After the 5th inning, when I’d made through the bottle of nihonshu I customarily bring to the TD (if they make me pour it into a cup, it doesn’t go flat and still tastes good at room temperature), I was miffed to find that the California Pizza Kitchen was selling only drinks and undercooked fries – the Pizza & Beer Set is a pretty good offering, one I wish we had at Jingu, even if it is a bit overpriced (but that’s the Tokyo Dome.)

Much respect to the folks from Tainan – the full-on brass band was great. Bringing five mascots with enormous heads (one of which we called “John McCain” for the eerie resemblance of its gesticulation to that of the senior Senator from Arizona’s), and dancing girls was a good touch, even if it did confirm my opinions on East Asian pop music: Chinese pop exists to make Taiwanese pop seem bearable, Taiwanese pop exists to make Korean pop seem not so bad, and Korean pop exists to make Japanese pop appear decent.

We were pretty close to home plate and a couple sections over from both cheering sections, so that, in combination with the low attendance, made things seem relatively quiet. From where we sat, we could even hear the smack of pitches arriving in the catcher’s glove (or the inside of his thigh – I felt bad for SK’s catcher when that first reliever kept nailing him.)

I’d love to see better promotion for the Asia Series – the games were more competitive than I expected (except for poor Tianjin) and the atmosphere was good despite the poor turnout.

I’m amazed you could hear anything with the Taiwanese cheering section being what they were. I only stayed for about an hour of the Saturday game due to feeling extremely sick at the time, but they were NUTS, I went right into the fray to take some photos and videos and it was just a crazy gang over there, very loud, very nuts.

They actually were not opening the outfield or the second floor for non-Japan games — that was decided before the series, actually. Outfield was only open for Japan games and second floor was open for Friday onwards, not Thursday. The food selection at non-Japan games WAS a lot more sparse than the Japan games, that is true, though at the Japan games it had most of the usual stuff, minus a lot of the bento box selection usually available at the dome. I hate Tokyo Dome food to begin with though…

Oh, and there was plenty of merchandise available early on, but not later in the tournament. Thursday afternoon you could buy a TON of SK Wyverns stuff before their first match with Seibu, but I don’t think I saw anything remaining after Friday. Not sure how much stuff they brought over from Korea to be honest. Same for Tongyi, there was a lot of stuff out there early on but it disappeared. I saw a lot of Japanese people wearing NPB jerseys and Tongyi towels supporting the Taiwanese team on Saturday night.

I put up a boatload of photos and stuff, but have no time to write much more because I’m flying back to the US on Tuesday afternoon. Yikes.

No merchandise at all was available for either team playing, I saw no programs available (it would have been nice to have had some info on teams and players with which I was unfamiliar), there was pretty much no food available, and Tokyo Dome was in its default “international event” security mode, when they throughly search bags and wand and pat down everyone entering the stadium (although there was no apparent bad blood at all between the Taiwanese and Korean fans – very good atmosphere.)

I got to see the Japan Champion carp, too. It was big.

I’ll get a post on the tournament up soon. Until then, the results and standings are available on the “Game Results” page and on the “Complete NPB Standings 2000-’08″ page (look under “Stats, History, & More”.)

Steve, I’m with you, of course. The promotion is nonexistent. Not a single ad or mention on the Seibu Shinjuku line or at any of the stations between Seibu-Shinjuku and Tanashi, the Asia Series was not even listed in Pia’s catalog, and only Saitama’s games will even be televised. I feel like a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder whether or not there’s a backward-thinking faction high up in Japanese baseball that’s trying to make sure the Asia Series is unsuccessful.

Bobby Valentine’s Marines are the only team, as far as I’ve noticed, that takes any pride in having won the Asia Series, with their “2005 Asia Champions” patches on the sleeves of their unfiroms.

It’s very disappointing how little this is promoted. Out in Chiba it’s hard to know the Asia series was even being played this year, as I have yet to see a single ad posted. I wouldn’t even know this started today if I weren’t a baseball junkie checking on free agent news.