Tokyo-das Baseball-Mad-Land Japan welcomed the perhaps brightest star that it has ever produced with silence. When Shohei Ohtani came into the box of the Beig to open his compatriot Shota Imanaga against his compatriot of the Major League Baseball, the 42,365 fans in the Tokyo Dome near Sille were devastated. That is the custom. Technically speaking, the Chicago Cubs were the home team in this international shop window. But it is the reigning World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, who is not comparable in her editions and has envied its dominance in sports, the presence of which is greater in this country than all of her colleagues.
Nobody is of course bigger than ohtani. In a historic night in the middle of the country's gold era, ohtani drove everything. It is a face face that is plastered on advertising in Tokyo and beyond, and ohtani, whose fingerprints were used to “paint Japan Dodger Blue”, who lists this talented generation of players and who again defeated itself as the center of attention as Dodgers, defeated the Cubs in the open of the open season 2025 The Major League baseball relay.
The thousands in the Tokyo Dome and the millions that were on television, for the first time on the opening day when Imanaga delivered four no-hit-ininings and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who received the richest contract 15 months ago, while he was only allowed to run 15 months ago while he had a run while he was achieving the sign of dominance showed. Seiya Suzuki scored second in the order as the proven keyman of the Cubs.
But when Ohtani stepped onto the plate, a sea of telephones and lightning chips welcomed each of its movements. The three -time MVP has not only become the face of sport, but an ubiquitous part of Japanese life, The biggest star in a monoculture that worshiped him primarily. For a large part of the last week, every bat has become a must. At 7:10 p.m., the cameras begin to capture him that had taken him against Imanaga. In the third inning, the crowd moved and then groaned when Ohtanis Line Drive found the back of the second Baseman Jon Berti's glove and not the shiny green lawn.
They roared to life in the fifth inning when Ohtani cracked a single that almost hit the Dodgers on the base path at 107.4 miles per hour. Instead, it shot through the right side of the infield for the first goal of the Dodgers. A dough later tied the game with his own own. Teoscar Hernández chopped a floor ball for a potential double game, where Berti instead Michael Busch fired in the first base. They roared again when Ohtani in the ninth inning hooked a double double on the right field line and came to achieve two batteries later.
Each element of the night seemed to be a imagination for the sport that selected these two groups for the international mission almost a year ago. The Dodgers accepted Japan more than ever and committed in combination of more than 1 billion US dollars in combination according to Ohtani and Yamamoto in a combination of more than 1 billion US dollars, and has been used in the past at the last low season a competitive and financial advantage on the signing of Roki Sasaki, who hired his debut by Roki Sasaki on Wednesday. Your end results are healthy and your business opportunities have apparently increased from day to day.
“I had lunch with all our sponsors today,” said Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Dodgers in the hours before his team entered the global stage. “It was a big lunch.
The Cubs looking for a return to the dispute have leaned back to a Japanese pipeline to achieve this. In the days before the start of the series, Manager Craig Consell proposed that the bonding experience, which was promoted by a week on the other side of the planet, could help sow the seeds of the next major iteration of the franchise in the middle of a make-or break season.
“As much as everything is the word: Kizuna,” said Cotunell, “what a Japanese word for Bond is … This is the beginning of a trip for our team.”
A cracked amount in front of a frenetic baseball fan base was a great start.
“It feels like a playoff environment that is great,” said Jed Hoyer, President of the Cub President of Baseball operations. “These are the butterflies they want, the energy they want.
The days of the exhibitions against Japanese clubs such as the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers provided an introduction to the quirks such as a sushi race between Innings. The Dodgers Miguel Rojas remembered the stories of the Venezuelan ball players Alex Ramirez and Alex Cabrera, who rose in the Japan's highest league, Nippon Professional Baseball. This is the closest comparison that was closely the winter ball in Latin America.
“Japanese culture and fans live baseball,” said Rojas.
Of course, it sounds a little different in Japan.
“I think it's great how it is quiet while the home team appears,” said Dodgers Utility Man Kiké Hernández. “And then it's like a party when you hit.
This party looked more like a continued crowning glory, not only for the defending World Series Champions, which played in an equivalent title-soccer club, but for the greatest star of the game.
(Top photo: Mastepress / Getty Images)
