Extra Innings: Gabe Lerman — Writing the Playbook for Japanese Baseball Travel Adventures

[00:00:00] Gabe: we got to talking around how there’s a market niche between uh, Those who go on the Japan Ball tours, and have everything planned out for them, and have these exclusive experiences, and the folks who are just trying to do it themselves, like I did in 2019. And occasionally that results in buying the wrong day’s tickets because your browser’s machine translation broke the table, and you bought for the 22nd instead of the 23rd.

[00:00:29] Gabe: Oops.

[00:00:30] Gabe: So, I had this inkling that the guide could fill that gap. So you get some of our knowledge, while still getting the chance to plan the trip your way

[00:00:41] Anna: What’s up bucketheads. Thanks for tuning in and welcome to another episode of extra innings on the baseball bucket list podcast. I’m your host Anna DiTommaso and in the extra inning series, I catch up with former podcast guests to discuss bucket-list events and other important topics. On this episode, I’m joined by Gabe Lerman, who I originally spoke with back in March of 2023. Gabe is a Blue Jays fan from Toronto who shared his love of Japanese baseball back in episode number 88. Since we last spoke, he wrote and released The JapanBall Travel Guide to Japanese Baseball. The guide includes information on Nippon Professional Baseball teams and helpful travel tips to make planning your own trip to Japan a success. 

[00:01:20] Anna: On this episode, I asked Gabe to give us an in-depth breakdown of what NPB is, the history and structure of the league, post-season format and more. If you’ve always been curious about Japanese baseball and are interested in learning more, this breakdown is a great place to start. 

[00:01:35] Anna: I really enjoyed chatting with Gabe. I know you’re really going to enjoy this episode, so let’s get right to it. Now without further ado, sit back, relax and enjoy some baseball banter with Gabe Lerman. 

[00:01:46] Anna: Gabe, thank you so much for joining us again here on this special episode of Extra Innings of the Baseball Bucket List. How are things in Toronto?

[00:01:57] Gabe: Drizzly and rainy today, but otherwise, things have been really interesting. Uh, since we last spoke, I’ve gotten married. I’ve started to poke my nose into the property market. Help me, good grief, Toronto’s a mess. And I have a new publication out that I think is the primary reason we’re talking today.

[00:02:18] Anna: Yeah, well, first of all, congratulations on the wedding. That’s always super exciting. And yeah, it sounds like you’ve, uh, you’ve lived a lot of life since we last connected. So, uh, I really look forward to catching up and, hearing more about everything you got going on. How I’d like to start the conversation today Gabe, and you kind of mentioned your new publication that’s out and we’re gonna get into that but you know I feel like I’ve got a unique opportunity in front of me in such that We’ve had a couple of people join the show now and talk about their personal Experiences in Japan or with Japanese baseball you being one of them For anyone listening who hasn’t listened to Gabe’s first episode on the show, I encourage you to check it out, number 88, to hear a little bit more about his story.

[00:03:09] Anna: To use Gabe’s own words, he is an aficionado guru nut ball of Japanese baseball, and so I want to capitalize on our time together today and just kind of walk through an overview of. Japanese baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball. For folks who have heard a couple episodes of the show, maybe they’re super interested in it, but they, they’re just looking to learn more.

[00:03:35] Anna: So Gabe, are you game if that’s how we approach this conversation?

[00:03:40] Gabe: Absolutely.

[00:03:41] Anna: Awesome. Then let’s just jump in. So why don’t you give a little bit of background on Nippon Professional Baseball and what that league is 

[00:03:55] Gabe: NPB is the top pro league in Japan. Similar to MLB, it’s made up of two constituent sub leagues. The Central League, which is full of older teams and is the only top pro league left in the world who does not use the DH. The pitchers still bat there. Yes, they bunt a lot. And the Pacific League, which does have the DH, and its teams are more geographically dispersed.

[00:04:22] Gabe: NPB itself started in 1950, but pro baseball in Japan predates it by a solid 16 years. That’s when the Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyuu Club, or the Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club was formed by a media mogul and toured the United States. Given that the name was somewhat clunky to pronounce, the manager of one of the teams they played against, Lefty O’Doul, suggested they needed a proper name, something that could, you know, sell more programs and more tickets.

[00:04:53] Gabe: So in honor of O’Doul, Uh, they took on the name the Giants, since New York, or since Tokyo, was the New York of Japan. They couldn’t exactly call themselves the Yankees in that case. So, those Giants are still active today. They celebrated their 90th season earlier this year, won the Central League pennant, but lost in the playoffs to the eventual Japan Series champions.

[00:05:20] Gabe: Teams have a lot of history behind them because the league has been around for so long. Unlike the KBO, which started in the 1980s, and the CPBL in Taiwan, which I believe started around the same time, there’s a lot more history behind it. There’s more fabled names. There’s dynasties involved. For example, anytime you hear the term The Nine, refers to the nine consecutive Japan Series championships the Giants won Between 1965 and 1973, buoyed by two of the most famous Japanese baseball players of all time in Japan, Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh. Oh, of course, is the world leader in career home runs with over 860. Unlike in North America, all but one team in Japan is owned by a corporation, and incorporates that company name into the team name. So the Hanshin Tigers, for example, don’t play in Hanshin. They’re owned by the Hanshin Railway. The Hanshin Railway. who also owns the Hanshin Koshien Stadium, and the Hanshin Railway which goes to the stadium, and the Hanshin Department Store, where the railway line starts.

[00:06:39] Gabe: Very vertically integrated. Which also leads to one of the funnier jokes people make about Japanese baseball. It’s not the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. It’s the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. The team owner is Nippon Ham Foods. To quote Pancho Ito, by way of Bob Costas, They have no quarrel with ham. There’s no pig punching involved.

[00:07:06] Anna: I always get a, uh, that makes me laugh because I remember reading, you know, like, what is a ham fighter? Um, so that’s one of the interesting things about NPB is the way that the, the company, the ownership name is rolled into the team name. I wanna back up a little bit because you touched on the two leagues and how, one of them is comprised of six teams that are a little more clustered together and the other one.

[00:07:37] Anna: is a little more dispersed. So, do you know the history behind that? You know, when, when NPB was getting first started, were the teams a little closer together? Like they were, I think, back to the history of professional baseball in America, right? It was mostly clustered in, in the Northeast because it was difficult to, to travel back in those days.

[00:08:00] Anna: Is that a similar story?

[00:08:03] Gabe: Similar, the bulk of the team started in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya because of the railway connections between those three and how close they were together. Hiroshima didn’t get its team until 1950 when NPB started as a means of trying to bring civic pride and, you know, boost the economy back to the city that was decimated in 1945.

[00:08:25] Gabe: Intriguingly, Interestingly, Fukuoka, out on the western island of Kyushu, has always had a team for the bulk of the league’s history. There was a gap of about two decades when they didn’t, but that market was filled pretty quick.

[00:08:40] Gabe: you At one point, there were six teams, half the league basically, in the greater Tokyo area, and another four teams over in Osaka. So, still very heavily clustered together. Things changed around 2004, when the aforementioned fighters, and Picked up stakes and left the Tokyo Dome, which they shared with the Giants, to head to Sapporo.

[00:09:07] Gabe: And since moving there, they’ve had their best run of success. They won a Japan Series in 2006, thanks to a guy named Yu Darvish. And they won again in 2016, thanks to a guy named Shohei Ohtani.

[00:09:20] Gabe: In that offseason, that same offseason, the Oryx Blue Wave, who played in Kobe, and the Kintetsu Buffaloes, who played in Osaka, merged. And that left the league with a lopsided 11 team setup. The owners wanted to truncate down to 10, merge the leagues together, look something closer to the KBO. The players went on a two day strike, and the fans were in the players corner.

[00:09:49] Gabe: After that very vigorous labor action, NPB agreed to expand for the first time in five decades. And that’s how the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, who play in Sendai, got started. The Eagles, of course, the former employer of Masahiro Tanaka, who won the Japan Series with them in 2013. If you ever want to get a chill down your spine, go on YouTube and look up 2013 Japan Series Game 7.

[00:10:18] Gabe: The day after pitching a 160 pitch complete game loss, Masahiro Tanaka comes out of the bullpen to save Game 7 in the ninth. The crowd pop just makes your soul stand on end.

[00:10:33] Anna: 160? Did I hear you say that? Is that

[00:10:37] Gabe: Yep, uh, Japanese baseball does not believe in pitch limits, especially at the amateur level. There have been stories of High school players in their famous tournaments throwing 700, 800 pitches over the span of a week. It’s cooked some arms, absolutely it has, to the point where the high school federations are starting to implement that kind of protection.

[00:11:05] Gabe: And we do see some organizations doing that. That’s one of the reasons why Roki Sasaki, who just got posted a couple of weeks ago, He missed, or he didn’t pitch the entirety of his first pro season just because the Marines, the team that drafted him, wanted to preserve that arm. And sure enough, he avoided arm injuries for the duration of his time in Japan.

[00:11:30] Gabe: He just picked up every other kind of injury, obliques, blisters, leg injuries. Then again, he also did pitch a 19 perfect game, so.

[00:11:41] Anna: so I’ve heard that term posted, right? I’ve, I’ve heard that as I follow the news, You know, especially this offseason, but for listeners who don’t understand what that means for a Japanese baseball player to be posted, effectively giving him an opportunity to come over and play Major League Baseball, what does that process look like and what’s entailed in it?

[00:12:08] Gabe: We have to start with the fact that NPB teams have nine years of control of a player before they can leave as an international free agent. They can be a domestic free agent after eight years, but if they want to go overseas like Kodai Senga did, they either have to wait nine years, or get their team to agree to post them.

[00:12:29] Gabe: Posting means the player becomes available for signing by a major league club, and the posting team gets a fee as a result. In years prior, that fee was sort of a blind bidding process. For those of you who remember in 2006, 2007, Daisuke Matsuzaka’s posting fee was 51 million dollars, or approximately three times as much as the entire payroll of the team that posted him, the Cebu Lions.

[00:12:56] Gabe: Nowadays, it’s just a percentage, like a sales tax, on top of the total contract value. So Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s monster deal got the Oryx Buffaloes plenty of post and cash. Roki Sasaki got posted before the age of 25. So he’s coming across as an international F. A. like folks from the Caribbean or elsewhere in the world do.

[00:13:19] Gabe: As a result, He’s limited to rookie spending limits, and the Marines are going to be seeing a much smaller posting fee as a result. The history of this whole process goes back to the 1960s, when a pitcher by the name of Masanori Murakami got loaned to the San Francisco Giants organization by the Nankai Hawks of the Pacific League, and they really liked him.

[00:13:45] Gabe: The Giants adored him. They wanted to keep him. But the Hawks said, uh, no, we’re taking him back. That set off 30 years of uneasy detente between NPB and MLB. It wasn’t until 1995 when a Kintetsu Buffaloes pitcher by the name of Hideo Nomo was so frustrated by his organization that he, quote unquote, voluntarily resigned from Japanese baseball.

[00:14:13] Gabe: and then signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That loophole got people’s heads spinning. No one was supposed to be able to do that. Japanese fans were outraged. How could you turn your back on your countrymen, on your league, on your teammates in a very collectivist society? That was a serious no no. Until he started pitching really well in North America.

[00:14:40] Gabe: The strikeouts, the no hitter at Coors Field, and then it became a point of pride. It took a few more defections for the posting system we know today to come into effect.

[00:14:53] Anna: That’s interesting. You know, I, I had a chance to sit through a presentation that Mashi gave, um, a couple of years ago when the all star game was in L. A. and to hear his perspective of, You know, going to play for the Giants here in America and then feeling a duty to go back and kind of complete his career in Japan and just learning a little bit about the intricacies of that I could totally understand how the system has kind of had to evolve and change as the level of talents and the level of interest and the just ability to kind of trade players overseas and things like that has evolved.

[00:15:36] Anna: So do you think, I mean, obviously everybody knows Darvish. Obviously everybody knows Otani. Do you think we’re going to see an uptick in the number of NPB players that start to come this way and look for a major league baseball club to play for? Mm

[00:15:57] Gabe: I think you’re going to see that because Japan now can puff their chest that they’re one of the best baseball countries in the world. They had the trifecta of the Premier 12 tournament in 20 19, the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the world baseball classic in 2023. Some of the guys from that 2023 team either have already made the jump, like Roki Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani, and Shota Imanaga, or are planning on it.

[00:16:29] Gabe: The guy who hit the walk off double in the semifinals, Munetaka Murakami, probably coming over in 2025.

[00:16:36] Gabe: I think what you’re going to see is more than just the best of the best in Japan, try their hand at making their way in North America, the floor of the talent level has risen.

[00:16:50] Gabe: Conversely, that means that foreign players who come to Japan have a stiffer level of competition to face as well.

[00:16:59] Gabe: That’s one of the other intricacies that people always learn about Japanese baseball. The fact that they have a foreign player limit. Only four foreigners per team roster, and you can’t have them all be pitchers or all be hitters. It has to be a blend. the guys who come over to Japan and do well aren’t exactly the ones who have had a storied major league career and are just arriving at the end of it.

[00:17:24] Gabe: An example of someone who did really well would be Randy Bass, who just got nominated to the Baseball Hall of Fame a little bit while ago. I think he’s also a state senator in Oklahoma, if memory serves. Or Tuffy Rhodes, whose 400 plus home runs are a lot more than he got on opening day for the Cubs. He is a legend in the Buffaloes franchise.

[00:17:46] Gabe: Among active players right now, Franmil Reyes made a lot of fans in Hokkaido during last season, and I’m thrilled that he’s sticking around for another year. That’s the kind of profile of players who do well. Otherwise, it’s a graveyard of guys who, oh yeah, he’s gonna rake, and they don’t. The competition level’s too high.

[00:18:06] Gabe: Michael Franco has struggled since coming over. Guys like Justin Smoke or Eric Thames or Justin Boer. There’s a lot of have struggled, Johnny Gomes struggled, Kevin Ukeles was hampered by injury. It’s not the place where you can be a 37 year old Adam Jones walkover and expect to do well.

[00:18:29] Anna: yeah, I mean, I think the world is, is taking notice that Japan as a country is becoming more of a powerhouse in terms of baseball, you know, to your point of you just rattled off the trifecta there that they were on a run for it still are technically speaking and, uh, you know,

[00:18:48] Gabe: Well, no, they did lose the Premiere 12 Final to Chinese Taipei a couple of weeks

[00:18:52] Anna: That’s true. This

[00:18:53] Gabe: was a bit of a slap in the face, yeah?

[00:18:57] Anna: But I think a lot of baseball fans will remember, you know, the, the final out of the, uh, the 2023 baseball world classic of, uh, Otani striking out trout, you know, I mean, just, uh, what a proud moment for, uh, the country. I have to assume,

[00:19:16] Gabe: There are multiple exhibits at the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, which is in the basement of Tokyo Dome, talking about the WBC championships. Plural. When I was there in November of 2023, they had the trophy out on display, tons of memorabilia, a movie theater replaying the key moments. I mean, you couldn’t Ohtani to strike out Trout.

[00:19:40] Gabe: And for Ohtani to go from that WBC to a World Series ring alongside Yoshinobu Yamamoto, In 2024? Storybook stuff.

[00:19:49] Anna: Oh yeah, definitely. I think that’s what everybody had in mind and thought was going to happen when Otani, you know, the news broke that he was going to be a Dodger was okay, finally some postseason baseball for this generational talent. But, uh, I think a lot of people were expecting him to, to walk away at the end of the season with a ring and, and sure enough, that’s what happened.

[00:20:11] Anna: So, 

[00:20:12] Gabe: Yeah, speaking of Ohtani, if I had a nickel for every time a superstar player was rumored to be on a plane heading to Toronto and then signed with a Los Angeles team, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

[00:20:26] Anna: what else, when else did it happen?

[00:20:28] Gabe: Kawhi Leonard.

[00:20:29] Anna: Oh, okay. I forgot about all that. That’s a crazy 24 hour period there, you know,

[00:20:37] Gabe: And it was just some guy from Dragon’s Den. Robert Herjavec, yeah.

[00:20:42] Anna: man, man. Um, I want to back up because we were talking about the makeup of the, The leagues here, right? You’ve, you’ve got the central league and the Pacific league. Each, each league has six teams.

[00:20:55] Anna: How long is the season and what is the playoff structure? You know, how is it that, that. Two teams will find their way to the equivalent of, of the World Series here.

[00:21:07] Gabe: The NPB schedule is 143 games long, starting in late March. They usually peg the last weekend of March or the first weekend of April for the start of the season and wrapping up sometime in early October. ’cause they don’t do double headers. So any rain outs get punted to the end of the season. Each team will play the other teams in its league 25 times, and each team in the other league three times each.

[00:21:35] Gabe: So, all at home or all on the road, and that interleague session is specifically late May to early June. They take three weeks of the schedule, say this is interleague, and that’s it. You don’t see those players again until the All Star game or the postseason. The postseason structure is a little bit different than North America, and it has some elements that I wish would carry over to the North America.

[00:21:59] Gabe: Yeah. The pennant winners skip right to the second round of the postseason and all the games in that round are at the pennant winner’s ballpark and the pennant winner has a one game head start in a best of seven. They only need to win three, the other team needs to win four.

[00:22:18] Anna: Well, that’s interesting.

[00:22:20] Gabe: Second place will host third place for a best of three before then, and the two teams that win with their, what they call the Climax Series, will face off with each other in the Japan Series.

[00:22:34] Gabe: So a good example of that would be this year’s Japan Series champion, the Yokohama DNA Bay Stars, who beat the Hanshin Tigers on the road as the number three seed, went to the Tokyo Dome, almost blew a 3 1 series lead, but, pulled it out and won in game seven to beat the Yomiuri Giants in the Climax Series final stage, and then beat the Yo the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks who cruised to the Climax win of the Pacific League in six games.

[00:23:07] Gabe: So the only postseason home games the DNA Baystars had were in the Japan Series, and I think they won all three.

[00:23:15] Anna: Wow. Okay, so to just revisit that, so The pennant winners automatically advance to the second round, the second.

[00:23:24] Gabe: they get a one game head start in a best of seven.

[00:23:27] Anna: right. That is not the Climax series, or that is the Climax series.

[00:23:32] Gabe: The Climax Series name extends to both the first round and the second round. The first round is called the first stage of the Climax Series. The second round is called the final stage of the Climax Series.

[00:23:43] Anna: That’s right. And then the winners of those advance to the Japan series, which is the finale.

[00:23:50] Gabe: That’s right.

[00:23:50] Anna: Alright. Alright, I want to talk about this book that you, you alluded to at the beginning of our conversation here. Um, It’s a pretty comprehensive travel guide focused on Japanese baseball and you know I want to hear a lot about that book, obviously But first of all, what was it that kind of inspired you to put this thing together,

[00:24:15] Gabe: What inspired me was a conversation with Shane Barclay, the owner and operator of JapanBall, the tour agency who published the guide. I’m just the author. Shane had his fingerprints on this all, all the way through. Back when he was visiting Toronto in 2023. Before his son was born, actually.

[00:24:37] Gabe: So, we got to talking around how there’s a market niche between uh, Those who go on the Japan Ball tours, and have everything planned out for them, and have these exclusive experiences, and the folks who are just trying to do it themselves, like I did in 2019. And occasionally that results in buying the wrong day’s tickets because your browser’s machine translation broke the table, and you bought for the 22nd instead of the 23rd.

[00:25:08] Gabe: Oops. Or you almost miss the on sale date for the Hiroshima Carp, and you are stuck in the unreserved seats in the second deck, two sections away from your best friend, who’s traveling with you on the trip. Lessons learned.

[00:25:22] Gabe: right?

[00:25:23] Gabe: So, I had this inkling that the guide could fill that gap. So you get some of our knowledge, while still getting the chance to plan the trip your way.

[00:25:34] Gabe: Maybe you don’t want to stay in the same hotels as a tour group, and you’d want to check out a capsule hotel, for example. Or one of the traditional Japanese ryokans. A traditional inn where you sleep on a bamboo mat and you have custom meals for breakfast and for dinner. I did that myself. It’s a lot of fun.

[00:25:53] Gabe: Truly authentically Japanese experience. And I wanted to bring some of the learnings I had from my 2019 trip and share them beyond just the web blog I did on Tumblr. So that was really the inkling for where the Japan Ball Travel Guide for Japanese Baseball came from. I also got a chance to chat with other Japan ballers and bring their experiences into the guide.

[00:26:18] Gabe: Some folks who have been around the NPBO sphere for a decade, like Trevor Raichura, who is a daily sports columnist in Japan, as well as the former administrator of Hanshin Tigers English News, as well as former Rakuten Eagles GM Marty Kienert, before he passed away earlier this year.

[00:26:40] Gabe: That was pretty special. Uh, famous writer Robert Whiting, who wrote books like The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, uh, You Gotta Have Wah, like seminal tomes on Japanese baseball. to compile it all into one volume and then to get the chance to stretch my voiceover chops and do the audiobook as well, I had to convert my walk in closet to a recording studio.

[00:27:07] Gabe: And, uh, yeah, it’s not that comfortable when you’re sitting on the floor, but the only rule is it has to work.

[00:27:14] Anna: That’s right. I’ve heard, uh, I’ve heard some stories about MacGyvered audio recording booth. So, uh, but you know what, I, I had a chance to listen to the audio and I would say that you would never know you were sitting in a closet. It sounds top notch, you know, professional and very clean. So, um, you just, you just kind of gave away your, your secret sauce there.

[00:27:36] Gabe: I could tell a couple times when one of my cats was scratching at the door to be let in. He hates a closed door.

[00:27:44] Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Walk us through a little bit about kind of the different sections of the book, right? I know that it’s kind of broken down by team, but that there’s some other information in there So if someone’s listening and they’re kind of wondering what’s inside this thing What can you share?

[00:28:00] Gabe: The first part of the book is about getting to Japan. So, which airports are available to travel into, the customs and immigration process, the must haves you need to get on your phone or on your person before you go, as well as what to expect weather wise for each season. Part 2 is the 12 team profiles.

[00:28:21] Gabe: A brief history on each, some notable names who made it to the majors who you may recognize, And then a rundown of the stadium, how to get tickets, which seating sections we recommend, what food options there are. And you don’t always have to go with what’s in the ballpark anyway. You can bring in your own food, you can bring in your own alcohol, everywhere except in Fukuoka. And the final part is how to keep in touch with the NPBO sphere once you return. There are podcasts, there are YouTubers, there are bloggers, there’s the NPB subreddit. Which I lurk on every now and again. And there’s a burgeoning community on Blue Sky, which I’m happy to be a part of.

[00:29:03] Anna: Uh, very cool. Very cool. Nice to see that taken off. So, all right, let’s say. You know, I mentioned before, we, we’ve had a handful of folks come on the show, they kind of shared their own stories with, with attending games in Japan, traveling to Japan, getting a chance to really dive into the baseball culture over there.

[00:29:22] Anna: If someone’s listening along and their interest is totally piqued by this conversation or those other stories, what’s your suggestion for them in terms of just figuring out the next step?

[00:29:37] Gabe: The next step would be to watch some of the games that are archived on the Pacific League English YouTube channel. Some of which I am the lead play by play guy for. To see if the style of baseball and the style of cheering suits you. You may not be able to catch the games live because they’re broadcast at midnight eastern over the weekend or 5am eastern during the week, but they do archive the live stream, so tune in, see if you like the style of play, a little more contact focused, a lot more defensively sound, and if that does seem up your alley, then start looking at which teams you want to cheer for.

[00:30:18] Gabe: I remember I tried to pull together some kind of a rubric of if you like these MLB teams you want to cheer for this NPB team, but really and truly it’s going to be the first team you sit in the outfield bleachers for. That is your ride or die crew. I think I actually said that verbatim in our last conversation.

[00:30:35] Anna: familiar.

[00:30:36] Gabe: most tourists to Japan will stick to what they call the golden triangle. Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. That still gives half the league a chance for you to be a fan. And it’s never been easier to purchase tickets. Teams keep adding new options that are either machine translatable or in full English for you to acquire tickets.

[00:30:59] Gabe: I’m particularly pleased with the options that, uh, the Chunichi Dragons in Nagoya and the Yakult Swallows in Tokyo have recently rolled out where they don’t give you, ask you to pick an exact seat, they just let you pick a section based on what style of game you’re playing. Experience you’re looking for.

[00:31:18] Gabe: The tickets are then purchased using Apple Pay or Android Pay, so you don’t have to fumble with cash or anything, and it’s delivered right to your mobile phone wallet. It’s the easiest possible way to get into a game.

[00:31:30] Anna: Nice it sounds uh, I’m glad to hear that’s becoming more accessible because I know that that’s been I mean to your point about just in 2019 making a couple of Snafus that led to you know pivots trying to make things happen so you could still get into the ballpark I’m sure that ease of of getting tickets is a big hurdle.

[00:31:51] Anna: That is I’m glad to hear It’s kind of disappearing a bit

[00:31:56] Gabe: The one downside is that teams will still sell out early on in the season when they are good. So, given that the Yokohama DNA base stars just won the Japan Series, expect tickets for those to be a bit of a crunch. The Hanshin Tigers, who won the Japan Series two seasons ago, sold out last season in the span of weeks.

[00:32:15] Gabe: Like, they didn’t even put up an English ticketing site. They’re like, sorry, we’re tapped, we’re done. So If you’re going over there, aim for a weeknight game as opposed to a weekend. So that way you have fewer families trying to jostle to the ballpark. Make sure you have a domed stadium backup, especially if you’re going during the rainy months in June and August.

[00:32:37] Gabe: So if you’re going to Hanshin Koshien, make sure the orcs buffalos are at home on the same day so you can switch over to the domed Kyocera Dome in Osaka. That’s exactly what I did. let yourself be a part of the cheering section. That is really where you’re going to get the best experience. You can sit in the infield.

[00:33:00] Gabe: You can do a very, you know, MLB style of just following along with the PA chants. But you’ll get the most of it, the most memorable experience. Thanks. Thanks. By trying to join in the chants, striking up conversations with the locals, thanks to Google Translate, wearing whatever team gear you have, even if it’s not of the teams playing.

[00:33:26] Gabe: The first game I went to, and you can spot me in the crowd, August, I think it was 13th, 2013, or August 6th or something like that, When the Chiba Latte Marines hosted the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, In the top of the second, there’s a view up the third baseline, and there’s two guys in Blue Jays t shirts.

[00:33:46] Gabe: That’s my best friend Nick and me.

[00:33:49] Anna: Nice. Well, you’re very visible that way, you know? So, uh, easy to spot in the crowd, that’s for

[00:33:55] Gabe: I’m six foot four. Of course I’m visible.

[00:34:00] Anna: Oh, man. Anything that, uh, we should be looking forward to in this upcoming NPB season? You know There’s a lot of hot stove talk over here stateside right now and North America. There’s a lot of free agency and everything like that. That’s keeping major league baseball fans busy. any storylines that are kind of developing over in japan right now and and things that you know, Maybe 2025 NPB Ball is gonna be um Gonna have to offer.

[00:34:30] Gabe: There’s a few things that come to mind. of which is, will the Chunichi Dragons ever get out of the basement? They got a new manager. They have the pitching talent. They still have the issue of who’s going to score runs, but that is a proud franchise that’s gone a decade without a postseason run. I want to see them pull something out.

[00:34:54] Gabe: Over in the Pacific League, the Fighters surprised a lot of folks last season by finishing second after six years wandering the wilderness, and they just signed the CPBL, that’s the Taiwanese League, MVP. join their rotation. I think they could go toe to toe with the former dynasty, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, atop the Pacific League.

[00:35:16] Gabe: I think it’s going to be them running 1 2 down the stretch. In terms of individual player performances, I keep hoping for a breakout season from Ota on the Buffaloes. He’s someone who I’ve followed through video games, through highlights. I want to see him succeed. I just hope he gets the chance. Because lord knows the Buffaloes could use some offense. And whatever Ryosuke Tatsumi of the Eagles and Sousuke Genda of the Lions are going to do at Centerfield and Shortstop respectively, highlight Ryo material for weeks.

[00:35:53] Gabe: Thanks.

[00:35:54] Anna: It’s exciting. It sounds like, uh, it sounds like a good season is, is, you know, just on the horizon 

[00:36:00] Gabe: It’s also the 75th season of NPB, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some commemorative merchandise or special uniforms. I know I’ve talked up the Hanshin Tigers as a good franchise and a good team lately, but someone needs to take their Photoshop license away because they commit crimes against fashion every single summer and it’s rough, man.

[00:36:23] Anna: So never a better time to become a fan of of NPB, huh? Sounds like to me,

[00:36:30] Gabe: It continues to be more accessible, especially the Pacific League, which now has carriage in Latin America and the United States with streaming services, in addition to the YouTube channel I mentioned, to follow the blogs, to see players come over, and to join the majors. I just heard rumors Tomoyuki Sugano of the Giants signed with the Orioles today.

[00:36:54] Gabe: Is The one thing that’s really stopping NPB from truly punching its own weight is the fact that you can’t watch half the league’s games in North America. The Central League, full of older teams, very 20th century thinking, only one team has any streaming service accessible to foreigners, and you only get the home games. So until there is an NPB TV that can rival MLB TV, It’s gonna be stuck as the, the niche sport, but I’m okay with that. 

[00:37:31] Anna: Yeah 

[00:37:31] Gabe: secret, the best, the worst kept secret in baseball is how cool the Japanese league is.

[00:37:39] Anna: I would absolutely love for an NPB dot TV or something like that to come along but it sounds like it’s We still can’t get MLB. TV to, to do what they need to do and remove the blackouts, so I won’t hold my breath, but I, uh, I, I look forward to it. Every time I learn more about Japanese baseball, I just am more and more captivated by it.

[00:38:03] Anna: You know, you, you shared with us the last time on the show, the Curse of the Colonel, uh,

[00:38:07] Gabe: And that got 

[00:38:08] Anna: I was gonna say,

[00:38:09] Anna: this We must have been good luck because, you know, uh, not long after the, the Tigers win the Japan series and sit atop as the, the championship team. Of course, that was two years ago now at this point, but, uh, you know, I recognize that this league and the, this rich baseball culture is just filled with stories like that.

[00:38:33] Anna: And I know so much of that is in the Japan ball travel guide to Japanese baseball that you. You really just obviously poured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into. And so, um, it, it just gets me more hyped up to actually get over to Japan and, and see some of this stuff live and in person. Uh, so, thank you for putting it together.

[00:38:59] Anna: Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge and, and being an inspiration to baseball fans like myself who are just looking for the next place to get their fix.

[00:39:09] Gabe: I’ve already been back to Japan once since we last spoke and tonight. Unfortunately, that was in October 2023, so I missed that on the postseason. Next time, I’m going during spring and summer. I gotta get a game back in.

[00:39:24] Gabe: if you wanna purchase a copy of Japan Ball’s, Travel Guide to Japanese baseball, it’s available on the Japan ball.com store in both ebook and audiobook.

[00:39:35] Gabe: And by the time this is released, we’ll be available to own in ebook and audiobook on Rakuten Cobo ebook and print on demand on Amazon and audiobook on Audible.

[00:39:47] Anna: cool. like I said, I’ve had some access to it. I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed it so far and, uh, look forward to, to just spending more time with it and learning more about this beautiful game. Gabe, if people want to follow along with you specifically, where should we send them?

[00:40:04] Gabe: Take a look at my linktree, which covers just about everything I get up to online. That is l i n k t r dot e e slash Gabe Lerman.

[00:40:17] Anna: Well, thank you so much for joining us today and again sharing your wealth of knowledge and inspiring us to You know look into Actually putting together some travel It doesn’t seem so big and scary when you’ve had the opportunity to talk to or read about Someone who has kind of taken this leap of faith and of course Japan ball being just a big Tremendous resource to learn more about it.

[00:40:45] Anna: It just seems more and more accessible every day.

[00:40:47] Gabe: Thank you again for having me on, Anna. It’s always a pleasure to chat with you, and who knows? Maybe I’ll have more stories to tell next time we chat.

[00:40:55] Anna: I hope so. I hope there’s another curse to be broken. Uh, you know, I think, uh, maybe we’re

[00:41:00] Gabe: Uh, no, Hiroshima hasn’t won a title since 1984. Maybe we can will that into the existence.

[00:41:05] Anna: I’m all for it. I, I subscribe to that. 

[00:41:08] Anna: And that will wrap up this episode of extra innings, special things to Gabe Lerman for joining us today and sharing his story. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, if you think you might like to be a guest on the show or a repeat guest on the show, head to baseball bucket list.com/podcast and fill out an application. 

[00:41:23] Anna: I’d absolutely love to hear from you. While you’re there, take some time to check out the site, build your own baseball bucket list, track your ballpark visits and connect with other fans. And if you find yourself enjoying the show each week, please take a moment to rate and review it in the podcast app of your choice. 

[00:41:38] Anna: It goes such a long way, and I would really, really appreciate it. That’s it for this week. Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you. Next episode.