It's my first post in almost six years. The last six years have been busy for me with family and career, and over that time the Dragons for the most part have been floundering and frustrating to watch.
My family and I are now in Japan so I wanted share about a recent game experience and may continue to post about random Dragons-related things over the course of our time here.
One item that's been on my baseball bucket list for a long time has been to see a Dragons game in Toyohashi, Aichi. It's my wife's hometown and I've always thought that it's really cool that the NPB plays games at various local stadiums, though it seems that it now occurs less frequently than it used to. It's a great way to showcase for a different audience and in a more intimate setting. Even though the NPB has been doing this less frequently Chunichi has continued to play one ichi-gun game a year in Toyohashi. I've never had an opportunity to go to one of the games and wasn't around for the game that was played here in July. Soon after we arrived in Japan though I was surprised and thrilled to see a poster at city hall advertising an upcoming ni-gun game in Toyohashi. Obviously I had to go and though I still want to see an ichi-gun game here, I would consider this bucket list item officially checked off.
On the night of the game the weather was almost perfect and not nearly as hot as the previous days had been. There was a good-sized and excited crowd, listed as 3,856, significantly more than what Chunichi usually draws of 500-900 for their typical ni-gun games in Nagoya.
Two Toyohashi natives played in the game and each was honored prior to the start of the game. Chunichi's Mao Hoshino who had two hits that night and played second base and Orix's catcher Takuma Nakagawa.
Most of the offense occured early in the game and Chunichi had numerous opportunities to score but in the end tallied only one run on a Naomichi Donoue solo home run. Chunichi fell 4-1 to Orix that night with all of the runs being scored in the first three innings. Still it was a fun atmosphere and fun, memorable night.
