Japan's rowdiest baseball fans desperate to end pandemic silence

OSAKA: In a country of baseball fanatics, Hanshin Tigers supporters are known as Japan's rowdiest - so they are aching to cut loose as a pandemic ban on cheering drags into a third season.

In pre-coronavirus times, the Tigers' Koshien Stadium near Osaka was a riot of noise and colour with fans shouting, singing and playing trumpets in fervent support of their team.

But since COVID-19, they have been silenced and their voices replaced by recorded chants piped into the stands through loudspeakers after cheering was banned at Japanese sports stadiums to combat the virus.

Tigers supporters, who often outnumber home fans at away games and are easily recognisable in their weird and wonderful yellow and black outfits, say they are "praying" for the day when they can yell their full-throated support again.

"I think people will be so happy that they'll all get naked," 57-year-old lifelong Tigers fan Hideyuki Takashima told AFP.

The start of the new baseball season in March saw fans in the league allowed back in full numbers, after attendances had been limited to maintain social distancing.

But signs asking them to wear face masks and refrain from chanting, singing and talking in loud voices remain.

Some Tigers fans, like 59-year-old Hiroshi Umehara, say the cheers can "just slip out" after a drink or two, but others find different ways to release their pent-up emotions.

"I wait until I get home and then I let it out there, I sing in the bath," said 56-year-old Shigeyuki Morishita.

The Tigers have won the Japan Series title only once, but they enjoy massive support in Osaka, Japan's third-biggest city and known for its rough-and-ready humour and down-to-earth character.

When the team won the title in 1985, fans celebrated by jumping into