Who knows about the source but I was looking to see any indication of where this was. I actually got a chance to see a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome or maybe it was a sumo event - it was so long ago. From my own experience and shallow understanding of the culture it's probably true. One of the huge motivations is the fear of bringing shame to your family which can be good and bad...it's just such a different culture and an outsider like me really can't fully appreciate or really understand because even if you spend your life there you will probably always be considered a bit of an outsider. And the Tom Selleck movie Mr. Baseball is actually pretty good.
The weird thing to me is I can understand wanting the baseball as a collectors item, but why would you want to look at it for 5 seconds when there’s an actual game going on? You could see the ball in the air and in your hand, it’s going to look just like an other baseball. It’s not even signed yet (if she even managed to get it signed)