Friday, March 29, 2013.
After nearly half a year of a dull period without gas, as the curtain rises on the new season, the baseball feast for Nippon Professional Baseball fans is back!
The Yahoo Do is buzzing, and the stands, which can accommodate over forty thousand fans on the opening day of professional baseball, are now completely filled.
Those who can co to the field to watch the ga on a weekday evening are all loyal fans who have supported the SoftBank Team for many years. Almost every one of them is wearing the team’s supporter gear, holding various materials, turning the entire Yahoo Do into a sea of yellow, white, and black.
Among them are so older fans, even wearing jerseys from decades ago from the Daiei Hawks or even earlier, the Nankai Hawks era. They are true veteran fans who have personally experienced the Hawks’ journey from being a bottom-tier weak team to one of the top teams in the Pacific League and the whole of Japan.
With less than half an hour left before the SoftBank Hawks vs. Rakuten Golden Eagles season opener kicks off, the stadium lights suddenly dimd.
While the new spectators were still clueless and didn’t know what had happened, the old fans could no longer contain their excitent and turned their gaze toward the outfield stands of the Yahoo Do.
If there’s one thing the Yahoo Do is most famous for, it must be the "Eagle’s Vision" exclusive to the SoftBank Team. In the outfield of the Yahoo Do, what would have been the place for the electronic scoreboard has been completely replaced by an over 50-ter long LCD screen:
When it’s ga day for the SoftBank Team, this world’s largest HD-compatible display is used to play various animations supporting the team, introducing the starting lineup for the day. During the ga, it’s also used to display player statistics and ga data from both sides.
And now, as the Eagle’s Vision screen gradually lights up, the mont an old eagle’s sharp screech cuts through the sky above the Yahoo Do, the stadium lights suddenly shine brightly, accompanied by bursts of majestic music. The SoftBank Team opener and the entrance of the starting nine players begin!
"First! Second baseman, Yuichi Honda!!!"
"Second! Shortstop, Kenta Imamiya!!!"
"Third! Left fielder, Seiichi Uchikawa!!!"
"Fourth! First baseman, Brandon Lahai’er!!!"
"Fifth! Third baseman, Nobuhiro Matsuda!!!"
"Sixth! Center fielder, Yuuki Yanagita!!!"
"Seventh! Right fielder, Yuya Hasegawa!!!"
"Eighth! Catcher, Toru Hosokawa!!!"
"Ninth! Pitcher, Lin Guanglai!!!"
At this mont, the stadium announcer releases his emotions instantly, and the audience cheers and applauds each SoftBank Team player, especially those superstar players who have served the team for many years. Lin Guanglai, carrying the infinite hopes of SoftBank fans, also received applause comparable to his predecessors.
When he played baseball in high school, Lin Guanglai went to Shengong Stadium, visited Koshien Stadium, and experienced the feeling of thousands of spectators cheering for him. But right now, standing in Fukuoka’s Yahoo Do, he has to admit that playing as a high school student feels completely different from playing as a professional player, even with all his rich experience.
As SoftBank players and supporters at the Yahoo Do celebrate the start of the new season, the broadcast teams connected to the live signal, along with their comntators, also begin their work.
In the live broadcast studio, one of the comntators for this opening ga, Yohei Kune, is doing the pre-ga hype.
"Hello to all the professional baseball fans, I’m comntator Yohei Kune. It’s been a while! How have you all been during the long off-season? I bet you all, like , can’t wait for the new season to start, right?"
"Today’s ga between SoftBank and Rakuten, our program invites as a comntator, a legend who served in the predecessor of the SoftBank Team, the Nankai Hawks, for 14 years, Mr. Mitsuru Fujiwara. Mr. Fujiwara, as a supporter of this team, you must be looking forward to today’s ga, right?"
Getting a cue from his partner, Mitsuru Fujiwara nodded and said:
"Indeed, Mr. Kune—As a forr player of this team, I am really looking forward to today’s ga!"
"In my opinion, the excitent of this ga lies not just in the special significance of the opening ga kicking off the new season, but more importantly, that the starting pitchers for both teams today were rookies selected at the end of last season’s draft!"
"You know, the last ti a rookie started on opening day in professional baseball was Takayama Mitsuru of the Yakult Swallows in 1984; and narrowing it down to the Pacific League, it was 55 years ago in 1958... Unexpectedly, just today, there are two!"
"Rakuten’s Sawamura is already a competitive graduate player, so starting due to Tanaka’s absence is not surprising for ;"
"However, for Lin, starting as a rookie high school graduate is sowhat surprising - even more surprising is that SoftBank chose to forgo the designated hitter Pena in the first ga and let Lin play as a Dual Swordsmanship player... Isn’t this a bit rushed?"
Expressing his viewpoint, and seeing the ga about to start, Mitsuru Fujiwara stopped speaking, and began his final pre-ga summary:
"Of course, Lin himself is undoubtedly an exceptionally talented prodigy - perhaps that is exactly what Manager Akiyama saw in him, deciding to entrust him with such responsibility as a rookie? After all, we all know, true geniuses defy norms. Just give them a little space to perform, and they can overturn people’s perception of the ga of baseball... Everything will be revealed on the field!"
After both teams’ players ward up, amidst the cheers of over forty thousand fans at the stadium, Lin Guanglai made his professional debut on the mound. anwhile, the stadium broadcast played his personally chosen entrance the music.
When he beca part of the first team, the team staff consulted him about this issue, and Lin Guanglai’s choice for entrance music was simple - the the song "Touch" from "Heroic Baseball," a classic tune known by all in Japan.
As the song ends, Lin Guanglai on the pitcher’s mound is ready, his eyes growing sharper as he looks at the batter from the Rakuten Team slowly approaching the batter’s box.
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