The players of the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team have found a new way of interacting directly with their fans using Instagram, and it's creating a buzz.
Players answer questions from fans on the team's official Instagram account. The team began providing this service as it has been difficult for its players to interact with fans due to the spread of the new coronavirus.
Shogo Nakamura, a second baseman who played in every game for two consecutive years, appeared first. When the team solicited questions on the evening of March 11, 379 questions were received by the next morning. Nakamura answered 15 of the questions, which were selected by the team's public relations section.
When asked "Do you cook at home?" Nakamura responded: "About once a month. I made ginger pork the other day."
To the question, "Who do you think is good-looking among your teammates?" he said, "Mr. [Takashi] Toritani," his senior at Waseda University who recently joined the team.
When asked to talk about any heartwarming events between teammates, Nakamura referred to one in which he had 10 stitches under his left eye during practice in April last year. "It was difficult to wash my head by myself, but [reliever] Mr. Yasuhiro Tanaka washed my hair while avoiding the wound in the stadium's public bath," he recalled.
Several days later, infielder Yudai Fujioka offered his support, saying he also would like to take questions from the fans. Upon fan request, he entertained everyone by drawing "Doraemon," a popular cat-shaped robot anime character.
"As we can't interact with fans directly, I began to think about ways to do so using social media," said Nakamura, who spearheaded this form of interaction. "I only can do something simple like this for right now, but I hope the situation will return to normal as soon as possible."
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