Baseball fans slam video game replays used during Dodgers vs Cubs in Tokyo
Baseball fans have been left unimpressed by a major change to replays for the new MLB season.
There are still some spring training games to be played but the new year officially got underway in Tokyo on Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs played two games as part of the Tokyo Series with local favorite Shohei Ohtani guiding the reigning World Series champions to a 2-0 sweep.
And the series has given MLB the opportunity to unveil some broadcasting changes for the upcoming season.
One of those is a replay reminiscent of a video game that debuted on Sunday when the Cubs’ Dansby Swanson made a superb diving play in an exhibition game against the Yomiuri Giants.
Swanson was in focus but that was it, with the crowd and other players on the field all blurred as he made a superb defensive play.
Baseball fans have been left unimpressed by video game style replays for the new season
The grainy replays showed Shohei Ohtani hitting a home run against the Cubs on Wednesday
Fans have been quick to criticize the replays, which appear to be mostly out of focus
It didn’t get a great reception at the time and another use of the replay style for Ohtani’s home run against the Cubs on Wednesday prompted a similar reaction.
One fan posted: ‘For the life of me I can’t understand why MLB is treating these replays like some huge step forward.
‘They look like garbage and bring no value to the viewer. Just show me the actual replay.’
A second wrote: ‘This sucks. This sucks A LOT. What’s even the point of anything anymore if we are trying to make things look more fake??’
Another added: ‘These animated replays are terrible’.
‘This is the worst replay ever,’ commented a fourth, while another added they were ‘the worst replays I have ever seen.’
Fortunately, viewers will still able to clearly see Ohtani’s home run on the traditional broadcast despite it being a controversial one.
The Japanese national hero delivered a homer for the fans in Tokyo, helping the Dodgers complete a two-game sweep of the Cubs in a landmark MLB season opener.
The game saw an unsteady debut for rookie fireballer Roki Sasaki, one of three Japanese players on the defending world champion Dodgers that made them a favorite for the Tokyo Dome crowd.
Los Angeles won 6-3 in a much more offense-driven game than Tuesday’s opener.
Ohtani was joined by Dodgers teammates second baseman Tommy Edman and outfielder Kike Hernandez in recording their first home runs of the 2025 season.
The capacity crowd has hushed for each at bat by Ohtani in the series, anticipating long-ball heroics that made him the MLB’s first ever 50 home run, 50 stolen base man last season.
His shot to deep center field in the fifth inning bounced back onto the field, but after review by the umpires, it was upheld as a home run.
‘I think it was great baseball, with some powerful, Major League-style home runs,’ Ohtani told the exuberant crowd.
The five Japanese players in total with the Dodgers and Cubs marked the highest representation for the country in the six times the MLB has held season-openers in Japan since 2000.
The Tokyo Dome was filled to its 42,000 capacity after tickets for the season-opener games sold out in about an hour last month.
The Dodgers and Cubs will now return to the United States for another week of spring training before resuming regular season games.