About
E-mail: admin@tokyoswallows.com
And we can, of course, be found at Jingu for home games, and often at away games as well, for face to face chats, should you be so inclined.
Hit us up with your questions – we love it.
The Tsubamegun has no official connection with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows Professional Baseball Club, nor do we pretend to. No one on this site speaks for the club or has any power over or responsibility for anything the club or Jingu Stadium does or does not do. We’re happy to hear about it and talk about it, and we can answer many questions – that’s what the site is here for, but that’s where our involvement ends.
Our bias is open and extreme. Nevertheless, we are interested in and encourage interest in all 12 NPB clubs and make an attempt to provide information on all of them. If you have a question regarding a club other than Tokyo, especially concerning going to a game, let us know – we can’t promise anything, but we’ve been to most pro baseball venues in Japan and have enjoyed every single one.
If you follow a team other than the Swallows and have toyed with the idea of blogging about your club, please e-mail us – we’d love to help. It is is our dream to help build a network of detailed, dedicated, gloriously partisan team sites, even for our deepest rivals.
GOING TO A GAME AT JINGU:
Going to a game at lovely Meiji Jingu Stadium is, of course, the best way to enjoy the Swallows and, we think, the best way to enjoy the sport of baseball, a summer evening, or the comraderie of friends, acquaintances, or your fellow sufferers Tokyo fans.
Getting there: Meiji Jingu Stadium (???????) is easily accessible from Shinanomachi (???) or Sendagaya (????) Stations on the JR Sobu Line (???), Gaienmae (???) or Aoyama-Ichome (?????) Stations on the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line (???), Aoyama-Ichome (?????) Station on the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line (????), Kokuritsu-Kyougijou (?????) Station on the Toei-Oedo Subway Line (??????), or even, although it’s a walk of just over 1.5 km, Harajuku (??) Station on the JR Yamanote Line (???).
In other words, it’s very accessible via Tokyo’s world-beating train system.
It is near the National Stadium, the National Gymnasium, the Meiji Portrait Gallery, the Prince Chichibu Rugby Stadium, and a large park containing numerous baseball, futsal, and soccer fields, and batting cages.
It is between Gaien-Nishi-dori (?????) and Gaien-Higashi-dori (?????), North of Aoyama-dori (????), South of Shinjuku Highway 4 (??4????), in Shinjuku ward’s Kasumigaoka-machi (????????).
Tickets: Tickets for regular season games run from ?1,500 (OF General Admission) to ?4,500 (IF Reserved); prices for seats along the baselines in the OF are slightly more expensive for games against the Yomiuri Giants or Hanshin Tigers.
Unless something really special is going on (Opening Day, the retirement of a popular player, a record stands to be broken, the game is crucial to the advancement of the Swallows or their opponents to the playoffs, etc.), tickets are almost always easy to get, especially for non-Hanshin/Yomiuri games. Hence, we recommend just going to the stadium 30 minutes to an hour before game time, getting in line at the box office, and buying your tickets on site. This has not failed us or our acquaintances yet and is by far the easiest way to go for those fans who aren’t comfortable with Japanese as it requires next to no speaking, no reading, and next to no confusion over what you’re getting.
To get OF tickets (the cheap seats), go to the box office near the OF gates (16, 17, 18.)
If you like, tickets are also available through Pia (??) (found in larger department stores – we use the one in the basement of Isetan Kaikan in Shinjuku when we really want to be prepared or want to get our hands on out of town tickets well in advance) or at the ticket machines in many convenience stores, especially Lawson and Family Mart (only because we know tickets are available there.)
Those who are comfortable reading Japanese can also go through the Tokyo Yakult Swallows Official Site, of course.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to e-mail us. We’ll say up front, though, that we have no official connection with the club whatsoever and can only answer questions to the best of our ability as generally nice guys and die-hard fans.
About Us: David Watkins, Christopher Pellegrini, Garrett DeOrio, and Kozo Ota are Tokyoites who spend perhaps a little too much time watching, discussing, and fretting about Japanese Pro Baseball, especially their beloved Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
This website is intended to give updates on things that may not be accessible to those not proficient in Japanese, too far away from Japan to keep up with the game easily, or who just don’t have the time or inclination to dig hither, thither, and yon, listen to the gossip in the stadium, and drag up the details that can make baseball such an intriguing game. Most of all, we hope it will help increase interest in the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and Japanese baseball in general.
We appreciate any and all input from readers, whether you know anything about Japanese baseball or not, whether you really give a fig or not, even if you’re a Yomiuri Giants or Hanshin Tigers fan.
The Categories:
Results Archive – This is where you can find results and summaries for all Tokyo Yakult Swallows games since June 6th, 2008. (We’re working on adding earlier games, so look for that date to change.)
2008 Season & 2009 Season – These two ought to be self-explanatory.
The Team – This is where you can find reports on and articles about the players, coaches, and manager of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows – what they’re doing, how they’re doing, why they’re doing it, etc.
Tsubamegun – This is everything else. The Tsubamegun (from which this blog takes it title) is the Tokyo Swallows’ “army,” if you will: the fans, the beloved former players, the guys and girls who give their all to bring beer to the masses. This is where you can find updates on former players, the stadium, the fans, musings an and insights into Japanese baseball in general – anything that isn’t a game result or a personnel move, anything that might be discussed in the stands.
The Pages:
Standings/Results – This page has the Swallows’ current record, the date, time, location, and even weather forecasts of the Swallows’ next few games, and the scores and summaries of the last couple of series. A breakdown of the team’s home and away records and the scores of every game this season are listed at the bottom of the page with links to game summaries in the Results Archive.
Stats, History, & More – This page is an index, or a table of contents, if you prefer, leading to the following pages:
Player Stats – This page is what it says – the current stats of active players on the team, updated as often as we can.
Swallows History – This page, a work in progress, is precisely what its title says it is.
NPB Standings 1995-2009 – Complete Central League and Pacific League standings and game-by-game Climax Series, Pacific League Playoff, and Japan Series results for every season from 1995 to the present. (To be joined by earlier years soon.)
Links: Do you have a blog or other website about Japanese baseball or Asian baseball? Let us know, so we can let our readers know about it. (We would, of course, appreciate a link in return.)
