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As many of us were groggily hitting the snooze alarm for the 2nd or 3rd time this morning, the first pitch of the 2008 Major League Baseball season crossed the plate at the Tokyo Dome, home to Japanese powerhouse “Yomiuri Giants”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yomiuri_Giants. The Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics have been touring Japan for the last week playing exhibitions against Japanese league teams but this morning’s battle was the real deal with the two American League teams bringing in the new season in style. The game took ten innings but the defending champion Red Sox pulled it out 6-5 thanks to a Manny Ramirez two-run double in the last.
If you want to learn more about the game I suggest you take in the volumes of information being offered at “MLB.com”:http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/opening_series/y2008/index.jsp, but the reason I included this post today is that I think it’s very cool that Major League Baseball decided to play its opening games in Japan this year. This is just part of a trend of internationalisation happening in American sports that I’d like to see continuing. Last year we also saw the Super Bowl champion New York Giants play at “Wembley Stadium”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_York_Giants_season#Week_8:_at_Miami_Dolphins in London and an increased presence of very good “non-American players”:http://www.nba.com/players/international_player_directory.html in the NBA.