The Launch Angle

Even though America is home to baseball, it’s easy to feel like the sport has descended in the popularity ranks the last fifty years. Football is king now in the US, with MLB a distant second, and you can even make an argument that the NBA now holds the #2 slot over MLB.

That’s not the case in Japan, where I recently visited, crossing an item off my bucket list. Baseball is the undisputed most popular sport of the country. Sumo wrestling may be the traditional national sport, but Japan 100% is a baseball country.

Walking around Tokyo, kids are playing baseball everywhere. They’re practicing in fields and parks across the city. They don’t even need grass. A few blocks from our hotel, a youth baseball team was holding a practice on recreational area paved with asphalt in full baseball gear, practicing throwing and catching.

Japan doesn’t just follow and support Nippon Professional Baseball either. MLB highlights featuring Japanese players are routinely played on TV.

Shohei Ohtani is everywhere. He’s the famous person in the country. He’s more ubiquitous in Japan than Michael Jordan was in America in the 1990s.

Billboards, posters, vending machines, commercials. He’s in the airport as soon as you land, he’s on video ads playing on subway trains, he’s on bus stops. You name it, he’s selling it: Watches, cosmetics, sneakers, green tea, everything.

Here’s a row of green tea vending machines by Asakusa Shrine, selling 63 different bottle variants, one for each of the 55 regular season and 8 postseason home runs Ohtani hit in 2025.

My kids had to have one; they don’t even like green tea. We got 3 (because of course they can’t share), with each kid picking one, either based on the picture or the specific number, and we carried around the empty bottles the rest of the trip and ultimately all the way across the ocean back home.

While I was in Japan, I absolutely had to make it to an NPB game. There are 5 NPB teams in the Greater Tokyo area, but we elected to see the Yomiuri Giants play in the Tokyo Dome, because it’s the only stadium that’s indoors and Tokyo in July is pretty hot.

There’s a lot of ways to get NPB tickets. I went with Viagogo, which is basically the international sister company of Stubhub, about a month before we left for Japan. It only showed upper bowl tickets, which was fine. They weren’t terribly expensive, but if I were in Japan, I could have gotten tickets for even cheaper. An elderly Japanese couple, who sat behind us during the game, left their ticket stubs/receipt. I picked it up and realized they had just gotten their tickets at the 7-11 for about 12 bucks.

(7-11’s are great in Japan, by the way. In the US, you might get a microwave burrito or a hot dog that has been rolling in that hot dog roller for God knows how long. In Japan you can buy onigiri, which are rice balls, often with stuff like seaweed, fish or chicken. You might recoil at the idea of eating fish from a 7-11, but tons of Japanese do it everyday. We did it too, and I gotta say, it wasn’t bad.)

We took the subway to the Tokyo Dome. It wasn’t a far walk from the station. Your ticket indicates what specific gate you are supposed to enter from. Your gate is generally very close to your seat. Since there are a lot of gates, entry was easy and rapid, a far cry from how long it can take to enter Daikin Park from its 5 gates.

Everything is very efficient in Japan. I thought it there might be a lot of lines and waiting, because I had heard Japan was crowded, but it was never an issue. Our seats were in the upper deck, and so our entry gate was up high.

Here’s a picture where I’m in the Tokyo Dome, but not yet actually in the Tokyo Dome because I’m still just walking to my gate.

We received two different stadium giveaways upon entry: a nice Yomiuri Giants bandana stylized on the “Black Diamond” alternate unis the team was wearing that game, which my daughter put on immediately.

We were also given Yomiuri Giants hand fans. The game was indoors, and Japan is home to Daikin Air Conditioning, but it still felt hot. They must have known that the A/C wasn’t adequate, because they gave us all these fans which we definitely used. To be fair, as the game went on, the A/C got better and we didn’t need the fans as much.

We were up high. There was only one row higher than where we were sitting, but we were behind home plate so it was a pretty nice view.

“It looks like Tropicana Field,” my 10 year old son commented when we sat down and looked around. I agreed. He’s never been to Tropicana Field, and neither have I, but we’ve seen it on TV. There’s no windows, the dome roof is white, and it has that artificial turf that looks like 1980s Astroturf that hasn’t been changed since the stadium opened. The Tokyo Dome (opened in 1988) and Tropicana Field (1990) are about the same age. They’re both old now and it shows.

The Yomiuri Giants are considered “the Yankees” of NPB. They’re the most popular team in the league, they play in the biggest city, they’ve won the most championships. Aesthestically, they look like the San Francisco Giants: Orange and black, and their usual uniforms look pretty much identical to the San Francisco Giants. Their opponent was the Chunichi Dragons, whose uniforms look identical to the Los Angeles Dodgers. I’m not sure how there’s no copyright infringement, honestly. Visually, it would have essentially been a Japanese Giants-Dodgers match, if not for the Giants’ alternate unis.

The atmosphere was very different to an MLB game. Drums, brass horns and chants permeated the stadium throughout all nine innings. I didn’t hear any loudspeaker walk-up music. My wife says there was some, but it was inconsequential because the sounds of the crowd and band dominated the air, like a college football game.

The crowd was into the game as intensely in the first inning as the ninth, yet nobody stood up. Ever, unless they were getting out of their seats to head to the concourse.

It’s a common practice at American sporting events for fans stand, when there’s an exciting or tense moment. In Buffalo, the crowd stands for every play on offense. People even treat it like a badge of honor, a display of engagement. How often have we heard announcers recite a tired phrase like “40,000 seats were paid for, but nobody’s using them. The entire stadium is on their feet”?

Okay, but not everyone really wants to be on their feet. Sometimes, the person in front of you decides to stand up, and then you have to stand up because now you can’t see. Then what happens? The people behind you have to stand up and so on. Soon a whole section is standing, not because they want to, but just because some yahoo in row 4 didn’t know how to be excited in a seated position. Mass standing is especially annoying if you’re at a game with kids.

That doesn’t happen in Japan. Everyone stays seated, and everyone is still excited and into it. Everyone can see; everyone can enjoy. Nobody is ruining it for anyone else. Respect is the hallmark of Japanese culture. If you were to imagine a society where everyone behaved in a way that was respectful to other people, that would be Japan.

After a scoreless top of the first, the Giants led off the bottom of the first with a leadoff double. You might have heard Japanese baseball is a lot bigger on small ball than baseball in America. Well, that seemed to be the case, because with a runner on first base in the first inning, the second batter of the game laid down a sacrifice bunt.

The bunt was met with applause around the stadium. “GOOD JOB!” popped up on the Jumbotron.

English phrases flash across the Scoreboard periodically. “NICE PITCH!” “GREAT K!” But that’s about it. Everything else is in Japanese and in kanji.

This headshot of the Giants starting pitcher looked familiar, but the lineup was in Japanese, so I had to look it up on my phone based on his uniform number. It was our old friend Forrest Whitley!

Former Red Sox Bobby Dalbec batted cleanup for the Giants, and drove in that leadoff single who was bunted over to second in the first inning. On the other side, former Twin Miguel Sano batted cleanup for the Dragons. Another American player batted for the Giants further down the lineup.

“Trey Cabbage,” I read off my phone, after looking up his jersey number.

“Trey Cabbage? Why does that name sound familiar?” my older son asked.

“Because he played for Astros just a couple years ago.”

Whitley was outstanding. He took a no-hitter into the 6th inning, before a double broke it up. A predominantly blue section in the stands by left field went nuts, when that happened. In the Tokyo Dome, there’s a section that they reserve just for fans of the opposing team, which is kind of cool. They enforce it too. If you’re wearing home gear in that section, they make you take it off. Imagine a Dodger fan being told that they can’t wear a Kershaw jersey in Dodger Stadium, because their ticket’s section calls for Altuve and Correa gear.

Whitley then loaded the bases with 2 outs, then allowed a bases loaded walk that tied the game 1-1. An out later he completed the 6th and was done for the night.

We took a walk through the concourse to check out the food options, browse the stores and use the restrooms. Japanese toilets are legendary. Public restrooms are clean and it’s commonplace for the toilets to have bidets. My daughter said in the women’s room, her stall even had a TV in it.

There were a lot of food options, both Western and Japanese. We didn’t fly 14 hours to Tokyo to eat hot dogs though. My kids insisted on concession stand edamame and sushi, so I found myself buying my kids raw fish at a baseball game. “It’s delicious,” they told me. I’m not sure that was true. It was serviceable. I’d had a lot of very good sushi in Japan, but this didn’t look all that different from the packaged sushi rolls at the “Sushiya” counter at HEB.

The stores were well stocked. They had these scarves/mini blankets a lot of fans seemed to be waving around. I assumed they all said “Yomiuri Giants” until I realized they all had different Japanese characters on them; they were players names.

Who was who?

“I think this one is Forrest Whitley,” my 7 year old said.

“How do you know that?” I asked

“It has an English letter F in front of that Japanese writing.”

“Oh, so this one with a T must be Trey Cabbage,” my 10 year old concluded.

Google Translate camera confirmed their theories.

We grabbed a Whitley one, and another one that had an cartoon otter on it (there was another series where players names were accompanied by a cartoon animal, and the choice of animal was more important to my 7 year old than the choice of player.

We also got a few shirseys of longtime shortstop (now third base) Hayato Sakamoto, who a Google search told me was their most popular player. Unfortunately, just like stateside, team apparel is made by Fanatics, so it’s the same terrible quality we’re used to in MLB team stores. At least it’s not the same terrible prices; everything in the stores was priced reasonably, thanks to a favorable dollar to yen exchange rate.

All of these food and shopping options were easily accessible on the upper concourse. American stadiums often neglect fans in the upper bowl. Not so in Japan.

The beer girl comes all the way to the top row, pressurized keg on her back and everything. At least I thought it was going to be beer. I had seen another girl dispensing Asahi beer the last time one came by our seats. This one gave me something clear that was carbonated in a cup with ice. I guess it was hard seltzer. Still refreshing.

Between innings, the Tokyo Dome had similar fan diversions to stateside, but with a Japanese flair. They don’t have racing condiments or Presidents, they have racing Sushi.

I was particularly curious what they would do at the 7th inning stretch. It wasn’t “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, but everyone sang some kind of fight song together. “Tokonkomete” during the Lucky 7th inning stretch, brought to you by 7-11.

A tight 1-1 game heading into the 9th inning, I began to wonder if I’d get to see what extra innings was like in Japanese baseball. Does NPB use a Manfred Man?

The big screen played a montage of past walk-off wins of the Giants. The crowd was energized.

The Giants got a run into scoring position in the bottom of the 9th, thanks to, you guessed it, a sacrifice bunt.

This is what you watch baseball for. This is why you love baseball, no matter the country, the language, the teams. For a runner in scoring position in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th.

Bobby Dalbec came to the plate.

“BOB-BY-Y!”

That’s not a typo. They say the last syllable of Bobby twice, I guess because it’s a chant for 3 syllable names.

The Dragons threw Dalbec a first pitch ball, and then decided to intentionally walk him. Runners on first and second.

Then a strikeout. Runners still on first and second. 2 outs.

Everyone was on the edge of their seats, but they remain just that, seated. Even now, standing would be discourteous.

Hayato Sakamoto comes to the plate, the guy we googled was a fan favorite. It turns out he’s kind of like their Jose Altuve. He’s been with the team his whole career, and he’s the longest tenured player on the roster. He’s won batting titles. He’s won Gold Gloves. He’s won an MVP. He’s won 2 championships.

He’s a legend who hit his 300th home run this season. But he’s old now. A shell of his former self statistically, batting well below even .200. You can count his home runs this season on one hand with fingers to spare.

“LET’S! GO! SA-KA-MO!”

I guess they leave out the “TO”, because it’s another chant for 3 syllables.

The whole game the fans never stood up. Until the last swing on a 2-0 pitch, Sakamoto drove one to deep left, a walk off 3 run home run, and suddenly ALL of the Tokyo Dome was standing.

I wasn’t sure if Japanese fans high fived. It turns out they do.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Nobody left. Nobody tried to beat the rush, get ahead of the traffic, everyone stayed in their seats, and after players wrapped up their on field celebration, they rolled out a stage for Sakamoto, where he got up to huge applause. They gave him a stuffed animal and conducted a post game interview, while cute orange furry mascots looked on.

Do they do this every game? Just wins? Just walkoff wins? Was this prescheduled because they were already planning to honor him for something else? I have no idea, but we stayed and clapped like everyone else, cleaned up our area trash and garbage like everyone else, dropped them off in designated receptacles set up on our way out and went home, having had a first rate baseball experience.

I can’t recommend going to an NPB game enough. It was a fantastic and unique experience. Going to Japan for the first time left me wanting to come back a second, and if I make it back, I’ll definitely be going to another game.

All photos by mhatter106.