Planning a baseball trip to Japan

Nippon Professional Baseball

It wasn't a long cherished dream to do a baseball trip to Japan.  It wasn't much of a dream at all. But I'm now just a few weeks away from boarding a plane.  For those who might have such dreams or aspirations, I thought perhaps my experience might be helpful in planning your own trip.

I’m not highly paid, but as a teacher I get long vacations.  Every summer my wife and I visit my family in the US, or hers in Japan.  This summer we’ll be visiting the latter and for the first time in a number of summers I found myself with no research projects or conferences.

While considering what I might do with my time, I bumped into the idea of a baseball tour.  Last summer I had a great day photographing at a US game in Atlanta.  With more available time, I could do the same in Japan many times over. I haven’t visited any Japanese stadiums apart from Fukuoka Dome, at which I attended a couple of Hawks games when we lived in that city.

So, why not?  I may never have a chance like this again.

My trip as scheduled now includes eight games in four stadiums featuring seven teams, plus a day at a fifth stadium for a high school tournament, all over a period of 16 days.

Where to go?

My first order of business was deciding where I would be and what stadiums I could feasibly visit.  Taking in the Hawks in Fukuoka and the Fighters in Sapporo, the two furthest extremes in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) geography (separated by 1400km), would entail a 15 hour train ride.  By far the best place to take in Japanese baseball in a variety of cities is the Kanto region, several prefectures surrounding and including Tokyo and home to five teams at five different stadiums:  Giants, Marines, Lions, Swallows and Bay Stars.

After visiting in-laws, attending a meditation retreat, and wandering around the temples of Chichibu, my schedule had me in Saitama, host to the Lions. I also planned to visit a friend in north Japan and found that on the way there, or the way back, I could pass through the Eagles’ home base of Sendai.  Finally, to catch a flight home I had to return to Osaka, seat of the Tigers and Buffaloes, as well as host to the annual summer high school baseball tournament.

NPB monthly schedule

Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together required a calendar and a visit the NPB homepage, which features a month-to-month schedule of all league games.  As in the MLB, Japanese teams play several games in a row against the same opponent, but unlike in the MLB, Monday is an off-day in Japan.  Basically you can count on Team A playing Team B on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then playing Team C on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

In my calendar I wrote out all the game locations for the days I had available in Kanto, then selected those that required the least amount of travel (instead of the those match-ups that seemed the more interesting).  I wanted to have two consecutive games at each location: one to enjoy as a typical spectator, the other to enjoy as a photographer roaming the stadium paying more attention to the event than the game itself.  I also wanted one of those visits to be to Tokyo Dome, because - well - it's Tokyo Dome, kind of like Yankee Stadium.  It also houses Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame.

As my schedule already had me nearby, I settled on a visit to Seibu Dome for two Lions games, then headed to Tokyo, where the Giants would be playing shortly thereafter. For those wanting to do more extensive visits to Kanto stadiums, a hotel in central Tokyo offers easy access to all five.  Using the area of Ikebukuro as a base results in the following approximate travel times by train and subway:

From Ikebukuro
Chiba Marines Stadium 70m
Seibu Dome 75 min
Tokyo Dome 15m
Yokohama Stadium 60m
Meiji Jingu Stadium 30m

Following the last of the two Giants games, my schedule included a personal visit to Akita, after which I could stop in Sendai for two nights with the Eagles at Sendai Stadium, before heading on to Osaka.  That city’s oldest and most venerable team, the Tigers, were away in Hiroshima, but Osaka’s other squad, the Buffalos, were at home against the Hawks, last year’s Japan series champions.  And starting the same week only a short train ride away was the annual Koshien High School Baseball Tournament.

Locating appropriate hotels or rooms through online sources such as Booking.com or AirBnB is easy enough when paired with something like Google Maps, which can calculate travel routes and approximate times between stadiums and hotels (though you should not rely on Google for the final word on train schedules).  Japanese cities are easily navigable via public transport, including train, subway, bus, and taxi.  If you can’t quite figure it out for yourself online, any decent hotel receptionist should be able to give you adequate directions and instructions.

Having designed a plan and made hotel reservations, the next step was procuring tickets, which I'll cover in my next post.

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