Shohei Ohtani highlighted in film tracing history of Japanese and American 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."

"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 internment 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."

Diamond Diplomacy pauses the 2023 World Baseball Classic final moment between Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout to examine the long U.S.-Japan relationship through baseball. The film traces early exchanges, including a 1934 Babe Ruth barnstorming tour and Dodgers-led tours, then highlights a 1946 U.S. government-funded San Francisco Seals goodwill tour. It shows baseball inside World War II internment camps and the emergence of Japanese American leagues akin to the Negro Leagues. The film chronicles Masanori Murakami becoming the first Japanese Major Leaguer in 1964 and later developments leading to Hideo Nomo's 1995 signing with the Dodgers.

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