Dodgers’ Tokyo’s journey confirms the “overwhelming” socket of the team on Japan

Tokyo >> For most of the last two years, the Dodgers have felt like the Japan team of the Major League Baseball.

They signed Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki. They have made an advertising agreement after the advertising agreement with some of the largest companies in the country. All their games are now shown on Japanese television. The team officials declared their mission of “painting Japan Blue” and becoming the most popular MLB team of the nation.

But this week, in their first 24 hours in Tokyo for an opening trip of the season to Japan, they really heard how the Japanese team is.

Thursday, hundreds of people decorated with Dodgers Gear poured into the arrival room at Tokyo Haneda airport, hoping to glimpse the team while forwarding his flight from Phoenix. (Unfortunately for them had been erected partitions that maintained the players and staff protected by sight.)

On Friday, thousands of people wandered through the streets around Tokyo’s Dome in view of the first official training of the team-with hats, shirts and dodger shirts that dominate the scene again.

Nothing, however, compared to what the players attended once you enter: 10,507 fans, in an almost universal sea of ​​white and blue, packed in the lower bowl of the historic baseball field.

Everything to look at a trivial, routine, run-of-the-mill training.

“This is crazy, surprising,” said manager Dave Roberts, with his eyes wide open while leaving the shelter and examined the temptular scene.

“It was overwhelming,” added the short of Miguel Rojas, which was applauded aloud after a rudimentary round of practice. “To say the least.”

For all last year, of course, the Dodgers knew that their popularity in Japan had climbed the stars. It was evident in the increase in the attention of the Japanese media around the team. The peak of foreign fans at home and on road games. The videos sprayed on the social media of Japanese supporters who celebrate the title of the World Series like them.

“We know that every morning, in the middle of the morning, the Dodger Games are broadcast here in Japan,” said Roberts. “We can say from Japanese enthusiasm to games, whether it is Dodger Stadium or traveling.”

But, observed Roberts on Friday, in an afternoon press conference before hundreds of journalists at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, “This is our first opportunity to come to the country of Japan, the city of Tokyo, and in reality they see the Japanese who support us in their country of origin”.

And also for him-aqua of a Japanese half-legacy, who still has a family in Japan and who has spent time in the country in this low season following the Dodgers-Non championship we needed to be unexpectedly affected.

While out in the Tokyo district of Shibuya after the Dodgers entered the city, Roberts said he was immediately struck by the places of the team’s brand in the streets of the city.

“I saw many Dodger hats,” he said.

With the Dodgers scheduled to play a Saturday exhibition on Saturday against the normal tenant of Tokyo Dome, the Yomuiri giants of the Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League, Roberts wondered if they could actually be more dodgers who populate the crowd.

“There will be many representations,” he said.

Almost all this attention, of course, was generated by the acquisitions of the Dodgers of Sasaki, Yamamoto and, above all, Ohtani in the last two offseason. The Ohtani did not spend much time on the field on Friday, appearing for just over 10 minutes and not doing more than basiseric traits and exercises. But his simple appearance sparked a roar inside the dome stadium. And when he left the field, the photographers climbed to capture every step.

“When Sho came out of shelter,” said the Infielder Max Muncy, “it was a rather beautiful moment for all of us to testify.”

Other Dodgers players, however, also appreciated the atmosphere.

The fans behind the shelter called almost all the players – up to the lifter of the minor League Jack Dreyer, who has not yet made his debut in MLB – by name. In addition to the shots of applause that accompanied every round of joke practices, the crowd exulted for strong shots by outfielders, the launchers who captured in disgusting territory and any deep thrust affected by or above the high wall of the field.

“Normally I don’t try to hit the races in the house in the joke tests,” said the first baseman Freddie Freeman. “But I felt like I had to have today.”

Muncy described the day as a push of energy for the team, which will play another exhibition match against an NPB opponent on Sunday before starting his program of the regular season with two games against the Chicago Cubs Tuesday and Wednesday.

“I think it was positive for us,” Muncy said. “The long flight, everyone still feels tired from that. So I think that type of pushed to everyone, just to have fun. “

The other thing that provided the Dodgers: perspective-lounge in their popularity in Japan, ascending on the world stage and prevalence in continuous growth even at 5,000 miles from home.

“It’s all over the world,” said Rojas. “I think Dodgers are trying to arrive right there with the largest organizations in the world. I’m talking about Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​all teams all over the world. And I think Dodgers are very close to this. “