Shohei Ohtani highlighted in film about Japanese, U.S. baseball

In the opening moments of a new film called “Diamond Diplomacy,” Shohei Ohtani holds the ball and Mike Trout holds a bat. These are the dramatic final moments of the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

The film puts those moments on pause to share the long and complex relationship between the United States and Japan through the prism of baseball, and through the stories of four Japanese players — Ohtani included — and their journeys to the major leagues.

Baseball has been a national pastime in both nations for more than a century. A Japanese publishing magnate sponsored a 1934 barnstorming tour led by Babe Ruth. Under former owners Walter and Peter O’Malley, the Dodgers were at the forefront of tours to Japan and elsewhere.

In 1946, however, amid the aftermath of World War II, the United States government funded a tour by the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League. Director Yuriko Gamo Romer features archival footage from that tour prominently in her film.

“I thought it was remarkable,” she said, “that the U.S. government decided, ‘Oh, we should send a baseball team to Japan to help repair relations and for goodwill.’ ”

On the home front, Romer shows how Ruth barnstormed Central California in 1927, a decade and a half before the U.S. government forced citizens of Japanese ancestry into incarceration camps there. Teams and leagues sprouted within the camps, an arrangement described by one player as “baseball behind barbed wire.”

The film also relates how, even after World War II ended, Japanese Americans were often unwelcome in their old neighborhoods, and Japanese baseball leagues sprung up like the Negro Leagues.

In 1964, the San Francisco Giants made pitcher Masanori Murakami the first Japanese player in Major League Baseball, but he yielded to pressure to return to his homeland two years later.

San Francisco Giants pitcher Masanori Murakami, shown on the a pro 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, star Japanese players regularly join the majors. In that 2023 WBC, as the film shows at its end, Ohtani left his first big imprint on the international game by striking out Trout to deliver victory to Japan over the United States.

On Friday, Ohtani powered the Dodgers into the World Series with perhaps the greatest game by any player in major league history.

In previous generations, author Robert Whiting says in the film, hardly any American could name a prominent Japanese figure, in baseball or otherwise. Today, Ohtani’s jersey is baseball’s best seller, and he is a cultural icon on and off the field, here and in Japan.

Fans cheer as Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani hits his third home run during Game 4 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“Suddenly, a Japanese face is the face of Major League Baseball in the United States,” Romer said. “People here can buy bottles of cold Japanese tea that have Shohei’s face on it.

“I know people who don’t care about baseball one iota and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know who that is.’”

“Diamond Diplomacy” will show on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Newport Beach Film Festival. For more information, visit newportbeachfilmfest.com.