Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo is serving as an ambassador for a new exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Dodgers megastar Shohei Ohtani is also among the exhibit's supporters.

-Jesse Friedman

What Torey Lovullo and Shohei Ohtani have in common

Left to right: Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, Dodgers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, National Baseball Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch

LOS ANGELES — Prior to Tuesday's series opener between the Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Torey Lovullo took a seat in the Dodger Stadium interview room next to a trio of friendly — and, in another sense, unfriendly — faces.

To Lovullo's left sat Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, and to Roberts' left sat a pair of Dodgers stars: right-handed pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto and two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani.

This press conference was not about an important Diamondbacks-Dodgers series that was about to begin. It was about a new exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame: “Yakyu | Baseball, The Transpacific Exchange of the Game." ("Yakyu" is the Japanese baseball word for baseball.)

Set to open next summer in Cooperstown, the exhibit “will explore the wide-ranging exchange of baseball between Japan and the United States ... and the transpacific circulation of baseball concepts, styles of play, fan experiences, equipment, and people that shaped the shared culture of the game,” according to the Hall of Fame’s website.

Ohtani and Yamamoto, of course, are two of the best Japanese players in the sport today. Roberts neither played nor managed in Japan, but he was born in Okinawa and his mother is Japanese.

Lovullo is one of the exhibit ambassadors. His desire to participate harkens back to 2000, when he played his final year in the pros with the Yakult Swallows in Japan.

“I'm honored to be up here with this group,” Lovullo said. "This is an unbelievable moment for the Hall of Fame to recognize this unbelievably rich baseball culture. And I can't wait to get there and see this exhibit; probably one of my first stops this offseason."

Results wise, Lovullo's lone season in Japan did not go well. He hit .197/.274/.258 in 74 plate appearances and was hindered by injuries. He returned to the United States shortly thereafter to pursue a career as a manager.

Nonetheless, Lovullo's short stint in Japan gave him an appreciation for the rich baseball culture that is being forged there.

"I'm so inspired by how two cultures, the Japanese baseball culture and the American baseball culture, are able to emerge so freely, so wonderfully," Lovullo said. "We welcome some incredible players, [Yamamoto] and [Ohtani], and some that I played with, Ichiro, and against.

"It is a wonderful day, and it's a wonderful opportunity for me to be up here."

The exhibit will explore four main topics: Japanese teams playing in the United States, Japanese players playing on U.S. teams, U.S. players playing on Japanese teams, and U.S. teams playing in Japan.

Several artifacts for the exhibit were on display at Tuesday's press conference. Among them were Ichiro Suzuki’s batting gloves when he set the single-season hits record, a ball from Hideo Nomo’s no-hitter in 1996 with the Dodgers and the jersey that Yu Darvish wore when he closed out the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

According to a site created by Daigo Fujiwara, the Diamondbacks have had two Japanese players in franchise history: relievers Takashi Saito (2012) and Yoshihisa Hirano (2018-19). They have had many other players that played in Japan at some point or another, including current minor-league reliever Scott McGough and former outfielder Adam Jones.

It bears mentioning that Ichiro will first be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2025. It is no coincidence that the exhibit will open around the same time.