When Rob Fitts is in Japan during baseball season, he makes it a point to carve out time for a trip to Hiroshima to watch the Hiroshima Carp play.
One day, while watching a contest at Mazda Stadium alongside the Carp’s legion of passionate red-clad fans, Fitts was struck by a spark of curiosity.
As the game played out on the field, he found himself wondering about the uriko — the (almost always) female beer vendors who traverse the stands with small kegs strapped to their backs and are a ubiquitous presence at NPB games. What was the job like? What did it entail? How did they fit into the larger Japanese baseball experience?
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