Far too early speculation about Opening Day 2025
In 2025, the Dodgers are going to Japan to start their season. The Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs will be squaring off in the venerable Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan.
Photo by Yuki Taguchi/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images
While I have written about the logistics of going to Korea, admittedly, going to Tokyo would be a task of a different magnitude as I have wanted to visit Japan for a very long time.
While I am all for watching baseball at 3 a.m., there is something about experiencing baseball firsthand, seeing the sights and sounds, and exploring the baseball culture of others. Take this gem from the Seoul Series with Alex Vesia and Michael Grove trying Korean baseball fare, as it’s a long way from a hot dog and a beer.
Truthfully, I have visited 26 of the 30 major league parks. As such, when the rumor regarding the Dodgers starting in Japan spread, I thought that I would likely make going to Japan the bulk of my travel for 2025.
The only National League park I have not visited is Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Returning to Wrigley Field, Great American Ballpark, and PNC Park would be nice. I have only been to these venues under social distancing protocols during baseball’s reopening in 2021 or before I joined the site’s payroll.
My 2024 itinerary is here, and my plans for 2025 will be published soon. In 2025, the Dodgers would be on what I will call the AL East cycle as opposed to 2024’s AL Central cycle.
2025 Dodgers interleague road trips
- Boston
- Baltimore
- Tampa Bay
- Cleveland
- Kansas City
- Arlington
- Seattle
- Anaheim
2024 Dodgers interleague road trips
- Minnesota
- Detroit
- Chicago
- Toronto
- Bronx (Yankees)
- Houston
- Oakland/Sacramento
- Anaheim
While all three AL divisions are visited yearly, as you can see, most teams come from one division, and if one discounts that, Anaheim is visited yearly. I have visited every city in bold while writing for True Blue LA.
When the schedule rotates back to the AL East cycle, I only have one place left to visit. While Cleveland has been renovated, the entire project will not be complete until Opening Day 2025. As such, the only places I would want to visit in 2025 that would be entirely new to me are Philadelphia and Arlington.
Both venues can be visited with relative ease and moderate expense, so the budget (in theory) should be able to handle a week (or ten days) in Japan. Except some knuckleheads decided to put both series in April 2025, immediately after Tokyo.
Hard decisions were made and such is life.
The point is to prepare for coverage in some form from Tokyo during the year’s opening series. But what if you want to go to Tokyo too? The following are the hurdles that one would encounter upon going to Japan.
Preliminary Logistics
To be clear, if you plan to go to Tokyo, you should have started planning when the announcement dropped. If you did not, you should start immediately. However, these sorts of trips are bucket list items, and you should get these steps done ASAP.
Passport
Followers of my adventures will know the following baseline-level advice: ensure your passport is current. Mine will expire in the first half of 2025, so after my trip to Toronto this April, I worked on processing my renewal. By the time of the NLCS, I already had my renewed passport.
Usually, U.S. passport processing time for new passports or renewals takes, at worst, six months, so the earlier one starts, the better. Also, having a valid passport can make signing up for a secured ID (like California’s Real ID) much easier.
Flights
A ten- to eleven-hour flight is no joke. Flying out of a regional airport is a terrible idea if you can avoid it because of the costs and likely multiple flights one would have to endure. If you can find a round-trip ticket to and from the U.S. to Japan for less than $1000 and you do not mind forgoing the luxuries of premium economy, business class, or first class, then snap that deal up in a heartbeat.
It is important to sleep on these flights and be well-hydrated before and during the flight. When I first traveled to Asia, I did neither of those things, and it did not go well, to put it mildly.
Language issues
Do you need to know how to speak or read Japanese to enjoy Japan? It helps, but not knowing the language is not as big of a hurdle as one might think.
As long as you stay in the major cities, odds are you can find enough in English to get you from point A to point B. The general rule of thumb is if you stay in cities like Tokyo or Kyoto or Osaka, you will be fine, but if you venture into the countryside (Does farmland surround you?), English will likely not help, as one might hope.
As such, learning at least some basic Japanese is a good idea.
Plus, one can use many language apps to get up to speed quickly, like Duolingo. I have been working on my Japanese for almost two months, and I should have another three months under my belt by the time of the trip.
It is always a good idea to be able to ask where the bathroom is or if the subway is here in the native tongue.
Learn to love the bidet
Bidets are common in most other parts of the world, and Japan is no exception. I could easily spend 1000-2000 words extolling the virtues of Japanese bathroom technology. I am not talking about some “rinky-dink, let’s just use room-temperature water” device. I am talking about an “I’m paying how much for this?!? And I now have to wait to go home to use the facilities?!?” device.
Fun fact: The Hotel Miyako in Los Angeles (the hotel I recommend in the Los Angeles entry of the Guide for visiting Dodger games) has Toto washlets in its rooms. Once you try those devices, you will never want to go back.
The phone is king
Paying for things with your phone is a relative novelty in the United States, depending on where you live. As a former Bay Area resident, using my phone to pay for stuff is fairly mundane. In Japan, paying through your phone is far more common.
Did you know there was an anime where spending money from your phone is a major plot point? Also, did you know that said anime had its opening song done by the band Oasis but that the rights to license the song were too expensive in the West, so it got used just once? (It’s Eden of the East, which starts strong enough and then faceplants epically.)
Call your shots
Most people tend to overlook this part, but if you are traveling internationally, closer to the date of travel, it makes sense to have your vaccinations up to date, including for Varicella, diphtheria, tetanus, and Pertussis, Flu, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, Shingles, and COVID-19.
Most folks tend to overlook shots for Hepatitis A, which are recommended for anyone who plans to have street food. Hepatitis A shots are a once-in-a-lifetime series that typically does not need a booster.
Before my semester in Cambodia during law school almost a decade ago, I made a point to get all these shots (sans COVID) over two weeks. I hate needles, so I was generally miserable afterward. It was worth it, though.
Golden Week and Cherry Blossoms
Golden Week is a holiday period in Japan from late April to early May, including multiple public holidays. As such, the country sees an influx of vacation travel. The basic rule of thumb is that all vacationing in Japan during this period is far more expensive during Golden Week.
Photo by PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images
The Japan Series is in mid-March, well ahead of Golden Week. However, it will also mark the start of cherry blossom season.
Yoshino in Nara prefecture is probably the most famous place for cherry blossom season. That assertion said, you can likely find cherry blossom tours throughout the country, which would raise hotel prices and increase tourism in various parts of the country. Before the series was formalized, I speculated that it could take place in either Kyoto or Osaka if the most logical choice, the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, was ignored.
As such, I am pleased to announce that Tokyo is on the menu for the coming year. I have booked accommodations and renewed my passport in the interim. If there is interest, we will keep you up to date with any further updates to this story, including any potential meetups.