A visit to the Topps ZeroBase activation in Shibuya, Tokyo

TOKYO — One thing you notice about Tokyo in going around the city is that Shohei Ohtani’s image is everywhere. Not just around baseball places, but everywhere. He is a national hero, beloved not just for what he did in Japan as a youth and briefly in NPB, but for the impact he’s had in Major League Baseball. Ohtani is one of five Japanese players who will appear in the Tokyo Series over the next couple of days, and he’s surely the biggest star.

In connection with Ohtani in particular, and baseball in general, the Topps company opened what they are calling “activations” around Tokyo. Basically what we’d call these in the USA are “pop-ups,” places to promote a brand for just a short time.

I was invited to view the “activation” in Shibuya Sunday morning. Shown above, it’s right in the middle of the Shibuya Crossing, perhaps the busiest intersection anywhere in Tokyo, where a multitude of streets meet. It was raining when I went, so pretty much everyone was carrying an umbrella. And they wait for the walk lights to change and then in what appears to be a perfectly choreographed dance of sorts, only then do they cross the street. Unfortunately, with me trying to manage an umbrella and trying to find the location, I was unable to shoot any video of this. You really kind of have to see it for yourself. Perhaps I’ll return to the area later in the week.

Inside the activation, you first see a shrine to some great Japanese players of the past and present: Ohtani, Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki:

Al Yellon

Here’s some detail of the Ohtani and Ichiro displays:

Fanatics Collectibles

Fanatics Collectibles

When you enter the exhibit, you receive a card like this:

Al Yellon

Al Yellon

Basically, there are some interactive baseball-type games you can play as you move through the exhibit, with a chance to win one of the prizes noted on the second card. I tried this myself but didn’t win anything.

Throughout the exhibit there are a lot of cards on display. There was a wall, for example, where people could exchange one of the cards they receive upon entering the exhibit for another. There weren’t any cards depicting players in Cubs uniforms, but I did find a Brewers card featuring Colin Rea, so I made the swap for that.

There were also Tokyo Series themed images on the walls, including this one featuring a pair of Cubs:

Al Yellon

And, of course, more Ohtani:

Al Yellon

The display on the right is most interesting. The base and bat are on loan from Ohtani’s personal collection. The base is the one from this game in Miami last year where he stole his 50th base. The bat is from the World Series. Here’s a closer view:

Fanatics Collectibles

Fanatics Collectibles

Here are three short videos of the activation.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

I spoke with Julie Yoo, senior VP of global expansion for Fanatics Collectibles, and she told me that Topps’ presence has grown in the four years they’ve been in Japan, from $1 million of business to about $22 million last year. Obviously Ohtani is the biggest draw, but Yoo also told me, “Seiya Suzuki has a huge following here. The host of a TV morning show here is a big Suzuki fan.”

Topps and MLB are creating something this year that will uniquely recognize some of last year’s top award-winning players. A custom-designed, gold-embellished MLB logo will take the place of the traditional Club-colored silhouetted batter on the backs of the game-issued jerseys of six players this season: Luis Gil, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Chris Sale, Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal.

Throughout the season, these jerseys will be authenticated, and ten from each player will be used to create trading cards following the 2025 season. Each patch will be carefully removed from the jersey and itself wholly inserted into a Topps card.

The first player who wore this special embroidery was Ohtani when the Dodgers took the field on Saturday, March 15 for an exhibition game against the Yomiuri Giants. ahead of the

Here’s what that looked like:

Fanatics Collectibles

Baseball card collecting is fun. When I was a kid I had a huge collection, spanning several seasons — and like many of my generation, they were tossed by my parents. Of course, I wish I still had those cards now, they’d be quite valuable — but then, if EVERYONE had saved theirs, they wouldn’t have value other than sentimental.

The folks at the activation were nice enough to give me this pack of Tokyo Series cards — maybe I can start a new collection!

Japanese fans are just as passionate about baseball as fans in the USA — maybe more with so many of their star players heading to play in MLB. This is just one more way of getting Japanese fans connected with Major League Baseball.

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Many thanks to Ben Mann and Zack Smith for the invitation and their help — and to Zack for helping give me directions when I got lost in Shibuya!