Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News

Naha, Okinawa – March 20, 2023: Today the public got to see for itself the interior of the newly renovated Shisa Stadium during opening ceremonies for a Ryukyu regional high school baseball tournament. Shisa executives and Okinawan sports officials were on hand to welcome the young athletes who would be the first to play baseball under the dome and on the new playing surface installed this winter. The Shisa, currently training in Arizona, won’t return to Naha until April 7, when they have their home opener against Duluth. A game that team officials guarantee will start at the appointed time.

Club chairman John Sugitani personally led reporters on a tour of the grounds earlier this morning. He noted that the new dome acts more as an umbrella for the existing stadium. The dome does not, in fact, completely enclose the structure. It remains a stadium without walls, as there is a substantial gap between the top of the stands and the bottom of the dome. “One of the quirks of this design,” noted Sugitani, “is that it will be possible to hit an out of the park home run inside a domed stadium, but there were other practical reasons for this design, including cost of construction.” On particularly windy and rainy days one imagines that fans on the outer edges of the stadium will be exposed to the weather that blows in, but the playing field should remain unaffected. This open design allows for limited views of Onoyama Park from inside the stadium as well as what Sugitani describes as ‘enhanced airflow’. Fans for circulating air and keeping spectators cool during the Naha summers have been installed behind the grandstand. This air circulation system, which Sugitani demonstrated for reporters, is surprisingly quiet.

Another feature of the new dome is the translucent top. This allows for a great deal of natural light to enter the stadium. In fact, enough light comes in, from above and on the sides, that the team has been able to put down a new natural grass surface. The club has also installed lights in the dome for night games and to augment sunlight during any cloudy day games. This morning, blue sky could be clearly seen through the glass top of the dome and the light conditions were quite good inside the stadium. It appears possible that during a clear, early afternoon game, with the sun high in the sky, that an outfielder could still lose track of a fly ball.

As part of the renovations the team installed a brand new grass surface. According to Sugitani, the new grass, Zoysia japonica, is both shade tolerant and requires less irrigation thanks to its deep root system. This grass is employed by several area golf courses for their fairways and handles heavy traffic very well. The long roots of the grass, said Sugitani, allowed the team to install a below-ground irrigation system of perforated pipes for distributing water to the turf. “This means that there are no sprinkler heads in the outfield,” said Sugitani. “It is a pristine, cool, and dry playing surface. We are very happy with it.”

For their part, the high school players in attendance said that they are excited to play in the stadium. “Playing baseball in Okinawa,” said Shoji Kaneko of nearby Okinawa Shogaku High School, “you are going to get wet over the course of the season. It will be nice to not have to worry about rain for a few days.”

Also in attendance this morning were representatives of the Shisa ouendan, the Reds and the Blues. They told reporters that they have already had the opportunity to test the acoustics of the facility, which they say will allow them to make even more noise in the outfield bleachers during the Shisa’s at-bats. Club officials have not changed the name of the building, which remains Shisa Stadium, but when asked by reporters what they would call the stadium, the ouendan captains replied in unison, “Thunderdome”.