We are going to KOSHIEN!

Koshien, Nishinomiya

This maybe random, but I'm highly influenced by the ball game. I actually have been around Koshien once the first year I arrived Japan without knowing how famous the park is. (Excuse me for not reading any Japanese Manga.) I just learned from a few friends in the past few months that there is a famous phrase in Japanese manga "We are going to KOSHIEN!".
I wondered why. The only thing I knew was that Koshien is a home of Hanshin Tigers, the baseball team of Kansai area that won the national title last season. Just this week that I realized why there is such famous phrase about Koshien. Koshien is one of the oldest and largest ballparks in Japan built in 1924 and used also for the annual National High School baseball championship!!! (I preassume that most of the manga mentioned by my friends had some characters play a part in school's baseball team).

Such tournament is called, in short, "KOSHIEN". There are actually 2 high school tournaments a year, but the one currently ongoing is the summer Koshien. There are 49 high school baseball teams participating in a 2-week long tournament. Each team represents its prefecture except for Hokkaido and Tokyo which have 2 representing teams. So I guess it's like a dream of any high school baseball player to be able to at least once make it to Koshien and entitle the national championship.

Koshien

The fun part wasn't to look at the game alone, but to look at how the crowd cheers. They are very energetic and active in singing the song. There are even a mini-brass band and cheergirls playing music and dancing nearly throughout the whole game. It was amazing! Most of them was with smiles on their face during the game. Some cried after losing. But it's all about ball games, huh? Oh... and the defeated team gets to take some soil from Koshien back as souvenir.

One thing I realized though... most of the teams tries to get hitters (players running to 1st base) out of the game instead of those on the run, especially those on 3rd base?!?! How come?!?! Or am I not understanding something here?

* pictures are from Wikipedia and nikkan-kyusyu.com