it looks like.

I was surprised to learn that the Arizona State football team once played a game at the Tokyo Dome. In 1990 ASU faced the University of Houston in a regular-season game called the "Coca Cola Bowl." Apparently the Sun Devils' secondary was suffering from a severe case of jetlag. They gave up 716 yards in the air by Houston quarterback David Klingler in a 62-45 loss, a record that still stands as the most passing yards in an NCAA game.

After grabbing a quick lunch of traditional Japanese noodle soup at a stand outside the stadium, I entered the Tokyo Dome. From the inside, it looked comparable to most of the cookie-cutter domed stadiums built in America in the 1980s. Functional, but not exactly bursting with personality.

Ione-third of what they were charging at the Tokyo Dome.

In addition to domed stadiums, artificial turf and the designated hitter, it seems the Japanese have imported something else from American baseball -- the art of concession-stand price gouging.

The Dome was filling up and I took my seat. Before coming to Japan, I had looked on a map to find where the cities of Yomiuri and Hanshin are located. Then I found out that many Japanese teams aren't named for the cities in which they're located, but rather their corporate owners. Yomiuri is a huge Japanese media conglomerate and Hanshin is a railway company.

The Giants, though, are most closely associated with Tokyo, and the Tigers play their home games near Osaka. Graczyk told me the Giants -- historically the