Tora! Tora! Tora!

The chopsticks say it all, really. When you sit down to eat at the izakaya Tora, you see a notice on the chopstick wrapper: “kyoujin fan okotowari”. No Giants fans! You have been warned.

Unless you’re just coming off a plane, you know that baseball’s Hanshin Tigers are coming off their best season since 1985. A new baseball season begins in April, and we thought we’d ask a few Tigers fans how they felt about it. Tora (Tiger), the unofficial izakaya of serious fan club members, seemed like the ideal place to go.

In 2003, the bandwagon was overflowing with politicians, businesses, civic boosters of all kinds, cashing in on the Hanshin Tigers’ first pennant win in 18 years.

For one giddy autumn, the Hanshin logo graced every available space in Kansai, from election posters to beer cans. Even competitors at last fall’s international judo tournament in Osaka were encouraged by an official to “never, never, never give up, just like the Hanshin Tigers” (which probably gave much-needed inspiration to the judoka from Africa, Europe, and the Americas). Their subsequent honorable defeat to the Daiei Hawks in the Japan Series barely dampened Osaka’s rediscovered spirit.

The Hanshin Tigers had just lost a pre-season game to the Hawks the afternoon Taka the photographer and I arrived at Hankyu Imazu station, in Nishinomiya, so we were a bit nervous about how we would be received. We’d heard the stories about irate Tigers fans who suspect spies in their midst. Would they...?

Well, no.

Though still charged up from the game, the patrons of Tora were more than willing to answer, in rapid-fire Osaka-ben, a few questions in my plodding, textbook Japanese. Although my methods were not exactly scientific (and the music and singing and spontaneous cheerleading lessons drowned out some of the answers), here’s what a fairly representative cross-section of fans had to say. Koshien, take note!

Let me set the scene: a long, narrow shop consisting of one long counter, with twenty stools, and a few benches along the wall for extra patrons to sit and wait their turn at on a busy night. Those walls are covered, from top to bottom, with posters, calendars, photos (many autographed, several old, black-and-white) of the Hanshin Tigers. The television on the wall plays loops of the latest game. Tigers songs blare from speakers seemingly at random. Virtually every customer wears a team shirt with the name of their favourite player emblazoned on the back. If they couldn’t tell us something, who could?

Two young salarymen, brothers Hirofumi and Takafumi Otsuki, who live in nearby Nishinomiya, said they’d just come from the game, and went to Koshien whenever they could. Why? “Our jobs are hard, we’ve got a lot of stress. Going to a game helps to work it off.” Why did they think the Tigers won last year, after sleepwalking since 1985? “Well,” said Hirofumi, “because of the great supporters” which raised a cheer from those around him. And also the former manager, Senichi Hoshino.

I asked a truck driver, who said his name was “Hoshino” (alias?), if he had any advice for the new manager, Akinobu Okada. “Yeah,” he answered, taking time out from leading a particularly elaborate cheer,” Stay away from Shinchi,” the exclusive bar district in Osaka. “The girls cost too much.” I took his word for it.

At this point, a couple of drummers from the official supporters club came in — without drums — and I quietly bought another beer as the singing of the team song The Wind of Rokko Mountain welled up yet again.

Judging from the names on the backs of the shirts and happi, the Tigers to watch for this year are Tomoaki Kanemoto (left field), Atsushi Fujimoto (short stop), and Norihiro Akahoshi (centre field). I noticed a line of five women wearing Akahoshi shirts: what’s with him, I asked? Yuriko, a college student from Neyagawa, spoke up:

“He’s fast, and he’s cute.” Her friends firmly nodded in agree-ment. Again, who was I to argue? I was outnumbered four to one.
I spoke with the Master, Ohira-san, who told me to watch out for Mike Kincaid, a new foreign player, who might just be the next Randy Bass, the bearded gaijin god of 1985. He also very diplomatically told me he supported new manager Okada “from this year. Because he’s the manager now. And he used to be a great player” (from, of course, the golden year of ‘85). As for the Dotombori jumping craze of 2003 (revived for the World Cup in 2002), he wasn’t impressed. “What do I have to go there for? There are plenty of Tigers fans here!”

One thing I couldn’t get anyone to talk about was who they thought would win the pennant this year. I put this to a red-faced man with a white towel on his head (tied up in the back like wings). “Nnnnnnnnnnnn, muzukashii,” he replied, and the “nnnnnnnn” became infectious and spread to everyone around him. Tigers fans are madly loyal, but also famously superstitious. There are people who still believe that Colonel Sanders put a curse on the team after his likeness was stolen from the front of a KFC and chucked into the Dotombori after the Japan Series celebrations of 1985. Nobody wants to jinx the team by tempting fate again.

“The Giants are strong this year... ” several people said, hedging their bets, “and Nagashima is ill... ” another added, cryptically (Shigeo Nagashima is the revered former star batter and manager of the rival Yomiuri Giants, who recently suffered a mild stroke). “Japanese fans are sentimental..,” added another. Even the famously hard-bitten Tigers? Who’d have thought?

So in the end, we didn’t come away with any great predictions for the coming year. But the true believers don’t deal in that sort of thing. The worship is an end in itself, and if the signs are auspicious, and the gods are pleased, the devotion will pay off. If not, there’s always that very useful Japanese sports fan’s phrase to fall back on: shikatta-ga nai. And in the meantime, have a beer. Sing a song. And enjoy the wind off Mount Rokko.

Text: Colin Doyle • Photos: Taka Kataoka