no idea what the fans were chanting and singing, just that it was loud and in unison. I asked the people sitting next to me to translate the cheers for me, but no one seemed to speak English.

Finally, in the bottom of the second inning, as Giants pitcher Tetsuya Utsumi walked to the plate (there are two six-team leagues in Nippon Professional Baseball; the Pacific League uses the DH, while the Central League -- which includes the Giants and Tigers -- does not) the crowd broke out in a song I could understand -- "Happy Birthday." Turned out, it was Utsumi's 30th birthday.

Later in the game, I took a walk to get a closer look at the Tigers' oendan in the left-field bleachers. Huge flags were being wavedand I heard drums, tambourines and trumpets making music under the direction of a fan holding signs in the front row -- like the captain of a cheerleading squad at a college football game. The colors, songs and cheers were different, but the same thing was going on in the right-field bleachers, the heart of the Giants' oendan.

What I saw on the field didn't look much different than back home. There are only a few major rules differences between Japanese and American baseball. The regular season in Japan is 144 games, compared to 162 in the U.S. Japanese teams are each allowed a maximum of four foreign players. And if an extra-inning game in Japan is still tied after three-and-a-half hours, they won't start a new inning and