The Nippon Steel SGL Stadium Amagasaki opened on March 1, 2025 as the home ball park for the Hanshin Tigers farm team, known as 二軍 (
ni-gun, 2-gun), the second army, the second string players, the Japanese minor league and/or the farm... It is located inside the Zero Carbon Base Ball Park, and as the name might suggest, the park is commitmented to environmentalism, social contributions and SDGs. It is a quite nice and eco-friendly space where people can hang out to wait for the game to start. The park (but not the stadium) with its walking and jogging paths and multi-use plaza is open to the public on non-game days as well. While the park and stadium have many barrier-free accommodations (rest rooms, elevators, wheel chair user seating) they are still a lot of steps and stairs that are steep. And the stadium seats are on the small side...
Zero Carbon Base Ball Park website:
https://zerocarbon-bp.hanshin.co.jp/
I arrived an hour before the stadium opened for the game. The park had friendly, mellow festival vibes. The day up until that time was cloudy and cooler, but the (soothing line of) clouds soon gave way and the sun's piercing heat hit hard...
2-gun team manager Katsuo Hirata (平田 勝男 no.78) welcomes you...
The current Hanshin rookie players and maybe a future one...
The outside food trucks:
tako-yaki and Beef tongue rice bowls...
Pre-game activities still going on before the game...
Views of the stadium from my seat way up high at the end of the first base seats...
The stadium can seat 4,400 people. There are seats on the first and third base sides. There are standing only spaces in parts of the outfield. Most of the empty seats were filled by the time the game started...
The wheel chair user seat section above the Hanshin dugout (there were 3 sections like this in total in the stadium)...
The starting line-ups...
The sweets food booth with Dippin' Dots! My daughter's favorite...
The curry,
player bento and fried foods booth... Although
2-gun had its own "gourmet" program, it was much smaller than the
Koshien menus...
As per usual, I ate the カツカレー (
katsu kare--), or pork cutlet curry; in Japanese,
katsu also means "win!" I have a long streak at Koshien Stadium (home of the first team Hanshin Tigers) that when I eat the
katsu curry, the Tigers win...
There were only 3 beer girls and 1
chu-hai girl to tend to the thirsty crowd. The waiting time to get a beverage was a little long. Here, the
chu-hai girl navigates the steep stairs with her heavy box containing cans of
chu-hai and lemon flavored ice near my seat...
We shouldn't forget that there was a baseball game going on, although on a very smaller scale... The atmosphere of the stadium was very different from Koshien. People were not as raucous. At times the stadium seemed dead quiet. That is not to say that fans were not paying homage to the players. But there was no real organzied cheering. Some pockets of people attempted to sing familiar cheer songs. But other groups were singing different chants in different parts of the stadium at the same time. The dissimilarity of this stadium and the scene at Koshien was striking...
Masahiro Tateishi (立石正広 no.9) was up to bat and the fans were excited. He was probably the biggest name player in the game. The Hanshin Tigers drafted Masahiro Tateishi in the first round of the Nippon Professional Baseball draft on October 23, 2025. There's a lot of hope that he will be a strong player and a super-star.
While he started out well when on the first team, he quickly and unfortunately started to decline. He was recently sent back down to the farm team with hopes he can work hard and improve. The fuzzy picture shows him striking out. For the night he went 0 for 4 (3 strike outs and one ground out to first)...
Struggling veteran Kento Itohara (糸原健斗 no.33) was put in as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the 8th inning during the tied game...
He struck out swinging... At the end of 9 innings, the game ended in a 2-2 tie... (In the big league games, a tied game will go up to 12 innings before being concluded as an official tied game; this is because most fans take the train to the game and need to return home on the train before they stop running; 2-gun games stop after the completed 9th inning.).
Win or lose, the Hanshin tigers team lines up on the first base line and bows to the fans after the game.
Game summary:
https://service.smt.docomo.ne.jp/portal/sports/baseball_f/schedule_live.html?game_id=2021040932#tab-record
For the record, I don't necessarily think my
katsu curry winning streak has ended: The Tigers did not lose, and this was only the farm team...
I must admit, this is probably the worst baseball game I have ever seen. The players were mediocre at best. There is definitely a difference in experience and talent between the farm and first team players. Still, there is more to Japanese baseball (and baseball in general across borders) and the Hanshin Tigers than the actual game, rules and outcome. There is a spirit of support, respect and love for, what an anthropologist might refer to as, a performative cultural event - a combination of rituals that reconfirm important collective and individual beliefs. There is a a spririt of hope that the farm players will improve, move up to the first team and help the Tigers win. The stadium was packed, and most fans stayed until the end of the game.
I always tell my students that the Hanshin Tigers are an important part of local Osaka (and Kansai) culture (and that they should go to a game at Koshien whether they like baseball or not). This experience at the farm certainly confirmed this claim.
GO TIGERS!
Bonus 1!
The game also influenced me to do something that I should have done years ago: Watch
Field of Dreams... I had never seen this 1989 classic film until today (the day after the 2-gun game). And it was great, once again capturing much more than the game. If you haven't seen it, you should...
Field of Dreams, Universal Studios (1989) Phil Alden Robinson, Director
Field of Dreams Official Trailer #1 (1989):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut06d4dptWo
Watch the film:
https://ok.ru/video/11487319034521
Bonus 2!
「Summer ball park 甲子園」
haiga by Kuniharu Shimizu 清水国治
August 9, 2026.
Shimizu sensei's
haiga evokes the Japanese High School Baseball Tournament that is going on now at Koshiem Stadium. Whether it be at Koshien or Nippon Steel SGL Stadium, the line between light and shadow, hot and cold and win or lose is a part of, and transcends, the spirit of baseball...
See Shimizu sensei's work here:
https://seehaikuhere2.blogspot.com/
Wow! How often do I get to end my show with a
haiku like my hero
Yoshida Rui (吉田類)?
@rui.sakeo・Facebook
