Tuesday was my season debut, at the ballpark with a roof that was formerly known as Prince.

Japanese are fond of reminding newcomers that Japan has four seasons, which is fine until we are confronted with the fifth, the early summer rainy season, when a few weeks of petty rain and damp in June and early July precede the typically brutal heat that Japan’s 2020 Olympic Bid Committee euphemistically described as “mild and sunny ” and “an ideal climate for athletes to perform their best.”

If five seasons, or even four, are too many for you, the Seibu Lions’ home stadium might be for you, with its two, deep freeze and steaming hot with just a few weeks of pleasant transition between the two each year. A longtime colleague for another website agreed, “Shitty cold and shitty hot.”