History of Yankees Games in Japan
2025 MLB Tokyo Series Starts Tuesday
The Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers will open the 2025 Major League Baseball season at the Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo, Japan, on March 18 and 19.
The 2025 MLB Tokyo Series is MLB’s seventh all-time series in Japan. All previous MLB regular season games played in Japan occurred at the Tokyo Dome, the home of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yomiuri Giants.
The Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics were the last two MLB teams to play in Japan, a two-game series in 2019.
Have the Yankees ever played in Japan? Just once.
In 2004, the Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays met for a two-game series at the Tokyo Dome. The Devil Rays won game one 8-3, and the Yankees took game two convincingly, 12-1.
Fun Facts and Highlights
Former Yankees first baseman Tino Martinez hit the 300th home run of his career in game one, a moonshot over the right field wall in the seventh inning. He returned to the Yankees in 2005 after his only season in Tampa Bay in 2004.
Hideki Matsui played the first 10 seasons of his professional baseball career with the Yomiuri Giants and won three Japan Series titles in 1994, 2000, and 2002.
The attendance for each game was listed at 55,000, the maximum seating capacity for the stadium. The YES Network announcers for the two games were Michael Kay, Joe Girardi, and Ken Singleton.
Click the video below to watch game two of the series.
More to come!