The Shohei Ohtani Festival plays Tokyo

TOKYO — I attended the Shohei Ohtani Festival in Tokyo this week. It was otherwise known as the MLB Opening Day Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers, for whom the iconic Japanese star plays, and the Chicago Cubs. The event took place at the Tokyo Dome with 56,000 people — excuse me 46,134, I mean — in attendance and was the latest product produced by the giant MLB money-making machine.

MLB’s Jim Small had gifted me two infield seat tickets, with ¥60,000 printed on each one. I resisted the urge to sell them and stay home and watch the event on TV. I had read that such tickets could fetch $10,000 on the street, and had even been offered ¥500,000 for one by a gentleman visitor to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. I was tempted, but you see my wife has suddenly become a baseball fan and was seriously looking forward to attending.