At the start of the 2025 baseball season, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, two teams with multiple Japanese stars each, headed to the Far East for a pair of games at the Tokyo Dome.
Jason Sterman, who has worked on everything from ESPN’s 30 for 30 to The Bear, directed the film, which had a two-day run in theaters via Fathom Entertainment in February and will land on CNN on March 27.
The film covers the games themselves, marking the returns to Japan of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Seiya Suzuki, and Shota Imanaga, as well as a look at Japan in baseball, from the men who make the bats to the Japanese version of Little League.
We spoke to Jason Sterman about the film, his work on it, and much more.
Are you LA, born and raised?
LA born and raised, and one of the few in this business who was born and raised here.
Are you a Dodgers fan, I guess?
I am, yeah. Also born and raised.
I guess it’s been a good couple of years for you, I suppose.
Look, you know what, there are ups and downs with most franchises. We happen to be on an up, you know. I’m not going to complain.
So, tell me a little bit about your background in terms of directing this. Tell me about how you came to be directing this film in particular.
So, I’ve been lucky enough to have a relationship with Major League Baseball for some time. I did a 30 for 30 with them years ago. And it happened just through kind of a general like catch-up, you know, it was like they asked what I was interested in and, you know, bringing potential ideas to them.
And quite honestly, from watching the Dodgers play, especially during the first year that Ohtani was on the team in 2024, and watching something as simple as Ohtani’s approach to the batter’s box on his first at-bat of every game with the, even so subtle, the hat tip to the opposing manager. It felt like it was this different approach. I think all players respect the game, but there was something that felt slightly different about that.
And then watching Yamamoto, and when you start to look at other Japanese players, they all kind of have a slightly different approach. And so it, within me, like the kind of like asking-question filmmaker, burning desire to go on a journey and discover something, kind of presented that question of where do these guys come from before they ever get to Major League Baseball?
That directly kind of aligned with the opening day schedule with Major League Baseball last year, with them opening the season in Tokyo with the Dodgers and the Cubs. And obviously, the Cubs have two Japanese players of their own, and showed it in Shota Imanaga and Suzuki. And so it was this kind of right time, right place, right, I think, story or right question to ask, where I basically asked them, what’s going on with the Tokyo Series? Are you doing anything around it? And they [said], nothing outside of like, obviously, like the games themselves and broadcasting. And I kind of presented this as the entry point into this kind of larger journey.
I actually was in Japan last summer, and I went to a baseball game. I went to the Yakult Swallows, and they were playing Yokohama; it was at the Yakult Stadium.
I really wanted to go to the Tokyo Dome. Part of that was because I grew up in Minnesota as a Twins fan, and I grew up with the Metrodome, and the Tokyo Dome looks just like the Metrodome looked. So I kind of wanted to have that nostalgia hit. But unfortunately, those schedules didn’t line up right with that.
But it also feels like no matter what, wherever you are, like the general fan approach to the Nippon games, no matter what is something that you don’t get here.
I noticed the beer girls who come around, from the game I went to.
It also feels like that’s a feat of technology from a Japanese fandom standpoint of how do you design the perfect beer delivery system? And it’s like, they’ve done it. Like, you don’t have to leave your seat.
So how much time did you spend in Japan when you were doing this?
We filmed for a month. So the games themselves happened in the middle of March.
It was, that was the constant. Like that was the thing that we knew was locked into the schedule. And then we built our time on both sides of that. So from an arrival standpoint, pretty much like March 1st and taking off back to L.A. like April 1st.
I know MLB cooperated with [the film]. Did they, were you dealing with their production arm or were you kind of on your own when it came to filming the actual games?
It was entirely very much like a luxurious way of operating, where they gave us whatever access that we needed in the same way that also, like every other media member, had access. So it wasn’t like we had anything special, it was just like you can go wherever you want to go during the course of being in Tokyo Dome.
That kind of allowed us to almost take a fan POV as opposed to trying to make it much more about the plays of the game if you will because no matter what, the film is not a recap of those games it is much more of a like a culmination and a celebration of those guys coming back and if anything it kind of allowed us to be in a position to treat the camera as if it is an extension of the audience.
So what surprised you about it, whether it was the whole experience of the Japanese game, or anything else you experienced there?
From the entire experience aspect of things, the things that really surprised me ultimately, and I really fell in love with was the Little League component, because I didn’t expect to actually see directly the answer to my question at the start of this film, which was, ‘what shapes these players and where do they ultimately come from?’
And when you see how Little League is taught to eight, nine year old kids, and you see the things that are also important to the coaches and the organizers of Little League, where it’s things like ‘don’t bring shame to your family name ‘and it’s ‘respect your opponent’ and ‘play for each other, not for yourself,’
All of those things feel as if they’re being embedded into these kids through the lens of baseball at such a young age. And they know that most of these kids are not going to become professional baseball players. But the way that they ultimately treat it is by using the rules of baseball to help these kids grow to become better members of society. But then the ones who do become Major League Baseball players or Nippon professional baseball players, they’re still taking those same core values and bringing them to the field. And so that to me, I did not expect to have that clear an understanding of where this all starts.
When I was there, I remember noticing that, and I was only in Tokyo and Kyoto, so I didn’t go to other places in the country, but I noticed that people seemed to, if people were wearing baseball hats, it was either Dodgers or Yankees, or Japanese teams.
Do you get the sense people there have taken on the Dodgers as their team there?
I think that there’s an obvious extension of the Ohtani factor. And then, obviously, even now, it’s more like the Yamamoto factor. And I think it’s just like their success, and also their embrace of the players creates that home fan base back in Japan. I know the Dodgers organization has done a very, very good job for a very long time of trying to create that extension of the fan experience.
Not only here in LA, like when you go to the Dodgers stadium, but it’s like the way that they have transformed a lot of the stadium into a very Japanese-facing, Japanese-friendly stadium here. I think that also builds that bridge right back into Japan.
But the interesting thing is that the Cubs have a strong fan base. We saw a lot of Cubs fans. In talking to people, it’s like there are San Diego Padres fans. They’re very popular because Yu Darvish, played for the Padres. It is that thing where I think, depending on who the player is and where they come from in Japan, where they played when they were in the Nippon League, and then where they ultimately end up going. We’re going to see a lot of White Sox fans now because of Murakami going to the White Sox. It just feels like it’s that thing where you kind of follow the guy that you’re tracking.
Was this your first time in Japan?
I spent four days on a shoot years ago on a soundstage. So I’m really much treating this as my first time in Japan.
Let me quickly ask you about a couple of your other projects. What was the 30 for 30 that you worked on?
It was called First Pitch. It was a 30 for 30 short about everything that went into George Bush throwing up the first pitch at the World Series in 2001 after 9/11.
I think I remember that. I definitely remember when it happened. And you worked on some episodes of The Bear?
I have, I’ve worked on seasons two, three, and four. I’ve been lucky enough, I’ve had a relationship with those guys and with Chris Storer, and it’s been, I think, that show has kind of grown. I basically am a co-EP on certain episodes. Basically, it’s like in the extension of those guys when episodes need it. It’s a very weird role.
Are you in the kitchen?
JS: No, I directed the opening sequence to the second episode of season three, which was… It’s this opening of like everything opening up in Chicago. It’s like all these chefs and restaurants and hotels, and it’s to this Eddie Vedder track. And the [director of photography] that I used on that, she’s amazing, she was the DP on Homecoming. So that’s how we met was on that. But it was just looking like all these real-life restaurants and restaurateurs and different places in Chicago, just kind of opening up.
Yeah, that show is soundtracked with my CD collection from college, pretty much.
That’s all Chris, he’s picking everything.
And I saw that you worked on 13th, the Ava DuVernay film. I am in that movie, believe it or not. The scene where Bill Clinton is arguing with the protester during the 2016 campaign. I was covering that as a reporter, and I happened to be standing next to the woman who was yelling at him. It was on all the national news that night, and I guess the footage must have been repurposed into the movie.
Our filmography has an immediate crossover.
So in the end, were you trying to do something about the game or are you trying to be something about, baseball and Japan in general or sort of a little bit of both? What was kind of the big, the big question you wanted to answer?
So my whole thing in general also is like with anything that we do, I really want to try to make it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s one entry point into any project, film or TV. And so the main thing is that like if I went into this trying to only service baseball fans, I at least feel like I’m doing disservice to anyone else who may take something away from this film.
And so what I really tried to do was treat the lens of Japan and the idea of like obviously like the culture and the traditions. There is obviously that you’re seeing it through that lens of baseball. But if you came only because you’re fascinated by those elements, you may come away with a deeper understanding of baseball, which is also a game that obviously is played here.
Like it’s our national pastime. And if you are a fan of baseball but don’t know anything about Japan, like you may come away also with a deeper respect for the culture and the craftsmanship and the way that they approach certain things.
There’s that kind of crossover. So ideally, it’s like it’s trying to find multiple entry points and exit points to the film.
So I went into this also it’s like I don’t speak Japanese. I’m obviously not Japanese. So like I’m not an expert on Japanese baseball nor am I pretending to be. So what I’m always trying to do is become that extension of the audience to try and go let’s go discover something and go on this journey together. So I’m learning as well.
Homecoming: The Tokyo Series will be streaming on CNN, March 27th.
