I knew that when my partner Denise and her Japanese-speaking son Sean planned our two-week trip to Japan that I would be out of the country during the World Series. The Cubs obliged by bowing out early in the post season and the Milwaukee Brewers steamrolling through the playoffs to a championship was no surprise to this Cub fan because that’s what the Brew Crew has been doing to the North Siders for the past several seasons.

However if Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers had advanced, I figured that I could see part of the games—considering the 12 hour time difference—over my Japanese breakfast of fish, rice and miso soup. The latter menu item is flavored with the seaweed endorsed by the perennial MVP Ohtani (but not this year-it’s PCA). I noticed Ohtani’s New Balance television ads were pulled after this miserable post-season performance before I even left the States. But don’t worry about him. His endorsements in Japan are still gangbusters: e.g. noodles, Dunlop tires, and the green tea drink known as Matcha.

Watching the Series

Coincidently the Japanese World Series was going on at the same time as the Brewers-Devil Rays five game series. The SMBC Nippon Series games aired in the evening and I caught parts of the three of the four games. The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks swept the Yokahoma DeNa Baystars, capturing their second consecutive championship. As you would expect, the games were broadcast in Japanese, but the games were close and I could follow the action by the excited intonation of the announcers. Adding to festive atmosphere were the fans’ serenades of chants and songs to cheer on their teams.

The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame

On the last day of our trip, Denise made sure I made it to Tokyo Dome City which is the home of an amusement park with numerous rides guaranteed to make you vomit. Inside the dome itself is of the Tokyo Giants fan gear shop (where you can only purchase Tokyo Giants branded gear – but I wanted something honoring my favorite Japanese player Ichiro Suzuki) and the home of the Japanese Basement Hall of Fame. Compared to Cooperstown it is quite small, but it does have plaques of the enshrined all-time greats such as Suzuki and others who went on to have fine careers in the MLB. (e.g., Hideki Matsui, Hideo Nomo).

I looked to see if Yutaka Enatsu was enshrined there, who was a shadow character in the book The Housekeeper and the Professor. This fine 2003 novel was one of five books I selected in the preparation for my trip. The author Yōko Ogawa’s tells the story of a housekeeper who takes a position caring for a math professor who suffers short term memory loss from brain damage. The housekeeper has a ten-year-old son who connects with the professor since they are both fans of the Hanshin Tigers. Enatsu pitched for the Tigers and still holds the professional record of 401 strikeouts in a single season. Statistically he seems to belong in the HOF, but he was involved in a brief gambling scandal that may have tainted his career.

It doesn’t take too long to go through the museum and the gift shop, which just consisted of a vending machine. It held a few baseballs, coffee mugs and what looked like an onsen towel, something you would use to scrub yourself before entering a public bath.

I couldn’t just pull the lever to purchase the little towel. However, I felt I didn’t need a physical souvenir to remember this trip to the Tokyo Dome.

It seemed only fitting that Babe Ruth (who won 100 games as a pitcher before becoming a slugger) shares some space with Ohtani. Ruth is probably the only player that stands in the way of Ohtani being heralded as the greatest player of all time.