Baseball violence

[Mandylion]

I know I wasn’t dreaming this, but if you look in the newspapers you would think I was. Did anyone else see the CNN report on a brawl that broke out after the Hanshin Tigers defeated the Dragons up in Gifu? I asked people at work and only one guy had heard of it, and none of the newspapers seem to be running the story. Seems a little odd that the news orgs. are choosing to worry about foreign sports fans coming the Japan and causing violence (like when the World Cup was here) rather than from their own, supposedly peaceful citizens. To cap it off, the footage they showed had a bunch of fans fighting on the FIELD while the synchronized cheers from the fan sections continued. Someone also sprayed homemade tear gas down one of the passageways injuring some 36 people.

I must thank all the Tigers and Drangons fans out there for the biggest bit of sheer stupidity I have witnessed in a good while. It's just a game for the love of Pete! Maybe it will be on NHK news tonight...

[Iron Chef]

Strange indeed. Such behavior I expect nowadays as the sport of pro baseball here in America has been suffering from a rash of such violent outbursts (fans attacking players, umpires, each other, etc.) but to hear of a brawl in Japan strikes me as curious.

[thomas]

The Guardian analyzed:

Roar passion

Ever since an outbreak of baseball hooliganism in Japan earlier this week, pundits throughout the country have been chipping in with their 10 yen's worth of wisdom about the possible causes of a new threat to the de-facto national sport. Some are blaming it on the maddeningly sultry rainy season. Others see the reason as a breakdown of moral values among the young, while some blame an unwelcome hangover from last year's football World Cup finals, when the hosts were shocked to discover that their own fans were far rowdier than the foreign barbarians. However, the canniest commentators say that the vandalism, fisticuffs and tear-gas attacks seen at Nagaragawa Stadium, in central Japan, on Wednesday night are just as likely to be a symptom of shock. [...]

=> http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/...977009,00.html

[Elizabeth]

Apparently it wasn't a dream. And there was actually something in the Gifu press on it, complete with descriptions of the stadium becoming temporarily tumultuous (騒然) as "bickering" broke out among fans (小競り合いが起きた) who were simply clamourous (大騒ぎになった), or excited ( 興奮した), as opposed to riotous, disturbing or out of control brawling hooligans.

The tone really is striking in its efforts to play on the reader's sympathies by keeping the focus firmly on the innocent victims of an overzealous fan's "crowd control" and barely recapping the sequence of events leading up to it all. It only briefly even mentions Dragons fans as possible culprits. Very interesting. Maybe that was yesterday's news?

http://mytown.asahi.com/gifu/news02.asp?kiji=2480

[Shinmeiryu]

So I see the fan violence in baseball has spread from Chicago all the way to Japan now. Heh. Such a declining sport.

[Thomas Quinton]

You should see old footage of Yankee-Red Sox brawls. Brutal!