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Hacksaw’s Monday Bonus Podcast
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“BASEBALL-OPENING DAY-ABROAD”
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The 2025-MLB season has arrived. It actually started in the middle of the night, (3am) Tuesday-West Coast time.
The much anticipated debut of America’s Team, or maybe, the Evil Empire, with the Dodgers playing the Cubs in the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Opening day, in the middle of the night.
It has been a week of celebration there, the Dodgers entourage of Shohei Ohtani, Yosh Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki. The Cubs brought their foreign stars too, Shoto Imanaga and Seiyu Sasaki.
But the tidal wave of Japanese media only wanted to see and hear from Ohtani and his teammates. Manager Dave Roberts, with his Japanese family ties, became the point man ambassador.
What a week for baseball, as Japan, year by year, is sending more and more talent to MLB via its posting system, and now not only have stars arrived, their first, Ichuro Suzuki, will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
But it was not always that way.
In the 1930s, before Pearl Harbor, the likes of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig put on hitting exhibitions in Japan.
MLB sent All Star teams on tours to Japan as far back as the late 1950s, pioneered by Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley. The Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe Dodgers made those journeys.
Japan had a global presence of attention in 868-home run hitter Sadaharu Oh, but he never crossed the Pacific. He is now 84-years of age and was saluted this week by the Dodgers, and his beloved Nippon following.
The first Japanese player did not come to the US till the mid-1960s. Anyone remember the experiment with the Giants and lefthanded reliever Masahiro Murakami? He was here two years and left.
Think how strange, how foreign, how hard it must have been for him, the only in all of baseball.
But it opened the gates and then they came, pitchers after pitchers for the most part. Hideo Nomo to Kenta Maeda and more. Then Kaz Ishii, Dice Matsuzaka all the way to Hidecki Matsui , Masa Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda and a legend unto his own right-Yu Darvish..
Ohtani became the first superstar prospect to come before his free agent status kicked in, arriving as an International free agent, meaning his earning power was limited. Now Roki Sasaki has followed in those footsteps
And it’s now more than Japan. Chan Ho Park led the group from Korea and Taiwan, and there are more to come.
The game is very different. The culture takes time to adjust too. But MLB teams are now better in-tune with how to help the Pacific Rim stars adjust. T
The failures, to the tune of Hidecki Irabu, of the Padres-Yankees, have been few and far between.
It makes you think, as spectacular as Ichuro was, wouldn’t it have been something to see Oh here at this level at his high point in a baseball life.?
But at this hour, it’s about opening day, the Dodgers, the pennant race, the Evil Empire and more. It has taken us decades to appreciate what was abroad. They have arrived and that is good for the Grand Old Game.
Play Ball at the Tokyo Dome, and across all diamonds in MLB shortly.
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