Toyonaka-San Mateo Baseball Exchanges

San Mateo is fortunate to have a long-standing Sister City relationship with Toyonaka, Japan.  Toyonaka is about 400,000 people and is located near Osaka, host of this year’s World Expo.  San Mateo Mayor Rob Newsom, City Manager Alex Khojikian and others visited Toyonaka in July to attend the World Expo.  Officials from both cities met to share how each city is managed and what we can learn from each other.  There will be a full presentation of the trip at the September 2^nd City Council Regular Meeting. 

Delegations from each city visit the other every other year.  The highlight always is when baseball teams from each city visit the other, home stay and play exhibition baseball together.  The Toyonaka Boys baseball team visited San Mateo earlier this month and played 7 games with the San Mateo Youth 10-12 and Under baseball team.  They had so much fun that they mixed up the teams for the 7^th and final game.  It proved that you don’t need to speak the same language to learn from each other and build lasting memories.