Seattle Marinerds
It's nice to know that players such as Brian Sweeney take their time to talk with their fans. Is it customary to exchange omiyage within the ouendan every game?
Yeah, Brian is a seriously nice guy. Several Japanese fans have told me they're sad they can't speak to him in English too because he seems so nice.
As for omiyage, it's a Japanese thing really -- if you go on a trip, by custom, you are supposed to bring gifts from your hometown for the people you are visiting, and when you return, you are supposed to bring gifts from where you travelled to for the people back at home. So since I went to the Hiroshima games, and told people about it, I was kind of obligated to give them omiyage. BUT since so many people travelled to Tokyo from all over Japan for this weekend's games, they were also obligated to bring omiyage from wherever they came from. It just works out that way -- usually I end up getting omiyage from the Hokkaido crew but not so much exchanging, but this last week a ton of us did a ton of travel so there was a lot of it going around.
The thing is, omiyage tends to be small packages of regional yummy food, or normal sweets in regional wrappers, so for the most part, people like giving and receiving omiyage anyway. The only one I don't really like is mentaiko, which comes from Kyushu, so occasionally after the Fighters have played at the Yahoo Dome people will give me mentaiko stuff and I'll be like "Thanks!" and then put it in my bag and conveniently "forget" to eat it, or after the game be like "wow, I didn't eat this, would you like it?" to someone else.
(To be fair though, it can also be a pain in the ass sometimes when you're running late for your train and running low on money and you're like "Crap, I still need to spend $20 on some kind of sweets to bring back for my coworkers...")
> you are supposed to bring gifts from your hometown for the people you are visiting
Can you get cheesesteaks in Japan? :-)
Hometown is a misnomer, I mean the place where you live. So I bring Tokyo stuff when I go to other cities.
There is a cheesesteak stand at Chiba Marine Stadium actually, but it's pretty terrible. I saw one at Hiroshima too, but wasn't going to try that when I had crazy things like Kurihara bento to try instead.
I've found (and I'm sure you have as well) that the further you get from Philly, the less something that is called a cheesesteak actually resembles one.
Bobby's run through the tail end of games without a DH a few times that i've seen. I was at a game last year where the team went about 3 innings without a DH in the lineup.
Too bad none of the pitchers have hit outside of interleague, at least that I have seen!
In response to your comment about hidden food places behind center field, it took me 3 years of attending pirate games (even after having seasons tickets) before I noticed the Manny Sanguillén BBQ stand behind the center field stands which not only have awesome BBQ pork sandwich platters with slaw & Baked Beans, but they frequently come with an autograph from Manny himself at his signature table next to the cash register.
Still, after 8 seasons, I've figured out the shortest routes to the all of the interesting PNC park food spots (both primanti's, manny's, quaker state wings, and the potato patch fry place that drenches them with Chili/Cheese/Sour Cream/Chives/Garlic).
I'm much more of an "explore the damn stadium" kind of person, though... so even though I haven't been to PNC Park that many times (maybe 10 times total, ever?) I remember where the wings and Primanti's and Manny's are. I also knew the Safeco Field concessions stands by heart -- what they sold and how much everything was. I'm a dork like that.
Here at Chiba it's more of a case of "Why the hell did I never think of walking through that door to see what is there?" Given I don't sit in the outfield in Chiba a lot anymore, and I'd actually gotten in the habit of bringing food with me anyway, but still... I felt pretty dumb.
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