Yankees are missing an opportunity with uninspired first pitch World Series selections

I want to discuss what is definitely a first-world baseball problem and is about the overall ambience — but perhaps more — of the postseason, notably the World Series.The teams involved should be thinking about more than who is throwing the ceremonial first pitch but who is catching it (like I mentioned, first-world baseball issues).And no organization should be doing it more than the Yankees, who have such a backlog of worthy candidates and so much potential connectivity to provide their fan base.And in the case of Game 5, something even greater.The Yankees are having Hideki Matsui throw the first pitch prior to the final 2024 game in The Bronx.

That was a great pick — the World Series MVP of the last Yankee champion in 2009 and someone the Stadium fan base adores for his overall excellence and dignity, but also for how great he was in big games.But this is a World Series that is crushing in Japan.The games are in the mornings and yet one-tenth of the TVs in the country are tuned into the World Series — while the Japan Series is concurrently going on in the evenings — and the total number of viewers is outstripping how many are watching in the United States.The reason is obvious.

The Dodgers have Shohei Ohtani, who is the most popular player in the world and, according to my unscientific poll of Japanese reporters, the most popular person in the country.The claims from this poll were that the second-most popular mammal is Ohtani’s dog Decoy — and this was dead serious.Ohtani’s presence/popularity helped the Dodgers also land Yoshinobu Yamamoto over the two other most ardent pursuers, the Mets and the Yankees.

And Ohtani has made the Dodgers the team of Japan.And there are certainly team officials around MLB who believe that if Roki Sasaki comes in free agency this offseason (or sometime in the next few years), the Dodgers have a sizable edge to land arguably Japan’s best pitcher.Which is why I think the Yankees needed to send a statement befor...