Can you believe this will be the 25th season of play already at the Tokyo Dome?

In fact, it opened this week in 1988, with Japanese pro baseball exhibition games as part of a 12-team tournament that gave all the Central and Pacific League clubs a chance to play indoors for the first time.

There is a personal story to go with this. Some time back in the early 1980s, a friend and I were listening to a major league game on the U.S. Armed Forces Radio station in Tokyo (then known as the Far East Network or FEN). The Minnesota Twins were playing the Detroit Tigers at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.