At first glance, Tom Russell’s motivation for joining a JapanBall tour seems pretty simple – “I like to travel and see baseball, and this lets me do both at the same time.”
But a closer look reveals that it’s not really that cut and dried for the JapanBall Hall of Famer, who’s traveled with the company four times to Japan and once to the Dominican Republic.
For one thing, he’s long had an interest in Asian cultures, especially that of Japan. He also is a fan of Asian food, and where better to partake of that than in the country? In addition, he’s a video gamer, and, while many video game titles are developed in Japan, not all are exported to the U.S. Let’s see . . . what else? Oh, yes – he’s a whiskey aficionado who’s cultivated an interest in the Japanese varieties.
Put all that together, and it’s a no-brainer to go with JapanBall.
“I’ve always been curious about Japan – the culture, the food, baseball, etc.,” Russell said. “Around 10 years ago, I was looking for a tour there and stumbled across JapanBall on the internet. I first went in 2014, taking the Main Tour, and I had so much fun that I went back the next year. I returned in 2018 and then again this year. The last two times, I was able to arrive early and do some exploring on my own.”
JapanBall founder Bob Bavasi says, “Tom is a guy that does more than simply follow the itinerary of a trip, and I applaud that. [On the 2023 trip], he went to some places that he had found on previous trips and invited others to go – so a little mini-tour, of sorts. I think it’s great when people do that for other folks that also want to know more. I value this because I think it gives the tours an added richness.”
“Another thing special about Tom is that he keeps in touch with people that he meets on the trips,” said Bavasi, who stepped away from JapanBall in 2019 but assisted on the 2023 tour. “That makes the trips more than just one-off things and makes them more memorable.”
One example is Ron Frazier, a law-school classmate of Bavasi, who met Russell on JapanBall’s 2015 tour. The two have stayed in touch, despite Frazier living in California and Russell in Ohio.
Frazier, a superior court judge in San Diego, said he and Russell have been friends ever since that 2015 trip, even though they haven’t been on any others together.
“We talk occasionally, and we met in San Diego in 2017 for the World Baseball Classic,” Frazier said. “Tom brought his two kids out, and they all stayed with me. The kids did LegoLand, and he and I did the WBC. It was fantastic.”
“I share Tom’s viewpoint of seeing more than just baseball on the trips,” Frazier continued. “We did so much more during the trip I took. One of my favorite experiences was at a game in [Koshien] Stadium. I was sitting next to a young [Japanese] man who was so polite that he was almost whispering, ‘Go Tigers’. But then a Tiger player hit a home run, and I really yelled. He looked at me and suddenly realized it was okay to yell. He was my best friend for the next couple of hours. Those are things you really remember.”
Another friend of Russell’s is Dan Sheehy. The two were on the 2014 and 2015 JapanBall trips together, and then Russell met up with Sheehy and his wife in Hungary a year later.
“When Tom travels, it’s not only about going to games but about the cultural experiences,” said Sheehy, a retired corporate executive who splits time between Portland, OR, and Naples, FL. “It could be sumo wrestling, visiting historical places such as Hiroshima and Kyoto, the food, and so forth. No matter whom he travels with, he has interests that intersect those of other people with whom he’s traveling.
“He doesn’t have a provincial way of thinking,” Sheehy added. “He’s been to a lot of places and is very well-spoken. He has a wide network of friends – even from his college days – and he stays in touch on a regular basis.”
Russell’s various interests germinated and developed over time. The first was baseball. Currently the Chief Financial Officer for a private company, he moved to Ohio in 2007 but grew up in the Queens borough of New York City, went to high school on Long Island, was an undergraduate at Columbia University in upper Manhattan, and earned an MBA from Harvard.
“I started following baseball because of my dad,” he said. He pitched in high school and was best friends with a guy who got as high as AAA ball. My dad actually went against [former MLB star and New York Yankee manager] Joe Torre in the high school championship game and gave up a home run to him. A fellow JapanBall connection found an article once that mentioned my dad’s name.”
Like his father, Russell was a Yankee fan but also saw plenty of New York Mets games at Shea Stadium, since that was in Queens.
“Given that I had season tickets over the years, I’ve seen a lot of games – at least a thousand, including a lot of World Series games,” he estimated. Since moving to Ohio, he’s watched the Yankees and Tigers in the playoffs a few times at Detroit’s Comerica Park, including the Tigers’ sweep in the 2012 American League Championship Series, but doesn’t attend many other Tiger games.
“I’m still a Yankee fan, and there aren’t many of us here in the Midwest,” he said with a laugh.
Russell started becoming a fan of Japan during his high school years.
“Video games are one of my favorite hobbies,” he said. “I’d imported a few games from Japan, and that was one thing that got me curious about the culture. I found that I loved Asian food, and I now eat it probably a third of the time to maybe half the time. During my first JapanBall tour, I was introduced to Japanese whiskey and took a liking to it, so I went to whiskey bars multiple times on my most recent trip. And, of course, I realized how good Japanese baseball was, and I wanted to see it in person and learn more about it.
“I’ve found the people there to be very friendly; it’s very easy to get around the country; and the transportation is very safe, reliable, and on time,” he added. “The rail pass there is phenomenal; it’s a key element in letting people explore the country for not too much money. Japan is just a very civilized place – there are many things Americans could learn from Japan.”
In fact, Russell has already purchased tickets for a trip there next summer with his children, a daughter aged 17 and a son, 14.
“They’ve seen all the trinkets I’ve brought back from my trips and are excited about going, and I like Japan so much that I’d go every year if I could.”
