蹴っ飛ばせ

Kettobase is a popular cheer in Japanese baseball. Gramatically speaking, it's the imperative form of ketobasu, a compound verb made up of keru "kick" and tobasu "make fly." While ketobasu means "kick away" or "refuse," kettobase roughly means "hit it out of the park."

I've heard that different teams structure the kettobase cheer in different ways. The only time I ever heard it in person was at a Hanshin Tigers game, where the cheer for Tsuyoshi Shinjo sounded like this:

sing:
Ke-to-ba-se Shi-n-jo
Ke-to-ba-se Shi-n-jo
Ke-to-ba-se Shi-n-jo
Ke-to-ba-se Shi-n-jo

then yell and clap:
KE-TTO-ba-SE! SHI-N-JO!

This would, of course, be modified to accommodate other batters, with the exception of Americans, who would be cheered for in equally repetitive English.

"Kettobase!" is also an R&B/rock hybrid song by Utada Hikaru from the album Distance. During the song, Utada sings "I want your baby" several times as filler. I'm not sure whether she intended to say "I want you, baby" or whether she really wanted someone's baby: this may be one of those things that only Hikki herself can answer.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.