she watched the Tiger matches. In the place where she grew up all Tiger games were televised. However, she soon noticed that there were neither TV programs for the Tigers nor radio programs in Tokyo. She tried hard to listen to radio programs for the Tigers broadcasted in Osaka under heavy noises.
The Tigers lost most games. It was alright for Yumi as she had gotten accustomed to the Tiger losses since she was born.
Sometimes she went to the Tokyo Dome to see the Tiger games. However, something was different at the Dome. Do they really the Tigers playing in front of her? In fact the weakness clearly showed they are the Tigers.
The green diamond, very little outfield stands, and above all there was no sea breeze in the stadium. On top of that, she noticed the uniform for the Tigers is different, though the fact is very common. The Tiger players seemed to have very formal wears.
Their marriage collapsed just before it became 2 years old. The husband never understood the stress Yumi had had and just commuted as a general salaryman between home and office. The day of the divorce was just the same usual day for him. He took breakfast and left home at the exactly same time as usual. Yumi washed the dishes and cleaned up rooms. After she overlooked around the rooms, she closed the door of their home. It was just an extension of her normal life. It seemed that she was just going shopping as usual, except that she dropped the key into the post instead of her bag.
When she left the key, the extra inning of the life was over. She did not know if she won the game or lost. Only the fact is at least a fight in her life ended.
Mt. Fuji, located at the left side, was seen at the right side of the Bullet train now, Nagoya stadium was left instead of right. The train passed over the Kyoto’s Kamo river and arrived at Shin-Osaka station.
Going to Nishinomiya, Yumi without hesitation decided to take the Hanshin train instead of the JR train which runs quicker between Osaka and Nishinomiya. At the station she found many Tiger fans heading for the Koshien stadium started yelling.
At the Koshien station, she unconsciously jumped off from the train though Nishinomiya is a few stops ahead.
There were many souvenir shops between the Koshien station and the stadium. When she passed under the highway, the ivy-covered and her familiar Koshien stadium showed up.
Brown sands, green lawns, purely white uniforms, cocktail-colored lightning, sea breeze, smoke from BBQed chicken shops, the sound of ball hit by a bat which echoed under the Silver Roof. Everything seemed to welcome Yumi.
She noticed she bought a ticket for the Green Seat.
There was a middle-aged lady who probably came to the stadium alone shouted to the ground. Yumi also started shouting.
Just as the games of the Tigers, there are always losses in one’s life. The Green Seat, which is the nearest seat from the players, is the seat to swear the one’s starting over together with the players.
There is no sayonara-loss at the home stadium, at least.
（Pancho’s explication）
Hanshin Koshien stadium
-The Hanshin Tigers’ home stadium built in 1924 and located at the city called Nishinomiya, between Osaka and Kobe. It is a very and the only traditional stadium in Japan. It is the biggest stadium in Japan.
-The high school baseball tournaments are held at the stadium every spring and summer. Star players from the tournaments are drafted from the pro teams. So, thousands of high schools fight in the preliminary tournaments in each region to go to Koshien. Now, the word ‘Koshien’ is used as the pronoun of the big high school sports event. Baseball is so popular in Japan and is the part of the Japanese life.
-The Hanshin Tigers is one of the oldest professional baseball teams in Japan. But, they got the penannt only a very few times during past 70 years. Especially, from late 1980’s to early 2000’s, the team had always been at the last place. However, the number of (crazy) fans is quite a few.
Hanshin is the artificial word and it means the area between Osaka and Kobe. ‘Han’ means Osaka, and ‘Shin’ means Kobe.
Sayonara win, Sayonara loss
-The game-ending win (or loss) at the bottom of 9th or extra innings is called sayonara (=goodbye) win (or loss) in Japan. There’s no sayonara loss at the home stadium.
Roof
The Tokyo Dome is the pronoun of dome stadiums. Japanese just call the stadium ‘Dome’ even though many other dome stadium have been built after the opening of the Tokyo Dome.
The Tokyo Dome is the home stadium of the Tokyo Giants. The Giants and the Tigers have been the rivals since the dawn of the Japanese baseball, just as Tokyo and Hanshin (Osaka and Kobe) have been the rivals in the country’s history.
The Giants was named after the NY Giants (the San Francisco Giants, now) as Tokyo was the biggest city in Japan like New York and the Tigers was named after the Detroit Tigers as the Hanshin is the biggest industrial area in Japan like Detroit. Don’t blame me the names were decided in the 1930’s…
