In a week, a whole country will be still for a monumental collision of sports and national pride.
Five of Japan’s favorite sons will return to their homeland when Chicago Cubs meets Los Angeles Dodgers in a couple of regular seasonal games March 18-19 at Tokyo Dome.
It is safe to be sensory overload for a sports -loving country that has embraced baseball as its own. Tokyo’s Yomiuri giants, as large as teams get in Japan, will open their doors to the kids and Dodgers in their home ball park – then takes an instant rear seat in popularity.
Ask someone from Japan with even a moderate appreciation for baseball, and consensus is that Dodgers is even greater than the local Giants, which have won 22 Japan series -titles and nine more when counting the league’s predecessor, the Japanese baseball.
But there is a unit that is larger than both teams. Dodgers Shohei Ohtani returns home as king.
Cubs will have a left -hander Shota Imanaga, as well as excursor Seiya Suzuki, who plays on the home grass again. Dodgers has the right hand Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki. In fact, Imanaga will hit Yamamoto in the opener. Dodgers has not made it official, but Sasaki is expected to make his Major League debut in the second game.
Ohtani, however, remains greater than life by conquering baseball like no other, foreign or domestic.
The moment is not lost on Dodgers Kanna Tyler Glasnow, although he underestimated the opportunity just a little.
“Ohtani is like Justin Bieber Times 10 over there, so it will probably go crazy,” Glasnow said.
At least Glasnow has a decent perspective on the energy expected. It will take at least a few more Biebers to rise to the moment.
Infielder Tadahito Iguchi rode a former wave of Japan-born players in the big leagues when he debuted for Chicago White Sox in 2005 and helped a renovated roster to win Franchiseen’s only World Series title since 1917.
After four MLB seasons, it returned contact with No. 2 to Japan to play nine seasons for Chiba Lotte Marines and beat 102 home purchases during the process. He won his third Japan -series -title in 2010 and became head of the club for four seasons until 2022.
Now a baseball analyst and color commentator for Japan’s NHK, Iguchi was at Dodgers spring training facility in Phoenix in recent days to start counting MLB’s arrival in his homeland.
“Everywhere in Japan there are signs that Dodgers are coming,” Iguchi said through an interpreter. “If you go to the airport, if you go to (the subway station), you can see ads, signs, signs that Dodgers will come. It’s huge. Everyone is looking forward to it. “
And Ohtani’s presence is most evaluated by everything.
“You can’t compare. It goes Ohtani, then Dodgers, then Giants, “said Iguchi and ranked the three in popularity order. “You can’t compare with any Japanese teams. Dodgers and Ohtani are the highest. If you are watching TV shows in Japan, there is Ohtani News everywhere. So yes, the effects of Ohtani are huge. “
There is also a meeting of a different kind that will make all Japan assume.
Dodgers meets the Yomiuri giants in an exhibition game on Sunday at Tokyo Dome. It can be as large as, for example, a Japanese against the US collision in the World Baseball Classic, even though the efforts are low for both clubs.
Dodger’s manager Dave Roberts, who is of Japanese heritage, understands the size, but he still plans to treat the game as the exhibition it is. His focus remains on the kids and gets his team’s title defense to a flying start.
“I remember I was in Japan like a young child and looked at Tokyo Giant’s game and my grandfather told me this is the team,” said Roberts from Dodgers Camp Monday, just 48 hours before boarding the team’s foreign flight. “So to play against these guys now, or handle against these guys, I think it’s fantastic. I think it’s fantastic. “
When Japan saves the spectacle with next week’s Cubs Dodgers game in Prime Time, only insomnia among us in the United States is to look at live. The games start at 5 o’clock in Chicago and at a deep-in-night 3 AM in Los Angeles.
Just don’t let it minimize weight.
“This is bigger than us,” Roberts said. “It’s about Global Baseball, so I just think I’m very lucky to be a part of this, as well as Dodgers.”
