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How Los Angeles Dodgers' plan to win over Japan has begun

Related Topics: Scott Okamoto, Andrew Friedman

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GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Seiko Watanabe stood beside the pathway to the baseball fields at the Los Angeles Dodgers' spring training facility on a recent weekday morning, wearing a white Shohei Ohtani jersey purchased from the team's store a day earlier. She kept one eye on her 6-year-old son -- outfitted with a Dodgers cap, a Dodgers glove and a blue Dodgers shirsey with Ohtani's No. 17 on the back -- and the other on a nearby door from where players typically emerge.

Two days earlier, Watanabe had flown close to 6,000 miles from her Japanese hometown of Yokohama in hopes of merely catching a glimpse of Ohtani, with no guarantee of an autograph or even an interaction.