For the longest time, Pam and Steve Ikeda’s JapanBall experience was a continuous set of firsts:
- Their first trip was on JapanBall’s first tour to the Dominican Republic
- Then came JapanBall’s first venture to Honkbalweek in the Netherlands
- Next was the first JapanBall trip to see the Midnight Sun game in Alaska
- And then there was the first time a JapanBall group traveled to the northern stadiums of the Dominican Republic
- And finally, they went on the first JapanBall spring training tour in Okinawa in early 2024.
Though the first/first streak ended when they went on JapanBall’s venerable See-it-All tour of Japan in 2024, the Ikedas – who’ve now earned their Hall of Fame stripes – clearly aren’t afraid to tackle something new.
“We’re like guinea pig JapanBallers,” Pam says.
Maybe not the most poetic of descriptions, but accurate.
They had actually first seen baseball in Japan in 2003 when fewer North Americans than today were making the journey, going on their own with their son and daughter . . . with an assist from JapanBall.
“Getting tickets wasn’t the simplest thing back then, but we managed it through JapanBall,” Steve said. “That’s how we first became familiar with the organization. Back then, they would leave your tickets at the hotel desk.”
The first game they saw pitted the Hanshin Tigers against the Hiroshima Carp in the Kyocera Dome in Osaka. “We got to see [eventual MLB pitchers] Kei Igawa and Hiroki Kuroda go against each other,” Steve remembers.
“When we first went on our own, the atmosphere was a lot like it is now,” Pam said. “There were sellout crowds and enthusiastic fans. The fans in the cheering sections chanted and sang for every batter, no matter how long each at-bat lasted. You had the beer girls, of course, and sometimes fans would unfurl a large banner over your head, and you could actually participate. The balloons at the Kyocera Dome [fans inflate and then release them during the middle of the seventh inning] were a new experience.
“One thing that’s better now is the food,” she added. “Back then, the food wasn’t as diverse as now, and we had some really awful hot dogs. Luckily, though, they would let you bring bento boxes into the stadium. Since then, they’ve really developed the food offerings so there are a lot more choices. A lot of the stadiums have pop-ups, too, kind of like food trucks.”
Fast forward seven years, and the family returned to watch the Yokohama DeNA BayStars battle the Yomiuri Giants, and they again saw the BayStars and Giants collide in 2013. But the bug then went dormant for several years. It wasn’t until 2021, as the world was starting to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic, that their interest revived.
“We were thinking that we’d like to go back and see some games in Japan,” Steve said. “We hadn’t met [JapanBall president] Shane [Barclay] at that point, but I would get emails from JapanBall from time to time since we’d gotten tickets through them previously. Also, JapanBall would come up every time we would do a search on Japanese baseball. We ended up calling Shane and found him to be very helpful.”
At the time, Japan was still closed to tourists because of Covid-19, so the couple opted for the initial Dominican Republic adventure.
“I saw the D.R. trip and didn’t think Pam would particularly want to go there,” Steve said. “But we went, met Shane for the first time, and the rest is history.”
Pam added, “That trip was a real eye-opener – to see how the game is played there, of course, but more to be in the middle of the fan experience. The fans there can get really crazy – in a good and fun way.
“We were hooked,” she said with a laugh.
And Barclay, who took over the JapanBall reigns from Bob Bavasi in 2020, is certainly grateful for that. “Steve and Pam have been right there alongside me ever since the beginning, and I couldn’t have asked for better travel buddies. The 2021 D.R. tour was my first as owner of the company, and their enthusiasm and go-with-the-flow vibe made them the ideal tour guests. They also are the type of people who bring the group together and stay in touch long after the trip. They are cornerstones of our community and really do embody much of what we are all about: they love baseball, people, and experiencing new things.”
They had such a good time in the Dominican Republic that after the tour ended, they immediately signed up for JapanBall’s to visit the Netherlands in the summer of 2022 to experience Honkbalweek, or Haarlem Baseball Week, an invitational tournament matching teams from around the world.
“We had always wanted to go to the Netherlands – our son had been there and loved it,” Steve said. “It turned out to be an outstanding trip.” The group got to meet people like MLB Hall of Famer and Team Italy coach Mike Piazza; Wladimir Balentien, whose 60 home runs in 2013 represent the single-season record in Nippon Professional Baseball; and pitcher Rick van den Hurk, a native of the Netherlands who pitched in Major League Baseball.
“There were no locker rooms where they played, so the players just walked out of the ballpark like anyone else, and fans had opportunities to meet them and take pictures,” Steve said. “Piazza was doing an interview at the time, and Shane got him to meet our group. Balentien would sit around after games and eat chicken fingers.”
And that trip begat another, which led to another, which led to another . . . No real surprise because the two grew up on sports and have long had the travel bug.
Both are Los Angeles-area natives, Steve from Pasadena and Pam from Anaheim, and they reside in Whittier. Steve went to the same high school as Jackie Robinson and former major leaguer Alan Wiggins, while ex-pitcher Andy Messersmith was an alumnus of Pam’s high school.
Steve said he’s always loved baseball and also has a passion for fishing. Pam, not so much, at first.
“But I started going to baseball games more when we got married and had kids. We started with Dodger games, but Dodger fans were more obnoxious then. And since Angels’ games in the late ‘90s were more family-friendly, we started going there more and had shared season tickets for quite a few years.
“I like the pace of the game,” Pam said. “I like the atmosphere. If there’s not much going on in the game, you can chat with the people around you. The game has a nice flow to it. I kind of like the lulls – the ebbs and flows of baseball.”
Steve had played Little League ball and in other amateur leagues until he was a freshman in high school and reality hit – “By my senior year, our team was ranked No. 2 in the nation. Half of our guys were drafted by MLB teams, and Wiggins eventually made the majors.”
Pam didn’t play sports while growing up – “I was a nerd,” she said with a laugh. “But I was a football fan because my dad was a [Los Angeles] Rams season-ticket holder and would sometimes take me to games.”
The two met in 1981 while attending the University of California – Irvine. Steve was on a work/study program in a research laboratory, and Pam was there performing experiments as part of her biology curriculum. They married five years later and have two adult children – daughter Emily and son Alex, who has spent the last nine years teaching English in Vietnam and is himself has gone on a couple of JapanBall trips.
Pam retired in 2015 from her position in a clinical laboratory, and Steve retired four years later after a career in banking. That set them up for more travel and other interests, particularly running. By now, they’ve done 12 half-marathons, and each has done a full marathon – Pam the Revel Big Bear in 2022 and Steve the Los Angeles Marathon in 2024.
“We decided to start running more for health reasons, but we’d never done anything longer than a 5k and had thought that was hard,” Steve said with a laugh.
They did a half-marathon in Mexico City in 2023 and have signed up for one in Ireland in June of this year.
“We’d wanted to do another destination run, and some of our friends who were going to the one in Ireland asked if we wanted to go. We hope it’s a better experience than the one in Mexico because we got a different kind of run there,” Pam said wryly. “Steve lost eight pounds in a week, and I lost five.”
In addition to running, they, of course, have had the baseball bug and always find things that are interesting.
While in Mexico for the half-marathon, they managed to see a Mexico City Red Devils (Diablos) game, which was a unique experience.
“They didn’t have group sales,” Pam said, “so we had to get six or seven people to buy seven tickets each. Coordinating it all – getting all the tickets on the same row, for example – was quite a feat, but we managed it. Some of the people weren’t particularly fans of baseball, but they had a really good time because the fans there are very spontaneous.
“We’ve now seen [former MLB all-star] Robinson Cano play in three different countries – the U.S., the D.R., and Mexico,” she added.
For Steve, going to Japan’s Koshien Stadium and Meiji Jingu Stadium were major highlights. Koshien, built to host the national high school baseball tournaments and home to the Hanshin Tigers, opened in 1924. Meiji Jingu – in danger of being demolished to make way for a new development – came into being in 1926 and is home to the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
“Babe Ruth played in both stadiums,” Steve said. “Going there was like going to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park in the U.S. You could just feel the vibes.”
Pam recalls the different types of food offerings at stadiums in Asia, for example – “always unusual and varied” – also highlights the public rest rooms.
“They’re always incredibly clean, and sometimes the stalls even have video screens that show advertisements. I found it interesting that they’re so well designed that you can walk into a stall, lock the door, and a little red flag will go up indicating that it’s occupied. You don’t have to crane your neck to see if there are any feet there,” she said with a laugh. “Women would understand that.”
The couple also observed a seeming incongruity on their 2024 Japan tour . . . a male, Caucasian “beer girl.” The uriko, as they’re formally known, bound up and down the stadium steps while carrying “backpacks” of beer that can weigh as much as 40 pounds when full. It’s a demanding job that is always done by young Japanese women. Well, almost always.
“We were at a Rakuten Golden Eagles game in Sendai, and here came this tall, thin, blond Caucasian guy selling beer and speaking perfect Japanese,” Steve said in wonderment. “Not something we expected to see.”
The couple has now seen games in 17 of the 30 MLB stadiums and plans to add several more this year. JapanBall veteran Eddie Browning, who lives near San Diego and first met the Ikedas on the 2021 Dominican Republic tour, takes partial credit for that.
“Steve and Pam had seen a bunch of MLB parks already, but Steve was with me when I got to my 30th and final one – Dodger Stadium,” Browning said. “He said at the time that he’d started ballpark chasing and then stopped, but wanted to do it again. Actually, we were also together when I got No. 29 – Chase Field in Phoenix for a World Baseball Classic game. Shane was there, too.
“Steve keeps me informed of baseball goings-on in his area, and we’ll see several Angels games each season,” Browning added. “We also recently went to the 100th anniversary of the Walter Johnson/Babe Ruth barnstorming tour. It was in Brea [where Johnson lived for a while during his youth]. They had a simulated game with former high school, college, and pro players, some wearing Johnson jerseys and others wearing Ruth jerseys.”
And that type of connection, Pam believes, is a unique benefit of JapanBall tours.
“JapanBall groups have a camaraderie that you don’t always find on group trips,” she said. “With JapanBall, you actually end up making friends with people. It’s very inclusive, so new people become part of the group – even on the full Japan tour when people who were on shorter tours were coming and going. Our son Alex stayed for just five days and had a great time, and the tour leaders like Trevor (Raichura) and Fuji (Fujitsuka Takumi) were delighted to see him.”
Ron Mendoza, who lives in the Seattle area and knows the Ikedas from several JapanBall tours, agrees. “I see them when they come to visit their daughter. We’ve gotten to be good friends. Through JapanBall, I’ve also met other people that I’ve kept up with on a semi-regular basis. It’s great that you can just pick up the phone occasionally and say ‘hi’ to someone.”
Seattleite and JapanBall veteran Linda Tom, a long-time Seattle Mariners season ticket holder, stays in touch with several people she’s met through JapanBall groups. “Pam and Steve have always been good about including me in different get-togethers, and if the Mariners have a home game whenever they’re here, we’ll meet at the park. I really like the fact that a lot of us still have connections.”
And that connection will continue in 2025, since Linda and the Ikedas signed up through JapanBall to travel to Cooperstown, N.Y., in late July to see Ichiro Suzuki be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And it will mark another first/first for the Ikedas – their first time there and JapanBall’s first such offering.
“Yep, we’re guinea pigs, for sure,” Pam said with a laugh.
