TOKYO — Major League Baseball’s regular season kicked off Tuesday with an opening pitch thrown from halfway around the world.
The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1 in the first of a two-game series at Tokyo Dome, a 55,000-seat indoor stadium, as America’s pastime seeks a wider international audience.
There may be no more natural place for the season to begin than Japan, a baseball-crazy country whose star players have revitalized the American game.
Though major-league games have been played here before, never before have they featured so many Japanese stars, including the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, a national hero.
Ohtani is one of five Japanese players appearing on the rosters, along with Dodgers pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, Cubs pitcher Shota Imanaga and Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki.
The excitement was palpable Tuesday at Tokyo Skytree, the city’s tallest freestanding tower, where the league set up a fan experience center.
“This is something worthy of being included in Japanese textbooks,” Daiki Akiyama, a fan from Osaka who described baseball as his life, told NBC News on Monday. “I’ve been so excited I haven’t slept in three days.”
Food stands sold hot dogs, beer, burgers and baseball-shaped candy apples. People of all ages took their turn at batting cages, testing their skills against a screen simulation that tracked their performances.
Mascots from both teams came out to interact with fans, and even cardboard figures of the Japanese players drew long lines of people waiting to snap photos.
Fans could also take pictures with the Dodgers’ trophy from their World Series win last year.
Even a few diehard American fans made the trip.
“We’ll do anything for the Dodgers,” Richard Moreno, who traveled from Los Angeles, said outside a merchandise store where many items had sold out.
What makes the team so exciting?
“It’s all about Ohtani. He’s our hero,” Moreno said.
Fans packed the stadium during practice sessions over the weekend to catch a glimpse of Ohtani, 30, who signed a record 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers in 2023 and is the reigning National League MVP.
Though Ohtani is still recovering from off-season shoulder surgery, he is the Dodgers’ designated hitter as they play in Japan for the first time in the regular season.
Ohtani said he hoped the series would “mean something to not only people in Japan but throughout all of Asia.”
“Tokyo Dome is where I saw my first ballgame, and I’m happy to be back here, in this situation,” he said at a news conference.
Even Baseball Hall of Famer and 13-time All-Star Ken Griffey Jr. is impressed, saying there are only “certain people” he would compare Ohtani to, such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.
“He’s one of the guys that you stop everything you’re doing so you can see what he’s going to do ... because it can be that quick,” Griffey told reporters Monday.
Because Japan has basically adopted the Dodgers as its team, tickets for the Tokyo Series sold out fast, with many of the seats costing more than what some fans paid for flights from Los Angeles.
Moreno said he was struggling to buy tickets, which cost “an arm and a leg.”
Still, his companion Anthony Martinez described the trip as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“I’m just kind of shocked that we’re even here,” he said.
Those who couldn’t get tickets gathered for watch parties at Skytree, where Dodgers blue predominated.
Japan is seen as an important market for baseball, which was introduced to the country in 1872 and is now its most popular spectator sport. Last week, Japan’s Hanshin Tigers beat both the Dodgers and the Cubs in exhibition games in a sign that America’s sport is being redefined as a global game.
Janis Mackey Frayer, Dawn Liu and Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo and Peter Guo from Hong Kong.
