TOKYO -- Growing the game of baseball means making it accessible to everyone. With that sentiment in mind, Major League Baseball found an opportunity to give back in the city that has played the part of gracious host with the big leagues descending on Japan this week.
The league, along with the Cubs and Dodgers, hosted a baseball clinic featuring former Major Leaguers at Seicho Special Needs High School in a Tokyo Series legacy event on Monday afternoon. As part of the festivities, MLB and the teams also presented the school with a new pitching machine and a donation to be used toward baseball equipment.
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The Cubs and the Dodgers open the regular season with the two-game Tokyo Series at Tokyo Dome on Tuesday and Wednesday, the culmination of a special week that has made clear just how much passion people in Japan have for baseball.
"The Tokyo Series is going to be the biggest standalone international event in the history of Major League Baseball," MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said. "In terms of its overall impact, we see it the same way as we see events like our All-Star Game."
Seicho made its mark on Japanese high school baseball history in 2023. A team composed of students from Seicho, Shoin and Fukusawa High Schools -- none of which had enough players to field a full team -- became the first representing a special needs school to participate in a preliminary round of Koshien, Japan's famed high school baseball tournament.
After the pitching machine and donation were presented to Seicho High School in a ceremony, the real fun got underway with the clinic.
There were several former big league players -- wearing the jerseys of their former teams -- on hand to assist during hitting and pitching drills, including two Japanese players who got their start in NPB: Takashi Saito, who played three seasons with the Dodgers from 2006-08, and Munenori Kawasaki, whose MLB career ended with the Cubs in 2016.
Members of the Commissioner's Ambassadors Program -- Dellin Betances, Dexter Fowler, Jeremy Guthrie, LaTroy Hawkins, Ryan Howard, Adam Jones, Andruw Jones, Jason Kendall, Jed Lowrie, Jimmy Rollins, CC Sabathia, Shane Victorino and Chris Young -- were on site, as was Olympic gold medalist and MLB Softball Ambassador Natasha Watley.
Major League jerseys, Seicho baseball uniforms and white T-shirts emblazoned with the MLB Together logo all mingled together on the gravel athletic field outside the school. Seicho students took swings off tees and threw at targets, all while getting advice and encouragement from their big league guest instructors.
The joy on the students' faces was evident as they got to play the game they loved in the presence of those who had experienced baseball at its highest level.
While the longstanding relationship between MLB and Japan has led to stars coming to the big leagues from NPB -- among them Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki and Roki Sasaki, who will all play in the Tokyo Series -- it's not all about the professional players.
Events such as the clinic with Seicho High School can be equally important to helping baseball thrive all over the world.
"Both events are part of an overall strategy for growing the game," Manfred said. "A youth event like this gets young people interested in the game. That's our future."