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Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto signings help Dodgers maintain longstanding popularity in Japan
One of my favorite pieces of Japanese baseball memorabilia that I own is a Weekly Yomiuri special magazine issue from 1956, commemorating the Brooklyn Dodgers tour of Japan that took place that same year.
The tour was the start of a relationship between the Dodgers and Japan. Nearly 70 years later, with Shohei Ohtani now in Dodger blue, that relationship is still going strong.
“The Dodgers have a long and rich history in Japan,” Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman said at the Dec. 14 press conference introducing Ohtani as a Dodger. “Starting with [former team owner] Walter O’Malley and [assistant to O’Malley] Akihiro ‘Ike’ Ikuhara, which ultimately led to Hideo Nomo, Hiroki Kuroda, Kenta Maeda, and countless others, and continuing with the most significant way we can imagine with this announcement today.
“One of our goals is to have baseball fans in Japan convert to Dodger blue,” Friedman added. “And to have Shohei along with the rest of his teammates help grow the game and passion for Dodgers baseball all across Japan.”
Less than two weeks later, furthering that mission, the Dodgers signed highly sought-after Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) pitching sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million deal. Yamamoto, 25, was dominating with Japan’s Orix Buffaloes, winning the Pacific League MVP as well as the NPB Sawamura Award (Japan’s Cy Young) each of the past three seasons. He teamed with Ohtani on the victorious Samurai Japan squad in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Soon after Ohtani left the Los Angeles Angels for the Dodgers, Topps Now issued cards of Shohei in Dodger blue. The first one, which portrays Ohtani at the plate in a Dodger uniform, set a record with 107,541 copies sold in the 24 hours it was available from the Topps website. “SIGNED,” the front of the card says in giant letters.
Another Topps Now card shows Ohtani trying on his new threads at the press conference.
Later, after Yamamoto joined the Dodgers, a dual card was issued featuring Yamamoto (uniform #18) and Ohtani (#17).
Ohtani, 29, signed a 10-year, $700 million deal on Dec. 9, 2023. Last year the “two-sword” player (as he is called in Japan for his two-way ability) hit .304 with 44 home runs, while recording 10 wins and a 3.14 ERA on the mound for the Halos. Ohtani won MVP awards in 2021 and 2023. In between those years, in 2022, he finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting, with 15 wins and a 2.33 ERA.
After undergoing elbow surgery, Ohtani will not pitch in 2024, but remains one of the most thrilling players in the league for fans who now look forward to having Shotime and Yamamoto eventually join forces on the Dodger pitching staff.
DODGERS HISTORY IN JAPAN
Decades before Ohtani and Yamamoto, it was the likes of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese building up the Dodger fan base on the other side of the world. Following World War II and until 1984, teams such as the Dodgers, Yankees, Cardinals, Mets and Reds made postseason goodwill tours to Japan to help build the friendship between two baseball-loving nations. One of those early tours was the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956.
Invited by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, the Bums arrived following a World Series loss to the Yankees. Brooklyn now had the unique opportunity to face opponents such as the Yomiuri Giants and various All-Star teams all around Japan, with stops in cities like Tokyo, Sapporo and Hiroshima. The Dodgers ended the tour with a 14-4-1 record.
The previously mentioned 1956 Weekly Yomiuri magazine has one of the coolest covers ever in my opinion: artwork of shortstop Pee Wee Reese leaping and throwing over a Yomiuri Giants player sliding into second base. Inside the issue are photos of the Dodger captain’s teammates like Robinson (who in Japan spent his last games as a Dodger), Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider and Don Newcombe, who would later play professionally in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons.
A few years ago I wrote to three players who were part of the 1956 Dodger tour: pitcher Carl Erskine, Don Demeter and Bob Aspromonte. In reply to my questions about the tour, Erskine, who notched victories in Tokyo and Sapporo, wrote that the team was “treated with respect.” Demeter, who died in 2021, smashed five homers in Japan and commented that he had “good memories” of the tour. Aspromonte, who had gotten in only one game as a Dodger prior to the tour, said, “I was blessed to experience this historic trip as an 18-year-old Dodger.”
The L.A. Dodgers were back for another Japan tour in 1966. Los Angeles touched base again in 1993, when Tommy Lasorda and company stopped by to play a couple of games in Fukuoka, Japan following a trip to Taiwan.
The solid relationship continued as the Dodgers did a little hosting of their own as well, playing host to the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s most popular team. On five occasions (1961, ’67, ’71, ’75, and ’81) the Yomiuri Giants made spring training visits to Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla.
A major baseball card producer in Japan, Calbee, included photos of the 1975 Vero Beach spring training as part of a series of cards released that same year. One of those cards in my collection shows Japan’s home run king Sadaharu Oh taking batting practice with a tall palm tree nearly fully displayed in the background.
“Most Japanese people felt very close to the Dodgers,” Acey Kohrogi, former director of Asian Operations for the Dodgers, said in a 2014 interview with Dodgers team historian Mark Langill. “Especially the baseball officials, because the Tokyo Giants trained there five times and all the footage and all the daily newspaper articles from Vero Beach where Dodger players and Tokyo Giants players are in the photos.”
But it was in 1995, when Hideo Nomo came over from Japan and led the National League in strikeouts, that Dodger popularity leapt to another level overseas.
In Los Angeles, Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda strived to make his new pitcher feel at home.
“Tommy took him under his wing as his son,” Kohrogi said of Nomo, who was crowned NL Rookie of the Year in 1995. “And he really took care of him as far as eating dinner, traveling, everything.
“Tommy Lasorda was a big part of Nomo’s success. He made him comfortable.”
The Dodgers remained one of the most popular major league teams in Japan after Nomo, but in recent years Ohtani’s Angels colors have emerged as the dominant theme wherever American baseball apparel is sold. In sporting goods stores, Angels gear crowded out other teams for shelf space.
No longer. Make room for Dodger blue.
“From what I understand, Walter O’Malley’s philosophy was to help Japanese baseball,” Kohrogi said. “By helping Japanese baseball, it’ll be good for the Dodgers in the end.”
Considering the latest additions to the team, it looks as though that might be working out. As they say, a little hospitality goes a long way.
— Matt Bosch lived in Japan for nearly 10 years, went to his first pro baseball game in Japan 23 years ago, and writes about Japanese baseball cards and memorabilia. He can be reached at boschmatt@gmail.com
