In the opening moments of a new film titled ““Diamond Diplomacy” Shohei Ohtani holds the ball and Mike Trout holds the bat. These are the dramatic final moments of the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
The film places those moments temporally to share the long and complex relationship between the United States and Japan through the lens of baseball, and through the stories of four Japanese players — including Ohtani — and their journeys to the major leagues.
Baseball has been a national pastime in both countries for more than a century. A Japanese publishing magnate sponsored the 1934 barnstorming tour led by Babe Ruth. Under the leadership of previous owners Walter and Peter O’Malley, it was The Dodgers were ahead Tours to Japan and elsewhere.
But in 1946, in the wake of World War II, the U.S. government funded a tour by the Pacific Coast League’s San Francisco Seals. Director Yuriko Jammu Rohmer features archival footage from that tour prominently in her film.
“I thought it was remarkable that the United States government decided, ‘We should send a baseball team to Japan to help mend relations and promote goodwill,’” she said.
On the home front, Romer shows how Ruth broke into central California in 1927, a decade and a half before the U.S. government forced citizens of Japanese descent into internment camps there. Teams and leagues emerged within the camps, an arrangement that one player described as “baseball behind barbed wire.”
The film also recounts how, even after World War II ended, Japanese Americans were often not welcome in their old neighborhoods, and Japanese baseball leagues such as the Negro Leagues emerged.
In 1964, the San Francisco Giants made pitcher Masanori Murakami the first Japanese player in Major League Baseball, but he succumbed to pressure to return to his homeland two years later.
San Francisco Giants outfielder Masanori Murakami, who appeared on the professional baseball field in 1964, was the first Japanese athlete to play in Major League Baseball.
(Associated Press)
In 1995, when pitcher Hideo Nomo signed with the Dodgers, he had to retire from Japanese baseball to do so. (The film contains footage of legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda teaching Nomo to say: “I bleed Dodger blue.”)
Now, Japanese star players regularly join the major leagues. At the 2023 WBC Championship, as the film shows at its end, Ohtani made his first major mark on the international game when he struck out Trout to seal victory for Japan over the United States.
On Friday, Ohtani led the Dodgers to the World Series with perhaps the greatest game by any player in major league history.
In previous generations, almost no American could name a notable Japanese figure, baseball or otherwise, author Robert Whiting says in the film. Today, Ohtani’s shirt is Baseball’s best sellerHe is a cultural icon on and off the field, here and in Japan.
Fans cheer as Dodgers outfielder Shohei Ohtani hits his third home run during Game 4 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday at Dodger Stadium.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“Suddenly, the face of Japan became the face of Major League Baseball in the United States,” Romer said. “People here can buy Bottles of cold Japanese tea with Shohei’s face on them attic.
“I know people who don’t care one iota about baseball and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know who that is.’”
The film “Diamond Diplomacy” will be shown on Tuesday at 5 pm at the Newport Beach Film Festival. For more information, visit newportbeachfilmfest.com.