TOKYO (AP) — There was the crack of Shohei Ohtani's bat, the roars from the Tokyo Dome crowd and the beeps from the credit card machines at the massive merchandise center selling boatloads of Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs gear. It all must have been music to the ears of Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Highlights included the return of two-way star Shohei Ohtani to his native country. He homered in Wednesday's game. Other Japanese players had a chance to shine as well. Yoshinobu Yamamoto won the opener on the mound,

If MLB can get Japan to follow all its teams, “We do believe there are payoffs in the B’s: billions,” commissioner Rob Manfred said.

I have seen an image of Shohei Ohtani, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, gazing out from a vending machine while standing in a field of green tea leaves, a bottle of Ito En iced tea in his left hand,

Sota Fujimori is the luckiest 10-year-old in Japan. Sitting in right-center field on Wednesday night at the Tokyo Dome, he watched Shohei Ohtani’s home run in the fifth inning fall off the hands of another fan nearby — and back onto the field.

This week wasn’t about the defending World Series champions visiting Japan, or Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s transformation, or even Roki Sasaki’s major league debut.