Latham's 1998 Guide to Japanese Baseball...

Yakult Swallows Fans and Oendan:
Cheering together . . . usually

Though comparatively small in number, Swallows fans are a generally easygoing bunch. You won't see many drunken brawls at

A Giant rivalry: Although Swallows fans naturally want to see Yakult win a pennant, they're usually ambivalent about other teams. If at Jingu a fan for another team sits on the Swallows side and cheers for the opposing club, no one really cares. But if it's a Giants game, keep your eyes open.

Because of the cross-town rivalry between the two teams, Swallows fans hate the otherwise-popular Giants. As the only other Tokyo Central League team, Yakult attracts those fans who like the CL but not the Giants.

Fortunately for Yakult, about twenty years ago, Yomiuri broke CL rules by signing pitcher Suguru Egawa. Enraged by their team's arrogance, many Giants fans drifted to other ball clubs. Since the Swallows won their first Japan Series around the time the Egawa affair broke out, Yakult picked up a large number of disillusioned Giants fans.

At one recent Giants vs. Swallows game at Jingu, an attractive young woman and her boyfriend, both Yomiuri fans, sat on the Swallows side of the bleachers. When the Giants starting line-up was announced, the woman began clapping and cheering for each member.

Hundreds of eyes, each pair filled with disgust, stared at the only person in the right field bleachers with the nerve to cheer for the Giants. During the top of the first inning, when the young woman began clapping along with the Giants songs, the man behind her picked up his plastic megaphone and began shadow-boxing her head. By the bottom of the inning, the couple had fled to the Yomiuri side of the field.

After the Swallows won a June 1997 game against the Dragons at Chiba Marine Stadium, the Yakult oendan (cheering section) held a rally outside the park. When they finished leading about a hundred Swallows fans in cheers for Yakult's players, the oendan turned their attention to the last-place Giants.

While the cheerleaders banged drums, blew trumpets and waved flags, fans joined in chants such as, "Jigoku ni ochiro, Gi-an-tsu" (Go to hell, Giants) and "Kantoku yameroo Nagashima" (Resign [Giants] manager Nagashima). No one paid much attention to the Dragons.

Bring an umbrella: The manner in which Swallows fans cheer during games is more subtle -- but just barely.

Swallows fans are best known for how they celebrate a run. When that happens, fans open thousands of umbrellas and sing Tokyo Ondo (WAV 463 kb or song and lyrics), a traditional Japanese song.It's not clear when or why this custom started, but today, most people say it's how the Swallows fans tell the opposing pitcher that he's either "washed up" or that it's time for him to leave the game and "take a shower."

Before actually singing Tokyo Ondo, however, fans do a quick rendition of their kutabare chant. If Yakult scores against the Carp, fans will cheer, "Kutabare Hiroshima!" (Screw you Hiroshima!), four times. When the song ends, everyone shouts, "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!"

After the third out, and the Swallows take their defensive positions, fans will chant the name of the player responsible for the RBI until he tips his hat or, like right fielder Atsunori Inaba, bows.

The knockout cheer (WAV 225 kb) is often played in close games. Usually with the Swallows leading, the oendan will play a fast rendition of Popeye the Sailor Man, followed by a quick K-O chant. Against the Hanshin Tigers, Yakult fans will shout, "K-O, K-O, Ti-gah-soo; K-O, K-O, Ti-gah-soo."

The oendan plays a different song for each Swallows batter, and most fans clap plastic megaphones along with the music. If you want to join in, all you need to know is the basic katobase cheer.

Though it's nearly impossible to literally translate "katobase," most people say it means "get or hit" or "let's go."

Suppose Swallows catcher Atsuya Furuta comes to bat. The oendan will play his song, and fans will chant (in seven beats), "Ka-to-ba-se Fu-ru-ta." If foreign slugger Dwayne Hosey comes to bat, fans may chant, "Home-run, Home-run Ho-o-sey." And if a player has a longer name, like first baseman Takahiro Kobayakawa, the chant becomes, "Ka-to-ba-se Ko-baya-kawa."

Stand when you say that: After Kobayakawa left the Carp and joined the Swallows in 1997, some strange things started happening in the Jingu right field stands.

Although the Swallows have their umbrellas shtick, most other teams' cheers lack distinction . . . with one other exception. The Carp katobase cheer is something that must be experienced up close.

The standard Carp cheer consists of two alternating sets of fans standing and sitting.

If Hiroshima shortstop Kenjiro Nomura steps up to the plate, the Carp oendan will play his song and all fans chant "Ka-toba-se No-mu-ra." Then half of the fans stand, bang their megaphones against the air, shout, "No-mu-ra," and sit back down, while the second group of fans echo the first. The entire cheer plays out like this (WAV 246 kb):

Everyone: Ka-to-ba-se No-mu-ra
First half [stands]: No-mu-ra [sits]
Second half [stands]: No-mu-ra [sits]
First half [stands]: No-mu-ra [sits]
Second half [stands]: No-mu-ra [sits]
First half [stands]: Nomuraaaaaaaa [sits]
Second half [stands]: Nomuraaaaaaaa [sits]

Then, with a 1-2, 1-2-3 beat, the cheer starts over again, and is repeated until the batter gets out or reaches base. When the fans reach the final "Nomuraaaaaaaa," they hold their megaphones straight out, as if saluting the Carp fuehrer. No team fills a stadium with as much hypnotic intensity as the Carp.

After doing the cheer roughly 150 times over a nine-inning game, I'm not sure how Carp fans are capable of walking out of the ballpark. Essentially, cheering for Hiroshima is the athletic equivalent of using a "stair-master" for three hours. Exhausting, yes, but the Carp cheer is fun and addictive.

A little mischief: No wonder, then, that after Kobayakawa joined the Swallows and hit three home runs against the Giants on opening day, Swallows fans began paying homage to their new hero by borrowing the Carp cheer. This, of course, drove the Swallows oendan nuts.

Numbering between thirty and fifty members, the oendan are a relatively small and fanatical bunch. Some are easy-going. During one June 1997 game, with the Swallows in first place by ten games, one member declared that he hoped Yakult would lose a few games because things were getting too boring. There's diversity in every group. Unfortunately, too many oendan members take themselves and their jobs far too seriously.

At some game, oendan members walk through the aisles and chastise fans who are eating: "The Swallows are batting . . . you should be cheering!" Hungry fans usually ignore such squawking.

No surprise, therefore, that when fans began doing the Carp cheer for Kobayakawa, a few of the oendan control-freaks began saying, "Don't copy other teams--we have our own cheers." Ignored again, the oendan tried a new strategy--they simply stopped playing Kobayakawa's song.

After a few days, with the ballpark full of different fans, the oendan again played the former Carp first baseman's song. Perhaps they hoped the troublemakers had disappeared. Instead, there were even more. Apparently, the oendan finally gave up, resigned to let fans have fun in their own way.

Maybe the same thing occurred years ago to the first few mischievous fans who brought umbrellas to Jingu Stadium. And look what happened.

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