- MLB PLAYER MANHOLES

Japan has sent their best baseball talent across the ocean to compete in MLB. But they’ve never had a way to celebrate those stories back home, until now.

MLB Player Manholes honors 12 Major League players with Japanese roots by creating bespoke manholes that tell their stories. In Japan, manholes aren’t just functional, they’re often used as tributes, and street-level monuments worth stopping and admiring. We worked with 12 Japanese artists to express each player’s unique story and then set the manholes in each player’s hometown.

The experience didn’t stop there, as fans who visited each manhole location were able to scan it and trigger animations that brought to life each player’s journey from their hometown to the stadiums of MLB. Over the course of several weeks, new manholes dropped, turning the entire country into a scavenger hunt of baseball lore and dreams.

These are personal tributes, to a new generation of Japanese MLB legends. Cast in iron and rooted in the very ground where greatness began.

This wasn’t about generic hometowns, this was about specific origin points: the exact park they ran laps in, the school gate they walked through, the street they’d walk down with cleats slung over their shoulder.

Each location holds emotional weight and historical significance, and each manhole is a full-color, full-circle, crafted tribute. Together, they spread out across Japan to create a constellation of baseball beginnings, cast in iron, right beneath your feet, waiting to be discovered and experienced.

In addition to the manholes finding a home in each player’s hometown, full-size replicas were also delivered to the players. Letting them hold in their hands a personal tribute to their unique journey to MLB.

It wasn’t just a gift, it was a physical reminder of where they came from, and how far their baseball skills have brought them.

Each manhole is more than a crafted piece of metal, it’s also a portal into deeper story. With a scan of a smartphone, these stories come to life, taking you on a personal and specific journey. Fans could walk the same ground and then see the same dreams that the players once had.

This wasn’t just a campaign, it was also a display of craftsmanship. We filmed the process of creation, capturing the artist original sketches, to the fiery chambers of the foundry where the manholes were poured, painted and polished. Every detail mattered. Every groove, brushstroke and symbol was considered and refined. The BTS documentary captures this process, giving an inside look at the factory and craftspeople who brought this unique tribute to this current generation of Japanese MLB players to life.