Sumo is often referred to as Japan’s national sport but it’s America's pastime that is unquestionably this country’s one true obsession.
Why is baseball so popular? It’s a complicated question and there are dozens of books and college theses which go into various possible answers in great depth.
Timing, of course, is a factor, with baseball being one of the first Western sports introduced to Japan following the country’s reopening in the 19th century.
The one-on-one nature of the pitcher-batter duel, with each person giving their best in open combat, undoubtedly also helped baseball find purchase in the land of Bushido and sumo.
Whatever the full story may be, at a time when sold out sumo tournaments have fans complaining about the lack of available tickets, it was eye-opening this week to see what a similar situation looks like in baseball.
In the wake of anti-scalping laws introduced in 2019, the secondary market for sporting tickets in Japan has become far less active than those seen in other countries, but websites offering seats for sumo tournaments at up to 10 times the face value still operate.
Even such inflated prices, however, pale in comparison to what seats were going for during MLB’s Tokyo Series and exhibition games pitting MLB clubs against NPB teams at Tokyo Dome.
Tickets with a face value of ¥13,000 were being offered (and bought) for upward of ¥2.5 million each to fans desperate to catch a glimpse of Shohei Ohtani and other superstars.
Other examples of baseball’s incredible popularity were abundant this week, from the omnipresent image of Ohtani endorsing products on vending machines, billboards and store displays, to the long lines of people queuing for merchandise or opportunities to meet ballplayers.
And while sumo’s top athletes may be popular, they can still walk around the capital largely unimpeded and not subject to the Beatlemania-like throngs which have followed many MLB players in Tokyo.
But while it’s hard to deny baseball’s popularity far outstrips that of sumo, the latter occupies a special place in Japanese society, and its history is intertwined with that of its country of origin.
That’s one reason that sumo was perhaps the most sought after cultural experience by MLB players, staff and visiting media.
Of course, with the spring tournament taking place in Osaka, and both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs having jam-packed schedules during their short stays, there was no opportunity for them to visit Kansai and experience sumo at the highest level.
Stepping into the breach were retired rikishi, who gave the baseball superstars opportunities to not only learn about the sport but get into the ring themselves.
Full disclosure: At the request of the Dodgers, I arranged the sumo event mentioned in the next paragraph.
On Friday, pitcher Clayton Kershaw and several other Dodgers players, along with their partners and families, visited Ryogoku and got an interactive demonstration of sumo techniques, training methods and rules from retired ōzumō rikishi Kotohino, and Junya Ide — a former collegian.
Kershaw and members of the Dodgers staff tried their hand at some of the moves.
The event was filmed and parts of it will feature in episode 2 of “Backstage: Dodgers” the team’s behind-the-scenes series on Amazon Prime.
When the Dodgers posted photos and video of the sumo event on their social media channels, some fans, seeing legends like Kershaw in the ring with sumo wrestlers, reacted with alarm.
Of course, with the MLB season starting a couple of days after the event, everything was done in gentle and fun fashion and no pitchers were harmed during the filming of the bouts.
MLB and Tokyo Series organizers also held a private function at the Kokugikan — the home of sumo — to celebrate the season opener, with former ozeki Konishiki among the invited guests.
Konishiki also threw a ceremonial pitch prior to the game on Tuesday.
Though MLB’s visit to Tokyo has sparked several exchanges, baseball and sumo, despite long being Japan’s two most popular sports, don’t have much of a history of interaction.
There are any number of photos of famous yokozuna playing catch or hitting balls in their spare time, and rikishi have thrown out first pitches at NPB games wearing everything from custom uniforms to traditional clothing, but the physical differences between baseball players and rikishi, and the lack of transferrable skills between the two sports, means there isn’t the kind of overlap seen with rugby or American football.
In fact, sumo’s most well-known baseball moments are those that the sport would rather forget.
In 2010, ozeki Kotomitsuki saw his career ended over a baseball gambling scandal. And most famously, in 1949, yokozuna Maedayama was forced into retirement after being photographed at Korakuen Stadium shaking hands with Lefty O'Doul and watching a game between the San Francisco Seals and Tokyo Giants despite having pulled out of an ongoing tournament.
With merchandising, marketing and business being an increasingly important part of modern sport, this week’s interactions have given many in sumo an up close look at how a leading professional league conducts business.
Hopefully those exchanges will continue and sumo and baseball — for decades Japan’s giant but separate entities — will benefit from deepened interactions.
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