Jakey Wants To Go To The Big Game
Can the Australians be trusted?
To begin, if you know me you know I’m a bit man. I do things because a silly idea takes a hold of me and I go with it. Given that:
The World Baseball Classic is just now underway across the world. I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for my brother informing me that not only are there games being played in Japan, there’s supposed to be one that very day at the Tokyo Dome. Now, I played baseball as a kid and one year in high school. I liked the sport. Was never crazy good at it or anything. But, hey, what the hell?
I looked on the MLB website for tickets. Sold out. Third-party websites maybe? Egregious prices, I don’t have the budget for that. I’ve been to a good amount of sporting events in my life, and in the US at least, there’s always people outside the stadium selling tickets or looking for a few. I have a 3 day pass to the Tokyo subway system so I figured I’d try my luck in person. Two trains later, I was in Tokyo Dome City.
The home team in Tokyo is the Tokyo Giants. And yeah, no shit, this place was huge. Not only that, I don’t think I’d ever seen this many people outside a single stadium. Easily a couple thousand. It was nuts.
I started casually walking around, seeing if the usual sight of scalpers would greet me. As I feared, this was not a cross-cultural tradition. That or this game was just too popular for it to be a thing. Either way, I needed a different plan.
The first person I asked was a dude with a handful of tickets close to one of the entrance lines. he had a laminated piece of paper in his hand, one I figured could be a pricing sheet. I went up and asked, 「すみません。チケットを買いますか？」Again, another good example of me using the wrong verb. Incorrect verbage or not, it didn’t matter. He struggled to respond before pointing at his sheet, which was written in Korean.
The 12:30 game was Korea vs. Australia. Makes sense.
I whipped out Google Translate to ask, but when he read the translation he voiced something disapproving and crossed his arms in an “x” fashion. No luck.
Continuing to mosey around, I figured I may have better luck if I tried honing in on anyone that looked like they were there for Australia. Luckily enough, a group of 4 older folks dressed in green and gold were in front of me. So I asked. They responded.
“Eh, nah mate. But my wife here may. I’m serious she may. My son is starting pitcher so we have some group tickets but we also have others.”
“Wait, you son pitches for Australia?”
“Yup.”
I mean man. C’mon. Seriously. It’s like they knew I just started a blog.
Didn’t get his name. But it could have been the family of most any one of these nice talented gentlemen.
They didn’t have any tickets to sell at that point in time though, so I moved on. Heading around the other side of the stadium, there were lines of children with their schools donning matching hats. There are some things I think Japan does better than the US and some things I think the US does better than Japan. But lemme tell ya, I think matching hats would have saved a lot of stress for my middle school teachers back in the day.
At this point, by lack of finding a ticket was making me hungry. I happened to walk into a food court of sorts in a building nearby. A few places, all looked good. Some tasty to-go sushi. But it hadn’t been that long since I ate so I didn’t need that much. And I’m a man of science. And being a man of science meant that I was obligated to try the Japanese version of a Spicy McChicken at the McDonalds in the food court.
Clipper Mist’s Review of the “Supachiki” (Spicy Chicken Burger):
Presentation: the sandwich in general was a bit more put together than in the US. Lots of lettuce (LOL) in the wrapper. I like lettuce though. 7/10.
Texture: a chicken sandwich from McDonalds with the crunch of a McNugget. Unknown to me before this day. 8/10.
Taste: the thing that made it spicy was sauce. I’m not entirely opposed to that. The sauce itself was actually pretty solid. Beyond that, the slightly bland, classic taste you expect from McDonalds. A comfort to me. 7.5/10
Overall: If I were to score the US version against this one (if we can say these are directly comparable, which I think they are), I’d say the Japanese version gets half a point higher. Overall better sandwich, but it was missing that god awful something that I love about a McChicken; that something that drives me to add 3 to a mobile order on a Friday night. 7.5/10.
Also, given that the Yen is weak right now, I got the sandwich for the USD equivalent of $1.47, at ¥200. I think a Spicy McChicken is like $1.84 at home. A steal!
After my scientific intermission, I headed back to the stadium. At this point, there were a good amount more people. Many more colored hats atop the heads of children. But they didn’t have extra tickets. They had no use to me. Simply roadblocks in the way of my mission.
I say mission because, at this point, I wasn’t so much invested in watching the game as I was in getting a ticket. I was in it for the thrill. For the quest of it all.
For the bit.
I started looking harder for Australians. Did I mention that Australia’s colors are green and gold. And that I just so happened to wear a green shirt to the stadium? I was dressed for the part.
Ask a person. No luck. Another. Nope. I ran back into one of the couples from the group of Australians I encountered earlier. He further explained their situation, how the pitcher’s dad and mom got two tickets, but that they were still waiting on group tickets for all of them. So they couldn’t even get in yet. But that I should look for the dad in case those tickets freed up.
I had a lead.
I parted with them and began scanning the crowd, walking down the long line of hundreds of people waiting to go in the stadium. I couldn’t find them. Into the large crowd of people waiting for the merch shop and waiting to watch on the big screen. No Australians. I realized then I should’ve asked if I could give the couple waiting on their tickets if I could give them my contact in case the tickets freed up. I headed back to where they were located. As soon as I got there, they were on the move.
Now, I wouldn’t say I was stalking them. I was only following them from a distance. Plus they saw that I was behind them. That would made me a pretty bad stalker. StalkingLite, at most.
They went a ways around the stadium and down some stairs to will call, and met up with a new man in a full gold suit. A true fan. He had a handful of tickets and gave two to the couple I had been following and some to other Australians there. It felt like this could be my chance.
“Any more luck with the tickets? Also, sorry for following you, just kinda knew you may have tickets possibly
“Don’t worry about it mate, all good. And nah, I think we should’ve gone in with our friend earlier. No luck. Sorry about that mate.”
As they started heading in, I couldn’t bring myself to ask the man in the gold suit if he had any extras. They left, into the stadium. I’m not sure if they didn’t really not have any extras, or maybe my following put them off from helping me. Either way, it was a bust. I was the first track on Coldplay’s 2005 album. Back to square one.
With time running out ‘til the start of the game and some disappointment in my heart, I started asking anyone I could. No one had any tickets to sell to me. I ran into a group of American dudes in their late 20s looking for tickets too. Their dress, hats, and mannerisms told me they were possibly from LA. After sticking with them for a moment (I asked politely this time) I Irish goodbye’d them. So long boys.
As the crowds grew thinner with people going into the stadium and my will weakening, I started considering other options. Could I somehow convince the staff I was media and hadn’t received my pass? I had my camera at least. Felt too risky though, and I wasn’t trying to get on the bad side of any authorities. Maybe I could have a friend call in a pass for me as a reporting outlet from my college? A bit of research showed me that sort of thing needed to be set up weeks ago.
As the clock struck 12:30, I knew my mission was failed. Could I have done more? Was I really a bit man if I couldn’t somehow manage to find a ticket into the game? Not only was I a failure, I was having a crisis of bit identity. Who was I?
I sat. I pondered while looking at the throngs of people who somehow were all still wearing jackets even though it was warm out and I was sweating like a monkey in Tuscon.
Then I remembered. When bit men don’t finish the bit, what do they do? Something spiteful. Something to show they didn’t even need that bit in the first place. It was a silly ruse and it meant nothing to them.
So I got on a Ferris wheel and went higher than everyone in the stupid, silly little stadium. Ha. Take that, International Baseball Federation. Humph.
Update: As of writing this, it turns out it was a really good game. Korea was heavily favored to win against Australia, a country not really known for churning out baseball legends, but Australia upset them, 8-7. Oh well.