At the foot of brightly lit Tokyo Tower on Thursday night, fans of Samurai Japan filed into the Star Rise Tower media center to watch the national team on the big screen as it faced off against Italy in the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals.
Dozens of people in jerseys emblazoned with big names such as (Munetaka) Murakami, (Yu) Darvish, (Tetsuto) Yamada, (Lars) Nootbaar and — of course — (Shohei) Ohtani took their places in the almost 300-seat hall for the public viewing, held just 6 kilometers down the road from Tokyo Dome, where Japan and Italy were battling it out in the flesh for a WBC semifinal spot.
“We couldn’t get tickets to the real game so this was the next best thing,” said Tomonori Igawa, 28.