The Pacific League Climax Series First Stage games featuring Our Men of Lotte versus the despised Seibu Lions take place this weekend, 9-11 October, at Seibu Dome (or, as Deanna calls it, Seibu Dump). All games are at 13:00 and are hopelessly, impossibly sold out. I think they must have sold out in minutes.
I managed to get tickets to the first game through the magic of auctions (shh!), but my was there a premium on the tickets. The nice thing is the Marines have arranged for a public viewing of the game at Chiba Marine Stadium on the game days. Here’s the info (in Japanese).
I suspect there will be quite a turnout given the feverish nature of a rabid fanbase that hasn’t sniffed playoff action in three years – plus, it’s a holiday weekend. The gates open at 11:30, seating is first come, first served, and there will be food and drink vendors. I’m planning on going to the public viewing for Sunday’s game if anyone wants to meet up! I’ll be at Monday’s game in the outfield if we haven’t broken Seibu’s will in two games.
I’m a silly optimist, but last time we went to the Nippon Series we played Seibu in the first stage and went on the road to bead Daiei in the second stage. Sound familiar?
I sadly have to work on Oct 9th. I’m shocked that the games sold out — I guess because it is Lotte, with a relatively local fanbase (I know it takes 2 hours to get there from Chiba, but you can do it for under 1000 yen). And it is a holiday weekend, I suppose that helps too. If it had been the Fighters, we have a lot of Seibu fanclub members in our group and were just going to pool for tickets…
(Funny part: I remember going to the Giants-Lions Japan Series 2008 on a Wednesday night at the Dump and there were still tickets available.)
Depending on college ball I may or may not try to make it to one of those public viewings, but my guess is probably not. If they do it again for the Softbank series I will try to come to that and hang out with you then?
PS — love the “I believe Lions Will Lose” — that slogan NEEDED something to be added.
Katsu and I went to a game in Tokorozawa a few weeks ago and it was totally sold out then, too. The fans were standing about 3 deep on the first base side along the outer rim, pretty much all the way behind home. Crazy.
I chatted with a few of my Marines fan friends, all of them seem to be going – one used the ol “Sign up for Seibu’s fan club” trick. It’s sure to be a madhouse there!
I’m not sure what my Hawks series plans will be yet – I think I may duck down there for Friday-Sunday but I haven’t decided yet. If I don’t go there I will most definitely be at the stadium/one of the Makuhari bars.
Well, a lot of the Kanto Fighters fans actually join both Seibu and Lotte’s fan clubs — because if you are going to go to all 12 of the Fighters games there, or almost all, the discount is more than worth it, plus you get advance tickets for things like this as well as the fanclub giveaways. And I think with Seibu you also get one free infield seat or something, so some of my friends stagger it and use the one ticket per game to pass among each other for Get Into The Nice Food Court Free priviledges during a game.
I’ll probly be tied up with my usual college ball stuff during the Hawks series weekend, but would probably be up for going to some kind of Marines game viewing on a weeknight, I think.