Drums. Giant flags. Balloons. Thousands of people chanting and singing. At first glance, the event could be mistaken for some sort of enormous political rally or cult ritual. Take a closer look, however, and you’ll find not neo-Nazis, but tens of thousands of baseball fans crammed into tiny seats with even tinier amounts of legroom.

As an American, I had always thought that we were serious about baseball. After all, it couldn’t be called “the American pastime” for no reason. However, my experience Friday night at Koshien Stadium, located midway between Kobe and Osaka, quickly taught me otherwise.

It was my first time at a Japanese baseball game, and a Japanese friend who accompanied me to the game helped explain the proper way to participate. Before entering the stadium, we stopped at a row of stalls set up outside the stadium to buy the necessary items. I picked up only a 600JPY set of plastic baseball bat-shaped noisemakers; the items available ranged from t-shirts and jerseys to pens and necklaces. A higher-end shop sold stylish, dressy clothes that were somehow associated with the team. Unfortunately, we forgot to buy balloons - a grave error (but more on that later).

As we settled into our tiny seats on the Hanshin Tigers side of the stadium, we were entertained by various acts involving local schoolchildren, who sang and danced to the official Hanshin Tigers theme song and were given a chance to pitch a few baseballs. A few minutes later, suit-wearing managers and cheerleaders came out onto the field to present a player with some sort of award - none of us were sure what exactly it was - and a bit later, after much bowing and the handing out of what appeared to be some sort of special envelopes, the game was underway. There was no standing and singing of the national anthem, no fancy video introductions of the players, no colorful graphics on the Jumbotron; the game simply started.

Having read before the game that Japanese baseball fans were an extremely noisy and energetic lot, I was surprised when, during the first half of the first inning, only quiet background chatter could be heard emanating from the crowd. Nobody booed the Yokohama Baystars (the opposing team), the fans applauded only quietly when an out was registered on the scoreboard, and many in the stands seemed to be paying little attention to what was happening on the field. I began going over in my head everything I had ever heard about Japanese baseball, and was quickly coming to the conclusion that I must be missing something, that there must be something wrong. Just as I was about to ask my friend why the crowd seemed so unenthusiastic, the third out was registered, and the Hanshin Tigers came up to bat.

And suddenly, every person in the crowd had their eyes riveted to the field. They were violently pounding together the plastic baseball-bat shaped noisemakers they had purchased outside the stadium in time with the drummers stationed in front of each section. They were chanting, singing. Giant flags were waved by excited fans. The cheering was accompanied by hand gestures, and both the gestures and cheers were different for each player. I was hit with such a deafening wall of sound that I stood dazed for a moment before grabbing my camera, snapping a few pictures of the crowd, and grabbing my own set of noisemakers and joining in.

The game went on like this until the seventh inning: relative silence while the Baystars were at bat, and increasingly ear-splitting levels of noise when it was the Tigers’ turn. But at the beginning of the seventh inning, something interesting happened. Colorful balloons gradually started appearing in the hands of fans throughout the stadium. I felt very left out; within a few minutes, it seemed that we were the only ones left in the stadium not holding balloons. Luckily, though, a kind couple seated behind us let us have an extra package of balloons, and we were able to join in the fun.

During what, in America, would have been the seventh inning stretch, the Tiger’s official theme song was again sung, and this time, it seemed almost everyone in the stadium sang along. After the singing was done, everyone quickly released their balloons. I did so as well, and then frantically grabbed my camera in an attempt to capture the amazing spectacle before my eyes before it vanished and the empty balloons fell back to the earth. Thankfully, I succeeded. I later learned that the release of balloons during the seventh inning stretch is a Hanshin Tigers tradition, performed by fans at both home and away games. Towards the end of the game, when it appeared certain the Tigers would be winning, the balloons began again to appear throughout the crowd, and when the final out was called for the Baystars, the sky was again momentarily filled with the colorful balloons.

Having launched their balloons for a second time in celebration of the Tigers’ victory, I assumed that the crowd would quickly begin to file out of the stadium. Instead, though, everyone stuck around for a good twenty minutes, singing songs of celebration and cheering their victorious team. On the field, television crews and newspaper photographers surrounded a few of the players for interviews, which were shown live on the screen next to the scoreboard. One of the players being interviewed was not Japanese, so a translator was used. The entire process was very polite compared with the pushy, haggling news media that tends to accost American players in the locker rooms after a game. Only when all of this was finished did the first few members of the crowd begin to leave the stadium.

The train back to Kobe was, of course, extremely crowded to the point where any form of movement would be impossible. Each time I thought the car had to be truly filled and it would be impossible for anyone else to board, a few more people managed to somehow shove their way into the overflowing vehicle. When the train finally pulled away from the station, I could still hear fans who had not yet left the stadium singing and cheering over the Tigers’ victory. I spent the twenty minutes between Koshien and Sannomiya stations solidly wedged against my friend and a handful of other baseball fans.

By the time I got back to my hotel, I felt somewhat deaf from the noise and a bit tired, but I didn’t really mind. I’d never had this much fun at an American baseball game.