Reader Matthew C. Fisk e-mailed this column with the following: "How do you rate the stadiums used sometimes for pro baseball games played in the smaller cities and towns? My family would like to attend a game at one of them and combine it with visiting an historic smaller city or town nearby."
Most fans of Japanese baseball are aware the Central and Pacific League teams often travel to countryside towns to play regular season games and, over the past decade, even Japanese All-Star games have been played at some beautiful ballparks in outlying areas.
There are at least seven of what I call Japan's "Fields of Dreams." They are major league-quality facilities located in towns off the beaten path where, apparently, the local governments had a lot of money to build a gorgeous 30,000-seat modern baseball park, sometimes seemingly in the middle of nowhere.