The Lantern

How a Stone Lantern Connects the Dodgers to Japan

At the top of Dodger Stadium sits an 8-foot, 4,000-pound Japanese lantern. Most fans have never noticed it. But it tells the story of one of the most powerful relationships in sports.

You might assume the lantern arrived because of Shohei Ohtani. It's the opposite. It lit the way for him.

The story starts in 1956, when the newly crowned champion Brooklyn Dodgers toured Japan for a series of exhibition games. Owner Walter O'Malley saw baseball as an international game and used the trip to help mend wounds left by World War II. The Japanese welcomed the team with massive crowds. It was also where Jackie Robinson took his final swing before retiring.

On the way over, the Dodgers stopped in Los Angeles to refuel, and O'Malley looked around. Two years later, the team moved west.

The bond with Japan only deepened. Sportswriter Sotaro Suzuki befriended O'Malley and gifted the team a stone lantern, crafted in Nagoya, which arrived in 1965 and was placed quietly on a hillside. Three decades later, Hideo Nomo sparked "Nomo-mania" in 1995, becoming the first Japanese superstar and opening the door for players to cross the Pacific.

That door led to Ohtani, one of the greatest seasons in history, and a Dodgers legacy built on breaking barriers, from Robinson to Fernando Valenzuela to Nomo.

The lantern still shines at the Top Deck, a reminder that we are more alike than different. And that diversity makes us stronger.