Hanshin Tigers farm team game against Orix Buffaloes, August 13, 2026 @ Nippon Steel SGL Stadium Amagasaki (inside Zero Carbon Base Ball Park) ・ 2026年8月13日 阪神タイガース対オリックス・バファローズ（二軍戦）＠日本製鉄SGLスタジアム尼崎（ゼロカーボンベースボールパーク内）

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

Funny digital manipulated photo of Toyko Dome Stadium prohibitions which includes the Hanshin Tigers' players Sato and Morishita who hit home runs in the Tigers' 5-1 Victory over the Yomiuri Giants that has gone viral on Japanese social media (I saw this this on fb).

"Mexican man arrested over attempt to smuggle some 200 lizards into Japan"

Caption: Mexican alligator lizards seized by Tokyo Customs from a Mexican man who attempted to smuggle them into Japan on Saturday through Haneda Airport | TOKYO CUSTOMS HANEDA SUB-BRANCH / VIA JIJI

Photo and text from The Japan Times, 8/12/26: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/08/12/japan/crime-legal/man-arrested-lizards-smuggling/

Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday it arrested a 23-year-old man after he tried to smuggle some 200 lizards into Japan by hiding them inside socks in a suitcase. Daniel Isaac Velasco Baltazar, who is of Mexican nationality and whose place of residence and occupation are unknown, has admitted to the allegations of attempted import without permission, police said.

Baltazar is alleged to have attempted to bring in the lizards, including nine Mexican alligator lizards, from South Korea without declaring them at customs on Saturday.

International commercial trade of Mexican alligator lizards is strictly controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Tokyo police said they received an anonymous tip in late July saying Baltazar was trying to smuggle lizards in time for a reptiles exhibition and sales event.

The Tokyo Customs officers who had been on alert at Haneda Airport inspected his suitcase and found some 200 lizards squeezed into 22 pairs of socks. One of them was dead.

The suspect reportedly told investigators that he had purchased them in Mexico at roughly ¥560 ($3.50) to ¥750 each.

Mexican alligator lizards that inhabit alpine regions in Mexico are scarce in Japan and are said to be traded at around ¥100,000 each.

The lizards found in the suitcase appeared to include other species as well, and authorities are investigating the details.

"Ainu musician brings tradition and global sounds to New York"

Photo caption: Ainu musician Oki plays the tonkori during a performance in New York on June 4, 2026. (Photo not for sale)(Photo courtesy of Richard Termine/The Japan Society)(Kyodo) ==Kyodo Image: Kyodo

Photo and text from Japan Today, 8/11/26. Source: https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/feature-ainu-musician-brings-tradition-and-global-sounds-to-new-york

Ainu musician Oki returned to the city where he first began exploring his identity, bringing with him a sound that blends the traditional music of Japan's indigenous people with influences ranging from rock and reggae to African rhythms.

In early June, the sound of the tonkori, a traditional Ainu stringed instrument, reverberated through a concert hall in New York as Oki, 69, performed with the Oki Dub Ainu Band, the group he leads.

His music fuses traditional Ainu music with genres such as rock, reggae and Afrobeat. Returning to the city that had prompted him to reflect on his Ainu roots, he performed the distinctive style he continues to refine.

"I'm back home, New York City!" he called out during the concert. The packed hall erupted in cheers.

Oki was 4 when his parents divorced, and he grew up in Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo with his mother and stepfather. He did not learn that his biological father was Ainu until he was 22 and studying metalwork at the Tokyo University of the Arts.

Although he visited relatives in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, he felt like an outsider. He was neither "fully Japanese" nor Ainu, and struggled deeply, feeling lost and unable to define his own identity.

He had aspired to a career in contemporary art but could not find a form of expression that felt truly his own. At age 30, he moved to New York without a concrete plan.

While visiting art exhibitions, he met people from indigenous communities. He traveled to Arizona to visit one of them -- a Navajo artist -- and was struck by their traditional way of life. The experience deepened his awareness of his own roots.

He studied film production in the United States with the intention of building a career in the field, but a Japanese film project he was involved in fell through. He decided to start his life over in Hokkaido.

There, he encountered the tonkori, a five-stringed instrument passed down among Ainu who had migrated from Sakhalin to Hokkaido. At the time, there were no players left, and efforts to revive the instrument were just beginning within the Ainu community.

"Maybe this was the way I could find my own voice," he thought.

Through trial and error, he learned to play the instrument using postwar recordings as a guide and began composing songs in the Ainu language. He combined the electrified tonkori with bass and drums, blending it with reggae and African music he had experienced live in New York.

Today, Oki enjoys international recognition and is invited to world music festivals across the globe.

"I don't want being Ainu to be the first thing people associate me with," he said.

He sees interest in the Ainu -- who have historically faced discrimination -- as separate from appreciation of his own music.

"People who are only interested in the story of a young man of Ainu heritage playing the tonkori aren't really interested in my music," he said.

At the same time, he recognizes the importance of the Ainu telling their own stories.

Last year, he made his directorial debut with the documentary "Everyday Ainu," produced by the National Ainu Museum in Shiraoi, Hokkaido.

Speaking at an event at the Japan Society in New York the day after the concert, he said he wanted to make a film that tells "our own story," noting that many documentaries about the Ainu had been made by outsiders.

This is a rare example of how anthropologiy and salvage ethnography actually helped the Ainu (rather than stealing bodies and artifacts and basically decribing them as primitive barbarians). At the time Oki became interested in the tonkori there were no Ainu musicians who knew how to play it. He found old audio recordings taken by researchers and ethnomusicologists between the 1940s and 1960s. Oki had to listen to the poor quality recordings and learn how to play the instrument by ear, imagining how the fingers moved on the strings to make the tones and sounds.

Additional sources:

Oki / Tonkori In The Moonlight (Varja, 2022). https://note.com/yasuhide1978/n/nc161bc80e256?hl=en

Music as Weapon: Ainu musician fights for cultural survival (Tomoko OTAKE, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 6, 2005) https://apjjf.org/tomoto-otake/1621/article

Tachinomi Banpaiya Monzen Nakacho ・ 立呑み晩杯屋 門前仲町 [Warning: This post is rated R for mature audiences; you'll see why when you enter the shop... ・ 警告：この記事はR指定（成人向け）の内容を含んでいます。その理由は、ショップに入ればお分かりいただけるでしょう…]

Tachinomi Banpaiya Monzen Nakacho has been described as "a popular, ultra-cheap, no-frills standing bar (tachinomi) located in the traditional shitamachi (downtown) neighborhood of Monzen-Nakacho in Tokyo's Koto Ward. Part of a well-known budget izakaya chain, it is designed for fast, affordable drinking and casual eating." You should note that it is standing only, smoking is allowed and the shop accepts cash only payments.

The Banpaiya chain is run by Active Source Co., Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Toridoll Holdings. There are around 50 shops located especially in the Kanto and Kansai regions.

Upon entering the shop, if you look up, you will see a bit of a surprise (thus the R-rating for this post...). The infamous ceiling "collage" was created in 2016 to give the shop an exclusive and localized shitamachi dive-bar vibe. None of the other chain shops have this unique feature.

I have been to this shop a few times in the last couple years. It is cheap. And convenient. And many of the customers have been friendly and interersting. It opens at 1:00 PM on weekdays and 12:00 PM on weekends. Closing time is 11:00 PM.

"Old-Fashioned Sake Bar" Orihara Shoten - Monzen Nakacho ・「伝統的でありながらモダン角打ち」折原商店 - 門前仲町

Orihara Shoten is a liquor shop and a "standing drink bar" usually known as 立ち呑み屋 (tachinomiya). This shop many shelves with various kinds of alcohol and refrigerators filled with cold bottles of 日本酒 (nihonshu) - there is a lot to choose from! They sell bottles and single drinks as well. This kind of shop is known as a 角打ち (kakuuchi); it does not have a license to be a restaurant but can still sell drinks and simple snacks. It is standing room only - there is no seating available.

Orihara Shoten's roots go back to 1924 in Ikebukuro, but the shop in Monzen Nakacho opened in 2011 as a part of its "second foundation." It has the traditional vibes (matching the 下町 [shitamachi] atmoshpere, or old, nostalgic downtown of commoners), with all the modern conveniences (payments accepted in cash, credit cards and various digital wallet services). I like to stop in for a few quick drinks and snacks (usually before I take the shinkansen back home to Osaka) and always manage to have interesting conversations with the staff and customers. The also sell a variety of old-fashioned 駄菓子 (dagashi), inexpensive candies and snacks for children (so I can buy a few last minute omiyage/treats for my daughter).

It is also a great place to take photos (I asked for permission). You can see what I shot on my recent fiedtrip to Tokyo. There are also a few links at the end of the post for information about and access to the shop, and how it was featured in a popular 飯テロ (meshi tero) TV drama.

Orihara Shoten website: https://www.orihara-net.co.jp/oriharashoten/

Orihara Shoten - Monzen Nakacho access ・ 折原商店 - 門前仲町 アクセス (source: https://www.orihara-net.co.jp/oriharashoten/shop/)

Orihara Shoten featured on ワカコ酒 (Wakako Sake), Season 3, Episode 9 (TV Tokyo, 6/2/18): https://www.bs-tvtokyo.co.jp/wakako_zake3/story/index.html?story=s_09

Story about Orihara Shoten featured on ワカコ酒: https://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/plus/drama/entry/2017/016147.html