Opinion | Major League Baseball kicks off its global push on safe and ravenous soil in Tokyo
- All-time great Ichiro Suzuki is bowing out from the MLB in Tokyo series
- Baseball returns to the Olympics in 2020
Every one of the 45,787 seats in the Tokyo Dome were filled as a festive crowd was treated to an entertaining slugfest with the Mariners beating the A’s 9-7. Despite the lack of star power on the A’s and Mariners roster, baseball will always sell-out in Japan. Throw in the presence of the Mariner’s 45-year-old Ichiro, an icon on both sides of the Pacific, playing in what should likely be his final go-round in a Major League uniform, and the two-game series suddenly became the hottest ticket in the country.
But how do you fill 60,000 seats in London, in June with nothing at all resembling an indigenous star and virtually no baseball culture to speak of? You bring in the heavyweights, that’s how.
When the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox resume their age-old, high-profile rivalry on June 29 and 30 at London Stadium, the 2012 Olympic venue and current home to Premier League football side West Ham United, rest assured that just like the Tokyo Dome, there will not be an empty seat in the house.
As it prepares to make its return to Olympic medal competition in 15 months’ time at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, baseball is going international in a big way and MLB is leading the charge.