SEOUL — In case you haven’t been paying attention these last three years, it’s well established that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is obsessed with sports.

The governor just spent a week in Japan and South Korea where he met with business executives, investors, regional governors and even the acting president of South Korea in hopes of securing investment in Maryland. But it was his sports fandom that served as a common touchstone throughout the trip.

He talked baseball with Japanese leaders, was inadvertently trolled with a Pittsburgh Steelers’ reference in a meeting with aerospace and defense executives and made tentative plans to play golf with the governor of South Gyeongsang, Maryland’s sister province in South Korea.

“There’s just this beautiful common language of sport,” Moore, who played wide receiver while attending Johns Hopkins University, said after a meeting with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan’s second-highest ranking official.

In a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, the two leaders talked about the dire economic situation created by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and how they could maintain existing trade ties between Maryland and Japan. They also talked about Tomoyuki Sugano, the Baltimore Orioles’ ace pitcher who was a three-time MVP in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league.

“I told him what a great addition Sugano has been so far,” Moore said. Sugano on Thursday pitched seven innings, the longest stint of any Os’ starter this season, and got the win as the Orioles won consecutive games for the first time this season.

Moore invited Hayashi (and virtually everyone he met with) to come visit Maryland and attend a game at Camden Yards.

Using sports to achieve diplomatic goals has been a tactic for more than a millennium — the ancient Olympic Games served as a truce between warring city-states. Athletic feats inspire awe and transcend language and cultural barriers.

Today, sports are a more potent form of diplomacy than ever, J. Simon Rofe, an associate professor at Leeds University and a senior research fellow at the Institute of Sport Humanities, wrote in his 2018 book, “Sport and diplomacy: Games within games.”

“As an enduring and ubiquitous part of modern life, sport has a powerful capacity to touch individuals and societies around the world in ways that traditional forms of diplomacy and those traditionally thought of as diplomats rarely can,” Rofe wrote.

Later that day, Moore met with Governor Yūji Kuroiwa of the Kanagawa Prefecture, where Moore presented a signed Sugano jersey on behalf of the Orioles. Sugano is from the Kanagawa Prefecture.

The Orioles have plans to expand their presence in Japan, team General Manager Mike Elias said previously, and a jersey delivered from Moore was an ultimate symbol of goodwill.

The Maryland delegation did not have a chance to make it to a professional baseball game in either Japan or Korea — Moore’s itinerary was packed — but Moore said he did see a little ball. At the beginning of the trip, after getting a chance to ride the high-speed maglev train, the delegation was headed for a cultural tour of Mt. Fuji. On the drive, Moore said he noticed a group of kids playing baseball and asked his driver to stop, briefly, so he could watch.

“One of the things I was just taken by is how all of them were batting like Ichiro,” Moore said. One of the greatest hitters to ever live, Ichiro Suzuki, known the world over as just “Ichiro,” had a distinctive batting stance where he would extend his right arm and hold the bat upright before settling in for the pitch.

Sports remained a topic in South Korea. Moore spent Thursday in the South Gyeongsang Province discussing aerospace and defense technologies and business strategy. South Gyeongsang is home to the Korea AeroSpace Administration, that country’s NASA equivalent, and several aerospace firms.

Moore and province Gov. Park Wan-Su signed an agreement to continue collaboration between the two regions. Defense giants Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin employ thousands of Marylanders and already work closely with Korean firms and government organizations.

Park greeted Moore with a red carpet, a military marching band and a decadent three-course lunch. In return, Moore invited Park to Annapolis for his own visit.

“We’ll go golfing soon,” Moore told Park moments before the delegation departed for a visit with the Korea AeroSpace Administration’s leadership.

The worlds of defense and sport collided again when executives at Korea Aerospace Industries made a pitch for Moore’s support. The company, known as KAI, is working with Lockheed Martin to secure a government contract to supply its T-50 jets to the U.S. Navy.

In a presentation about the fighter planes, KAI officials’ slideshow ended with a well-intentioned yet humorous blunder.

The last slide featured two images, one of the T-50 and the other of a Sports Illustrated cover of Hines Ward, the former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver. “The world’s best! A product born to an American father and a Korean mother,” the slide read.

Ward is half-Korean and the T-50 is based on Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jet.

The Maryland delegation responded with a mix of groans and laughs.

Jason Ahn, the KAI executive leading the presentation, asked if Moore was a Steelers fan. The Ravens diehard responded with a drawn out “No.”

While not rising to the level of an international incident, was the gaffe enough to scuttle KAI’s push for Moore’s support? Ahn asked Moore, who was seated next to KAI CEO Goo-Young Kang, if he would “champion” the T-50 back in the States.

Moore said yes. Touchdown KAI.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of Park Wan-Su.