While the Red Sox won Friday’s exhibition against the Hanshin Tigers, 6-5, Yahoo’s Jeff Passan reports one member of the visiting World Champs was less than impressed with the local customs.
About 30 minutes before the game, Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia stood in the dugout working over the handle of his bat with a pine tar rag. Out of nowhere, a blunt noise filled the stadium. Pedroia pirouetted toward left field. A band of Tigers fans in left field had begun a chant. Then drums joined in. Then a horn. And clapping.
œWhat the (expletive) is that? Pedroia asked.
Get used to it, he was told. That™s Japanese baseball.
The answer seemed not to suffice.
œShut up! Pedroia yelled toward the fans.
Four hundred feet away, they couldn™t hear Pedroia, and even if they could, his bellyaching would not have deterred a thing. Baseball games in Japan are spectacles in simplicity: quiet, bordering on silent, during the opponents™ at-bats, and fervent, with cheers and whistles and other such chicanery, during the home teams.
In Pedroia’s defense, I’ve had a similar reaction almost every time I’ve visited Fenway Park and heard “Sweet Caroline” being sung in the middle of the 8th inning.