We A.R.E. the Champions

Before Shohei Otani makes the homerun king in Major League Baseball for the first time as a Japanese, the baseball fans in Japan enthusiastically cerebrated on Thursday the championship of Hanshin Tigers in Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, which marked the first victory in these eighteen years. Although Tigers did not have an outstanding super hero in the team this season, the skillful leadership of the manager Akinobu Okada was highly evaluated. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was not successful in raising the supporting rate by cabinet reshuffle the day before, should learn a lot from Okada. 

Most people suppose that the Buzzword Award of this year will go to “are,” pronounced not as schwa/R but “a-le,” meaning “that” in Japanese. At the beginning of Tigers spring camp of this year, Okada made a speech. “We hope to aim ‘are,’ win ‘are’ and share the delight of ‘are’ in this season,” avoiding the word of “championship” for the team members not to pay too much attention to the victory. When “are” soon became to directly mean the victory, the team invented a new abbreviation of “are” as 2023 slogan of “Aim, Respect and Empower.”

 

Talking about victory using the word of “are,” Tigers’ fans acknowledged that the empowerment of Okada for his young players with aim and respect was working well. Believing that a walk is the key to win a game, Okada negotiated with the management section of the team to evaluate a player’s one walk as high as one hit. When a closer Suguru Iwazaki, who achieved 30 save points this season, apologized about his failure in the previous game in June, Okada told him “No problem. No one is always perfect.” Although the advice was something normal, Iwazaki realized the importance of keeping normalcy. No one knows whether Okada said “And bad mistakes, I made a few. I had my share of sand kicked in my face, but I’ve come through” at the victory night.

 

Tigers’ fans had victory parties in pubs or on the street everywhere in Japan Thursday night. The victory is expected to be a momentum of re-boosting Japanese economy. According to the study of Katsuhiro Miyamoto, Professor Emeritus of Kansai University, the contribution of Tigers’ victory to the economy is as worthy as ¥87.2 billion, exceeding ¥65.4 billion of Japan’s winning of championship in World Baseball Classic this March. This includes ¥5.6 billion for fan’s transportation or dining and ¥32.5 billion for beer and other alcoholic drinks.

 

Tigers’ long-waited victory may ignite current movement originated from Kansai area. Tigers has been a good rival of Yomiuri Giants in Tokyo from the beginning of the professional baseball history in Japan, resembling the rivalry between New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Such anti-Tokyo sentiment can also be seen in the advance of Japan Innovation Party, which enjoys the highest supporting rate among the opposition parties in the polls. Kansai comedians occupy TV shows every day. Can those phenomena be an indication of power shift from the east to the west for the first time since the power center was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo over four hundred years ago?

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