This is the first year a baseball season has opened on another continent since 2004, when a pair of games was played to begin the seasons for the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Many baseball fans are accepting of the fact that Major League Baseball is growing into a worldwide sport and that many professional ballplayers are being recruited from various regions outside of North America. Several thousand Japanese baseball fanatics came to the game to see the Red Sox starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who created a large media hype before last season when he signed a deal to come play baseball for the Red Sox. However, some fans think that the traditions that comply with “America’s Pastime” should remain in North America for the opening day ceremonies.

Anthony Skyles, an avid sports fan and student of Georgia Southern University, thinks that having the season opener in Japan was contradictory to the traditional aspects that are associated with Major League Baseball.

“I don’t understand why the one sport that has always been classified as ‘America’s Pastime’ should open the season on a different continent,” Skyles said. “The games in Japan were played to begin the 2008 season, while back in the United States every other Major League team continued to play spring training and exhibition games for another five days until the North American season opener.”

A major gripe that occurred by those North American fans that woke up in time to watch the game involved technical difficulties experienced by DirectTV, preventing many from viewing the game at all. DirectTV experienced an extent of technical difficulties that blanked out NESN and ESPN2, two cable networks that were carrying the game. The troubles experienced by the NESN network were not fixed until the 7th inning, and the problems with ESPN2 were not corrected until the game was already over.

Even though many American sports fans express their distastes of not being able to view the opening day festivities of their favorite baseball clubs, the events were highly accepted by the Japanese sports fans. The attendance for the game on March 25 was 44,628, more than likely including numerous Japanese fans wanting to see the Japanese sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka as the starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

As the number of Japanese players in Major League Baseball gradually continues to grow, the league is forced to try and spread its acceptance in other regions of the world. The emergence of Japanese ballplayers that have achieved superstar status includes Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki, So Taguchi, and most recently Kosuke Fukudome illustrates that anyone in the world can receive massive acclaim in the professional sports of North America regardless of the location where their talents originate.

Regardless of how it is perceived by North American sports fans; Major League Baseball must continue to comply with the popularity it receives in different regions of the world. Even though Major League Baseball has long been considered “America’s Pastime”, in actuality it has become the stage for many different nationalities of players to show their abilities to the rest of the world.

Here are some links to discover more about the emergence of Japanese interest in Major League Baseball:
Japanese Ball Players
Japanese Players and Accomplishments
Official MLB Press Release of Opening Series
Major League Baseball Official Website
ESPN Official Website

Will Herald