From our other sites
The story
On October 18, 2026, in the final game of the Climax Series, the Hanshin Tigers backed their opponent into a corner with two outs and two strikes — and the moment the “one more strike” chant rang out from the stands, their bullpen fell apart, handing the game away and ending their season on the spot. In 5ch’s live-commentary threads, posters repeatedly joked self-deprecatingly that conceding runs right after the chant is basically Hanshin’s “signature comedy routine,” invoking memories of past blowouts like the infamous 33-4 defeat in the 2005 Japan Series. At the same time, opinions clashed over the etiquette of shouting the “one more strike” chant while the opposing team is batting, as well as over the current Climax Series format that lets a lower-ranked team knock the pennant winner out of the Japan Series.
Their skill at comedy is just on another level
Source: video.twimg.com / Original article here
What people said
Apparently the manager's not even the one to blame, though
No, he's totally to blame — he ran through three relievers across innings and it all blew up spectacularly at the end anyway
Hanshin fans have been on the edge of their seats waiting for Randy Bass's home run (their 1985 championship hero) for decades now, you know
Right??
If it had just been a 1-run game there'd still have been some hope
Honestly, same
'Finally a close game in game 4!'
…and then yep, still a loss
Both the team and the fans clearly love that gag-like vibe
Last year's Japan Series was the same — winning a close game 1 in Fukuoka had everyone thinking 'we can actually do this'
then getting crushed in game 2
and then losing a straight one-run game back at home
'It's wrong to reach the Japan Series without even winning the pennant!' → Hanshin did exactly that in 2014
'It's wrong to make the Climax Series with a losing record!' → Both the 2015 and 2022 Hanshin squads were under .500
'Show some respect!' → They've mocked the Giants' eliminations plenty in the past, and they do the 'one more strike' chant themselves
'We don't need the Climax Series!' ← It was Hanshin fans who made a huge fuss back in 2005 after the 33-4 drubbing, insisting 'we only lost because there was no playoff to keep our game sense sharp!'
'It cheapens the value of the pennant!' ← Losing in the Climax Series is nowhere near as bad as 33-4 was 😅
'Too much of a gap between the regular season and the Japan Series killed our game sense' → 33-4
Meanwhile they apparently had plenty of lead time before the Climax Series Final started and still showed up unprepared
The 2014 Japan Series was the same deal — made you think 'maybe we can actually win this' right before turning into a comedy show
Honestly it's baffling they even finished 2nd in the league with that roster, and they just played sloppy
That's probably why it's such a classic comedy callback
'One more strike' is basically Hanshin's signature bit at this point — everyone half-expects a gorgeous come-from-behind loss on cue
If it's a spot where you'd still win even after giving up a homer, no runners on, fine, say it then
But when a single hit or a dropped third strike could flip the whole game, chanting it in that spot is just comedy
It's just finishing 1st in your division, and the real action is the postseason
If Japan's modeling itself on that, it should just drop the whole 'league champion' title and call it finishing 1st instead
If anything I think Japan's system beats MLB's — winning the pennant still keeps its own value, while the postseason gets to be hyped up as its own separate thing
MLB has wild cards too, you know
And on top of that, division winners barely get any real advantage anyway
This time it's a loss on 'one more strike' in the season's very last game, so it's funny that the clock just keeps running — a solid half a year — until next March
It's become a daily bit now — 'XX hours since one more strike'
Honestly wish someone would start a thread for it every single day
The real problem is drowning out and disrupting the other team's cheering section while they're batting
The unwritten rule is each side cheers during its own at-bats
Otherwise you'd just get both sides cheering over each other nonstop and it'd turn into total chaos
Just take the league's 1st and 2nd place teams, plus the top interleague-play team excluding those two, as a wild card
If you're treating the short playoff series as its own separate thing anyway, it'd be fun — this year that'd mean Seibu for the Pacific League and Chunichi for the Central League, say
You can't have a Japan Series between two teams from the same league, though
What happens if some fluke sends it to a Lotte vs. Rakuten Japan Series?
The reason the 3rd-place team gets in is so the top seed has to burn through its ace rotation in the First Stage, which gives the 1st-place team the advantage going into the Final Stage
Why didn't they bring in a defensive replacement
He's probably due for Tommy John surgery
Sure, if it's a spot where you'd still win even after giving up a homer
But with runners on, and in scoring position no less, and the batter being someone who's been hitting well lately — only a small minority would feel that confident
On top of that, how those runners got on base was bad too
And the guy on the mound wasn't exactly an untouchable closer who'd been rock-solid all season either
A 2-run lead with nobody on, sure, maybe
But a situation where a single hit flips the whole game? Mentally that's nowhere near 'one more strike' territory
At an 0-2 count, the odds the pitcher even throws a strike are under 30%
Plus there's fouls to account for
And it's a huge jam to begin with
And honestly, even if fans privately think 'one more strike,' it's a whole other thing for the entire crowd to chant it out loud in unison
Sorry, that was just me running my mouth while drunk
My bad lol
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The “one more strike” chant has become an established — if self-mocking — fan tradition at Hanshin games, born from the team’s repeated pattern of blowing the lead late after cornering an opponent. In the thread, posters repeatedly brought up the infamous 33-4 blowout from the 2005 Japan Series as well as anecdotes from the team’s early-season struggles under manager Yano. Opinion split mainly along two lines: one group questioned the etiquette of shouting the chant while the opposing team is at bat, and the other voiced frustration with the current Climax Series format, which allows a lower-ranked team to knock the pennant winner out of the Japan Series — a point that also spun off into comparisons with MLB’s wild-card system. What’s easy to miss is that this chant isn’t a one-off jab at the team; it’s a bit fans themselves have kept alive self-deprecatingly for years, folding in even their own historic blowouts, and the thread’s reactions are simply the latest chapter of that same tradition.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Hanshin Fan: ‘One More Strike! One More Strike!’“.
Leave a Reply