It’s always strange to see which Westerners are famous in Japan yet unheard of in their own homelands. Aside from foreigner tarento who appear on TV shows, commercials, and magazines today, there are a lot of historical figures who are basically unknown in their home countries, even centuries after their deaths.

We’ve written before about the American man behind the Japanese phrase “Boys, be ambitious,” and the father of the Japanese word for hotchkiss “stapler,” but their contributions to Japan were pretty shallow. It’s definitely cool and interesting that these Westerners made contributions to the Japanese language that are still around today, but it’s not as if they really affected the culture or history.

One Westerner who made a major impact on Japanese history is not only pretty much completely unknown in his native land, but people will probably mistake him for a fast food clown. The man I’m talking about is, of course, Ranald MacDonald.

Before Ray Kroc began serving billions and billions worldwide, there was Ranald MacDonald. Blissfully unaware of how laughable his name would become in centuries to come, MacDonald was a significant figure in opening Japan to the world and bringing the English language to the country.

Lemme back up a bit. MacDonald was born in Tofugu’s home state of Oregon in the early 1800^s during a time when Japan was more or less closed to outsiders. The mystique of the closed country mixed with MacDonald’s supposed Asian ancestry and encounters with Japanese castaways lead him to an intense interest in Japan.

Determined not to let a little thing like the Tokugawa shogunate stop him from visiting Japan, MacDonald eventually found his way over to Japan. Instead of trying to get into Japan through negotiations or official channels, MacDonald did the only logical thing: intentionally shipwreck himself.

Dramatic recreation of MacDonald’s landing

MacDonald joined up with a whaling ship sailing past Japan and more or less just hopped out on his own ship when he was close enough. He landed in Hokkaido and, after being taken in by the Japanese, found his way down to Nagasaki.

Back in the Edo Era, Nagasaki was the one city in Japan where foreigners were allowed, and usually only Dutch traders at that, so MacDonald was a rarity in a big way. Japanese officials, sensing the value of the English language, tasked MacDonald with teaching English to an elite few.

After several months of teaching English to samurai, MacDonald was shipped back to America, where he lived out his life more or less uneventfully. For the rest of his life, he had nothing but good things to say about Japan and, supposedly, his last words were Japanese.

In a lot of ways, MacDonald is the father of the English language in Japan. In a time when only the Dutch were permitted to have anything to do with Japan, English was more or less non-existent in Japan before MacDonald. He unwittingly started the long, beautiful tradition of English teachers coming to Japan and leaving after a year. Maybe they should rename JET?

MacDonald was an ALT before JET was JET

More importantly, MacDonald lay the foundation for the English speaking world to communicate with Japan. Some of MacDonald’s students were directly involved in the negotiations with Commodore Perry when he and his black ships landed on Japan a few years after MacDonald’s visit.

You could argue that MacDonald was the first of what would become many foreign advisors to help Japan through the Meiji Restoration, but unfortunately MacDonald rarely receives that recognition.

At the very least, MacDonald’s legacy isn’t completely tarnished by a fast food clown; at least, not in Japan. The McDonald corporation’s mascot is known as ドナルド マクドナルド, or “Donald McDonald” in Japan, leaving MacDonald’s name untainted.

But if I find out that there’s a Japanese historical figure named “Hamburgler,” I’m just going to give up on everything.

Wallpapers/GIFs

Here are some bonus wallpapers and animated GIFs (that’s “GIF” with a hard G) courtesy of our very talented illustrator, Aya!

Wallpaper (1280×800)
Wallpaper (2560×400)

GIF (700×438)
GIF (1280×800)

Growing up in a computerized world, I’ve never really thought too much about the problems faced by people using typewriters.

It’s pretty damn hard to make a Japanese typewriter (known in Japanese as a 和文タイプライター). Instead of the simple 26 letters in the English alphabet, Japanese has 48 hiragana, 48 katakana, and thousands and thousands of the Chinese-derived kanji characters.

Unsurprisingly, it’s really hard to come up with a typewriter that can incorporate 1,000+ characters, but people still tried their damndest to make it work.

In 1929, a man named Kyota Sugimoto invented the first Japanese typewriter and, in the decades that followed, many more people tried their hand at making a better Japanese typewriter.

They came in various shapes and sizes, but the underlying pricinple was more or less the same. You used a giant plate full of the 1,000+ characters included on the typewriter and gradually steered the plate to the character you wanted.

But it gets even more complicated. Some typewriters had interchangeable characters, some wrote vertically, others wrote horizontally. Apparently, certain characters, because of their complexity and the surface area, required more force than others. All in all, not very user friendly.

These typewriters might have given writing a certain formality and uniformity, but they were also basically slower than handwriting and really, really complicated.

Fortunately nowadays, Japanese people don’t have to deal with these cumbersome, complicated machines; computerized word processing has more or less solved the problem much more simply and elegantly than Japanese typewriters.

Still, there’s some mystique in these intricate devices. Even if they don’t make life especially convenient, they’re a fascinating relic of a time when Japanese was trying to bridge the gap into the modern world.

Read more: Gatunka – Japanese Typewriters

Note: Tofugu and its staff are not responsible for any changes to the fabric of time that may directly or indirectly negatively affect you or someone you know. All time travel was done without malice and for research purposes only. Some names have been left out to prevent time-travel-related problems in the future. Please refer to clause 43.5a of the case “Time Versus The Supreme Court.” This document will be made available in your local supreme court office on February 22, 2094.

As I jumped into my time travel device yesterday (or was it tomorrow, this time travel thing really muddles with your brain), I remember going through my list of potential jumps thinking that too many of them were in the past. All of them, actually. Battle of Sekigahara? Too many arrows. The arrival of Perry and his black ships? Check. Done. Badaboom. The Mongols being wiped out by the Kamikaze? A breeze. Stephen’s party? I had to pass on that one, too many things to do, and had nothing to do with Japan or the Japanese language.

I figured it was time to jump in my time machine and travel to the future instead. Sure, there are still opportunities to change said future and alter what it was I saw, but in general I don’t see a lot changing due to my actions. No, I wanted to continue the theme of Japanese baseball posts just for one more week. That’s why I decided to travel to the future to learn what happened to this great American Japanese pastime. I’d like to present to you the future of Japanese baseball, as it stands today, so long as none of you muck it up and cause our line to jump to another reality. Butterflies will just need to stop flapping their wings, please.

A Major Move To The MLB (2013-)

It’s 2013 (this year!). The big story is Yu Darvish, the Japanese pitcher from Japan who made his MLB debut in 2012. After a strong first season, it’s his second season that really wows the MLB. After going 21-4 for the Texas Rangers with 6 complete games, 204 strikeouts, and and one no-hitter, he wins the first of two career Cy Young Award just beating out Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez, who come in second and third respectively.

Our illustrator loves Yu

But this is just the start of things. I won’t tell you who wins the World Series (boy is it a good one!), though there is one Japanese player who does particularly well. It will help to open the MLB’s mind (if it wasn’t already open) to pulling more Japanese players over stateside at a much higher rate. In order to stay competitive, MLB teams would draft Japanese players out of high school and college, getting them before they have a chance to sign with a team in Japan, thus circumventing the posting system and getting young Japanese talent in the majors early on. The Oakland Athletics do particularly well at this, and by 2017 six of twenty-five members of the roster are from Japan, an MLB record at the time (it is broken three years later by the Baltimore Orioles, who have 8 Japanese players on their roster).

Superstars will begin to make their way to America as well. Shouhei Otani, illustrated above (by our illustrator Aya in present time, which I think is 2013), comes to America in 2015. Originally he planned to come to America straight out of highschool, but intense pressures on him by Japanese teams, coaches, and his parents cause him to being the first few years of baseball in Japan. He grows to regret this decision and comes stateside, debuting with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the beginning of the 2015 season. The fireballer throws 100 mph and has a wicked splitter, going on to win the Rookie of the Year award as well as joining the limelight along with Darvish as well as Tomoyuki Sugano, who makes the jump to the majors a year later.

But this barely scratches the surface. More and more Japanese players move to America, and it happens earlier and earlier. As more Japanese baseball players get experience abroad they transmit the positive experiences to younger baseball stars in Japan. They become less reluctant to come to America, and soon a trickle turns into a landslide.

Sadaharu Oh No Someone Broke The Homerun Record (2019)

You may remember the past articles we wrote about Sadaharu Oh, and things haven’t changed much since then… well, except for how his home run record has been broken, with asterisks, however. In 1964 he banged out 55 home runs for the record. In 2017 a relatively unknown non-Japanese player would break the record with 59 home runs. In 2018 he would do it again, though an “accident” where he would fall down the stairs ended his promising (Japanese) career early. In 2019, a Japanese player would break the record much to the relief of many nationalist baseball fans.

Controversy would stir when the non-Japanese player that beat Sadaharu Oh’s record got an asterisk next to his name saying “non-Japanese player.” It angered both sides of the table. One side claimed it made Japanese baseball look weak. The other side just said it was racist and unnecessary. Either way, the Japanese seemed to work harder than ever before due to this which led to a Japanese player breaking the record with 60 home runs, hitting the last one on the last day of the season. To be fair, it was also in 2019 that they added five games to the season raising it from 144 games to 149 games.

The fact that a Japanese player could hit 60 home runs was no accident, though. Advances in training technology, diet, and baseball skill as a whole had increased rapidly during the last decade. Japanese baseball players were just becoming really good, on par with the rest of the baseball world (South America, Central America, and America-America).

Still, the MLB was the place to play baseball. All of this talent continued to move to Japan. Even the Japanese home run record holder came to the NY Yankees a year after knocking those 60 home runs. While he didn’t hit 60 home runs ever again in his career, he batted a career .279, averaged 30+ home runs a year, and made three All Star teams. He wouldn’t be the only one, either. The Japanese baseball league began to get worried about losing all their players, and rightly so.

A Closed Nippon Professional League (2020)

In 2020, the Nippon Professional League decides to close the doors to MLB teams trying to snipe their top talent. By this time, the NPL feels almost like another AAA league for the MLB. Japanese players train for a couple of years as “pro” players in the NPL or non-Japanese players come over to get some extra practice in before heading to the Bigs. The NPL is tired of this, and they implement the Foreign Transfer Act of 2020.

The Foreign Transfer Act states that “no player of Japanese descent will sign with a non-Japanese team for the first 10 years of his career.” While by law they could not technically keep any Japanese player from moving to the US to join an MLB team, there were steep penalties for those who did. Anyone who broke this rule would be banned, for life, from the NPL, and while this may not seem like a big deal if your goal is the Majors, it did put a lot of pressure on younger players. If they failed in the MLB, they had nowhere to go. Some players thought it better to join a Japanese team and have a safe job for those first ten years.

Japanese newspapers, who owned many of the Japanese teams at this time, highlighted the failed attempts at skipping the NPL to join the majors in their newspapers. Others would publish articles going over the negatives of baseball life in America. While the propaganda was strong, the Foreign Transfer Act of 2020 was abolished a year later in 2021 due to negative publicity as a whole.

It was clear that Japanese people wanted to see their Japanese players play in the MLB. TV ratings for the MLB in Japan continued to climb while the NPL games on TV declined.

Is That A Cyborg On First? (2036)

Fast forward 16 years later. The NPL is on a sharp decline with hardly the popularity it used to have. Many Japanese players go straight to the Majors (especially the good ones), and the NPL is diluted with mediocrity and MLB has-beens. As a baseball fan, this saddened me to see happen, but it’s all part of evolution. If you’re backed into a corner you have to make changes. Although it happened nearly by accident, the NPL discovered something that would change baseball around the world.

Keisuke Andoh, a first baseman for the Honda Hawks (Honda now owns the Hawks, thanks to the huge piles of money they got via forays in robot and cyborg technology), is the first baseball player to receive a cyborg implant. Partly because of the ownership, but mostly due to a career-ending crash at home plate in the previous season, Andoh and the team management bet on a new Honda technology to replace both of his knees with robotic implants. At the time, no rules were in place regarding machinery that would increase your speed or skill in baseball. By the time the NPL could come up with something Andoh was batting .455, got 193 stolen bases, and was an overnight Japanese star. Oh, and did I mention he was under contract with the Hawks for the next 10 years? Honda would milk this one out for as long as they could. Their new speedster wasn’t going anywhere.

Many other players were getting upset. Fans were getting upset too. But, as more people followed in Andoh’s footsteps, mostly with small improvements at first, popularity in Japanese baseball increased as well. Not only did it increase in Japan, but the rest of Asia and America as well. The NPL was on the up and up, and money came before purity, so the NPL let cyborgization continue.

The Cyborg Era (2037-2050)

There were some rules that had to come with cyborg enhancements, however. Otherwise things would be unfair.

• Arm-swing enhancements must remain under 100cc
• Running speeds must stay under 20mph (32kph)
• Jumping enhancements must not allow the player to jump more than 1 meter into the air.
• Throwing enhancements must remain under 200cc
• No more than one enhancement per player

Once the rules were in place, teams got to work. Being the leader in robotic technology, Honda had the distinct advantage, though the cyborg-augmentation draft, which allowed additional enhancements to the worst teams, helped even the playing field in 2042.

Popularity in Japanese baseball grew 10x in the same amount of years. America, which still believed in the purity of the sport, banned cyborgization altogether, no exceptions. This only fueled MLB players to come to Japan in greater numbers. Great players with season-ending injuries came to Japan. Young players came to Japan. Everyone wanted to play baseball in Japan. Things had evolved and gotten a lot more exciting. Some changes included:

• Much larger fields and ballparks (good for strength augmentations as well as fitting all the fans who wanted to watch the games now).
• 120 mph pitches.
• Players regularly hitting 40+ home runs (until pitching augmentations caught up to hitting ones).
• Increased season length, going from 149 to 225 games played in Japan per year. The MLB was still 162 games per year.

Some would call this cheating, others would call this advancement. Whatever it was, it was popular, and it spread all throughout Asia and beyond.

Asia League Baseball (2050)

During the age of cyborgization in baseball (as well as with regular, rich, people), Asia as a whole gets better at baseball (as long as your definition of “better” means “more cyborgs”). Due to this advancement, as well as the general level of baseball in Asia increasing, we start to see that not just Japan is good at baseball, but Korea (all one country at this point), China, India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Russia all are quite good as well.

In 2050, Japan, Korea, and China come together to form the Asia League Baseball, a direct competitor to the now waning MLB, consisting of three leagues, nine divisions, and forty-two teams all across Asia. In 2052, India would add four teams. 2053 saw the Middle East join in, bringing the team total to forty-eight. Russia and Hawaii would only join five years after that, but they would bring ten teams to the table, making it by far the largest and best baseball section of the world.

For the first ten years, it is Japan and Korea that dominate, with Japan winning 6 of 10, Korea winning 3, and China winning the last. Baseball comes down to the level of technology that you can produce for your players to use. Japan and Korea tend to be at the forefront in this regard. China also does well, but still has the problem where they need to play catch-up in quality (putting a lot of strong players on the disabled list for repairs). After the first ten years, however, Asia League Championships seem to be all over the board. By this time the draft has helped the weaker teams, and technology has evened out as well.

Now it would be the MLB that had to try to keep their players from defecting to the other league. Asian baseball was hitting on all cylinders here.

The Jackie Robinson Of Robot Baseball (2064)

Not “Taro” pictured above. Due to time travel restrictions any photo from the future may not be shown in the past

While cyborged up people were commonplace now in the ALB, robots were not. Although some robots had turned sentient years previous due to some amazing(ly dangerous) robot brain technology created by Dr. Nakamats Junior (a clone version of the great Dr. Nakamats), it wasn’t until 2064 that we see one of them attempt to play baseball. Just as there was “technically” no rule against African Americans playing baseball when Jackie Robinson joined the MLB, there was “technically” no rule against full on robots either.

And boy was the first one hated. Joining the Nippon-ham Fighters, ASI-43099b aka “Taro,” he was booed by the fans right from the start, even before taking an at bat. It was clear that Taro would have a hard time in the Asia League due to the venomous feelings towards sentient robots that Asia as a whole had. Despite doing well his first and only year for the Nippon-ham Fighters, he was a robot with feelings, so he packed up his bags and moved to the MLB, which was surprisingly more receptive to the idea of robots playing baseball.

By now even the MLB was allowing some forms of cyborgization, but they knew they needed to do something to keep baseball alive in America. 2065 saw not only Taro, but six other robots make their career debut as well to varying success. The ALB eventually warmed up to “The Sentients” coming back to the Asia League, but by then it was too late. The MLB had regained much of its popularity in the same way that cyborgization popularized the Asian leagues. The MLB and the ALB were on fairly even footing, which could only mean good things for baseball as a whole.

World League Baseball (2099)

It’s nearly a new century and advances in travel technology have made it possible to travel across the world in mere hours (hint: we travel in tubes now). It’s fairly unclear which league is greater: The MLB or the ALB? Also, by now the All Europe League, The African League, and the Australian / Southeast Asia Leagues were getting stronger too. South America would join the MLB, doubling the number of teams, but as you can see baseball has reached a “professional” level by the year 2099.

It is appropriate then that in this year, the MLB and the ALB agree to inter-league play. Each team would play thirty games a season against the other league. In the following decade the other leagues would join in (except for the All Europe League and Southeast Asia League, which were still at too low of a level to join), forming the first truly worldwide League.

At the end of it all? Well, of course there was a World Series. A real one this time, not one that’s only in North America. Finally, there is no need to fight outside the baseball diamond. The world is united in terms of baseball, and a lot of it is thanks to Japan. While some still hate Japan’s contribution to the world baseball stage, others would never have known baseball in the first place if it wasn’t for the robots and cyborgs that people take for granted today.

While I don’t want to comment on this for fear of changing the future, I will say that it is entertaining to watch. I don’t know if it’s good or bad (or rather, I won’t say if it is or not), but it is different, and it is where baseball will head… that is, unless one of you mucks up the future somehow, at which point this article will have been rendered useless and you only have yourself to blame.

One more thing: GO KENYAN PANDAS! (don’t ask about the name… the team moved from China to Kenya and never changed the name…) I love their chances at winning it all this year.

If you have any questions about the future of (Japanese) baseball, feel free to ask. While I don’t know everything, I did spend a lot of time watching games all over the world, reading up on the stats, and just enjoying a lot of future baseball culture. I’ll answer whatever I can so long as I don’t think it will alter events and create a future where we are ruled by Neo Nazis (aka the Nazi baseball team is not something you are allowed to ask about).

P.S. Have yourself a full sized header illustration to support your favorite future team, the Honda Hawks!

Japan and vegetarianism have kind of a strange relationship.

Buddhism is deeply intertwined with Japan culture and, with it, the respect for all life. The most devout Buddhists observe this reverence towards life in their diets, avoiding eating meat entirely. As we’ve covered before, there’s even a type of vegetarian cuisine meant just for Japanese Buddhist monks.

At one point in Japanese history, the Buddhist Emperor Temmu declared that the entire country should stop eating meat, a ban that lasted about a hundred years.

That ban had a profound impact on Japanese food. Without the rich, savory flavors from meat, the Japanese found other ways to get their umami fixes using vegetable flavors.

Oddly enough, despite all of this Buddhist influence, it’s actually pretty hard to be vegetarian in Japan. Japan’s definition of “vegetarian” is different from the one that you know.

Japan: Not Very Vegetarian-Friendly

There’s actually two different words that mean “vegetarian” in Japanese: the native word, 菜食主義者, and the foreign word, ベジタリアン. The two represent two different views on what the concept means.

The Japanese concept of vegetarianism isn’t as strict and rigorous as the Western concept. That ban on meat I mentioned earlier? It was actually pretty limited and didn’t cover fish at all. What can I say? The Japanese love seafood.

As a result, if you go to Japan today and say that you’re vegetarian, the meaning of what you’re saying might be lost in translation.

Add on top of that all of the different diets people have nowadays—pescetarian, vegan, gluten-free, low-carb, dairy-free—and you can face almost complete misunderstanding.

Japanese food isn’t always obvious about whether or not it contains animal products, either. Even if the food you’re eating doesn’t have a huge slab of meat, it’s very likely that the broth, the seasoning, or some other part of the meal has some sort of meat or seafood in it.

What To Do If You’re a Vegetarian in Japan

Let’s say that you’re a vegetarian, and you want to visit Japan. The cultural issues I talked about might scare you off, but it’s not the end of the world.

If you just say that you’re ベジタリアン, then things probably aren’t going to go well for you. But if you are a bit more nuanced about it, then you’ll be okay.

The important thing to remember is to be extremely specific about what your dietary restrictions are, and spell them out in as much detail as you possibly can. It might be hard if you have limited Japanese language skills, but fortunately, others have done the work for you.

If you look around, you can find set phrases and even print-outs that detail your dietary needs in Japanese that you can hand to people at restaurants. They can be a lifesaver if you don’t speak Japanese, and still incredibly useful if you don’t.

Are you a vegetarian? What have been your experiences eating in Japan? Tell me in the comments!

Last time I wrote about the beginnings of Japanese baseball. That’s where it all started, and what an interesting story it was. Now I want to talk about the post-war years, when Japanese baseball really started to become good, as in, can-beat-an-American-team-sometimes good. Japan has really come into its own on the world baseball stage in recent history, but it took them a while to get to where they are now.

Occupation Baseball (1945-)

For some reason, it was right after the war when Japanese baseball really blossomed, I would say. It took only nine months into the occupation for the Japanese pro leagues to make their way back, thanks to the support of the Allied troops (they rightly thought it would be good for morale) and large corporations (who financed the baseball teams’ returns). Things started up again with eight teams playing 105 games. Not bad considering they only played an average of 77 games per year from 1941-1944.

Obviously, baseball needed quite a bit of help to bounce back from the war. If you think about it, most of the players were probably drafted. On top of that, a lot of the talent also probably met injury or death. Still, the teams were back and people were playing baseball… but who could be the icing on the cake? Who could bring the fire back into Japanese baseball? How about the man who was known as the “Father of Japanese Baseball”? That’s right, good ol’ Lefty O’Doul is back for round… er… inning two.

Return Of The Lefty (1949)

Lefty O’Doul was pretty upset by the militarism shown by Japan leading up to the war. He was also, understandably, not too happy about Pearl Harbor. But, this was a new era now, so Lefty let bygones be bygones and came back to Japan in 1949 to rekindle that Japanese-American baseball bond that had gone missing.

In October of 1949, he took the San Francisco Seals to Japan so everyone could become friends again. Even though he was getting old (already 52 at this point) he pitched in some games. Turns out, people hadn’t forgotten ol’ Lefty O’Doul. Emperor Hirohito and Prince Akihito greeted him. 500,000 people came to watch 10 games. It was, just like every Lefty O’Doul baseball event in Japan, a grand slam.

In Lefty O’Doul style, he kept coming back. In 1950 he and Joe DiMaggio. In 1951, he went big again and led Joe DiMaggio, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Billy Martin, Mel Parnel, Bobby Shantz, Ferris Fain, and Yogi Berra on an All-Star tour of Japan. This was a big deal, to be sure, but the even bigger deal was when the Japanese Pacific League All-Star squad beat O’Doul’s All Stars 3-1. This marks the first time an American professional team lost to a Japanese professional team. Japanese baseball was like that kid whose dad always would beat him in basketball to show him that life wasn’t fair, then one day the kid beats the dad, and so the dad buys his kid a beer. One of those days. To say the least, it was historical for Japanese baseball.

In 1952, O’Doul went to Japan again to help train Japanese baseball teams. Then, in 1953, he joined the New York Giants on a trip to Japan. This would be the first time an entire single team would go to Japan. Even Marilyn Monroe was there (she was married to Joe DiMaggio, so that helped, I suppose). In 1954, O’Doul flipped things around and took a Japanese team on a baseball tour of Australia.

O’Doul would continue to support Japan and their baseball endeavors for years to come, though this is where we have to loop back around to take a look at one particularly revolutionary Japanese baseball player that came about in the years of O’Doul’s return.

Wally Yonamine, The Jackie Robinson Of Japan (1951)

You may have noticed that the name “Wally” isn’t a Japanese one. That’s right, Wally was American, though still fairly Japanese. He was a nisei (second generation) Japanese American from Hawaii (also super Japanese, though technically a part of America). Although he is most known for his baseball time, he was also the first Asian to play professional American football. Before being injured playing baseball in the off season, he spent a year with the San Francisco 49ers as a running back. He has 19 carries for 74 yards and caught 3 passes for 40 yards.

After injuring himself, he switched to baseball, joining a minor league team. He was lucky enough to have met good ol’ Lefty O’Doul, though, who encouraged him to try out baseball in Japan. Luckily for Japan, he went for it and became the first American to play on a professional Japanese team. In 1951, Wally Yonamine became a Tokyo Giant.

Now you have to understand. It’s not like everyone loved the whole American occupation thing. There were many nationalists (and non-nationalists) who wanted the Americans out, so letting an American play Japanese baseball even though he was a nisei??? That’s just crazy talk. In many ways, he was the Jackie Robinson of Japan, though the divide was more about nationality rather than skin color.

He was still American, though, and the most interesting thing he brought to Japan was that American baseball style. People didn’t know what to do with him. He would run out bunts (unheard of in Japan at the time, apparently). He would do football style rolling blocks to position players blocking the base paths. He would dive in the outfield. He wore those iconic glasses. Basically, he had that American baseball hustle, where an individual could be a star if they stood out in the right ways, and boy did he stand out.

Now, it would be one thing if he turned out really bad, but he dominated the Japanese leagues. He had a .354 rookie season, which won over the fans and his teammates… though one particular player, Tetsuhara Kawakami (the 1951 MVP), particularly didn’t like him. He is disrespectful of Japanese baseball! His parents turned their back on Japan by moving to America! He doesn’t play the “proper” way! This, mixed with the fuel of ultra-nationalism fueled Kawakami’s dislike towards Wally, and the two formed a rivalry which only made them better players. During his career, Wally would win four Japan Series Championships, be the Central League MVP (1957), win seven “Best Nine Awards” in a row, play in eleven All-Star Games, have three batting championships, and then eventually become the manager of the Chuunichi Dragons.

All of these achievements and more got him into the Japanese baseball hall of fame in 1994, though I think it was his style of play that really made an impact on Japanese baseball. Before Wally, there really weren’t any “stars” in Japanese baseball. No nails that stuck up, because that just wasn’t the “Japanese Way.” I think Wally was the spark that set off a new style of play for Japanese baseball. It took a while, but if you compare present day Japanese baseball with Wally’s days, it’s night and day. There still is that very deep rooted team mentality, but there are stars now too. People who stand out. Also, there’s more hustle, people show less “respect” (like walking after bunting or not running into you if you’re in the way) in Japanese baseball as well. It’s a totally different game, and I think we have Wally Yonamine to thank for that.

Sadaharu Oh (1959)

Perhaps the greatest Japanese baseball player of all time (at least when it comes to hitting things hard) was Sadaharu Oh. Despite holding the Japanese home runs record (868) he was originally signed with the Yomiuri Giants as a pitcher. He soon got converted to being a first baseman and developed his unique “flamingo” batting style with Hiroshi Arakawa, his hitting instructor. This involved a one-footed stance and swing which supposedly helped him with his balance and ability to hit quite a bit.

It showed, as he went to go to eleven Japan Series Championships as well as win the Central League MVP nine times. If you ask me, that’s too many, and someone else deserves a consolation MVP from time to time. He retired with a .301 batting average, 868 home runs, 2786 hits, and 2170 RBIs. By almost any standards, even in a “lower level” Japanese league, this was pretty good. I have no doubt he would have done quite well in the MLB if he had gone over.

He went on to become a manager (where his home run record had some controversy). Still, he made a huge mark on Japanese baseball. He was one of the first really great Japanese baseball players, showing the world that yes, even Japanese players can hit for power, even if it was in the Japanese League (which had shorter seasons, too). You have to remember, Barry Bonds (the current MLB career home runs leader) has 762 total home runs. Sadaharu Oh hit 868. Even if you consider the differences of the leagues, Sadaharu Oh is still going to hit a lot of home runs no matter where he plays. Even though many people don’t consider this to be “the” home run record, when asked who would break it, Oh seemed to think it would be Alex Rodriguez. “I think the 868 record will be broken. There’s nobody near that mark in Japan, but I think Alex Rodriguez can do it. He has the ability to hit 1,000.”

We’ll see. Once he gets anywhere too close to the record he’ll probably just choke.

Masanori Murakami Debuts (1964)

While Wally Yonamine was the first American to play baseball in Japan, it wasn’t until 1964 that we see the first Japanese player to play for an American professional team. Most people think that Hideo Nomo of Nomo-Mania fame was the first Japanese player to come over, but Murakami beats him by 31 years.

In high school, he was signed by the Nankai Hawks. His team had won the prestigious Koshien Taikai (a ridiculously popular high school baseball tournament), which probably is what sped up his progress. Turns out, they moved him along a little too quickly, and after pitching just two innings for the Hawks in 1963, they sent him to the San Francisco Giants in the US to train in the minor leagues. It was expected that he’d then come back to Japan after a couple years of this, but he did so well for the Giants that they ended up promoting him to the Majors in 1964.

What made things worse, surprisingly, is that he did quite well. He posted a 1.80 ERA in nine games and fifteen innings pitched, starting things off with eleven scoreless innings. After finishing the 1964 season, the Hawks were “ready” for him to come back. That being said, so were the San Francisco Giants. According to a clause in the contract that sent him to America, the Giants could buy him from the Hawks for $10,000, so that’s what they did. But, Murakami also didn’t want to break his promise to the Hawks, so he signed a contract with the Hawks. Now both teams owned him, and that was obviously a problem.

The two teams came up with an agreement, though. He would pitch the 1965 season with the Giants, then after that he’d go back to the Hawks. He did exactly this, and pitched for seventeen more years in Japan. Poor guy should have just stayed in America. He had this to say about his decision:

If I had returned to the Major Leagues, I would have realized my dream, but I would have betrayed Mr. Tsuruoka. Yet, because I kept my promise to Mr. Tsuruoka, I forever carry this sense of regret.

Possibly because of this situation, it wasn’t for another 31 years that a Japanese player would make the trip to America. Masanori Murakami would be forgotten in the history books, and Japanese baseball wouldn’t make an impact on America again until 1995.

Hideo Nomo (1995)

Hideo Nomo is one of the most well known Japanese baseball players to make the trip to America. For one thing, he really stood out with that unique (by American standards) windup. Secondly, he pitched really well, winning the Rookie Of The Year Award in his 1995 debut season. His situation was a bit interesting, though. Normally Japanese teams don’t want their players to move to the MLB. They lose ratings because they lose their best players. Hideo Nomo figured out a loophole in his contract, “retiring” from baseball so that he could sign with the LA Dodgers. If the Buffaloes wouldn’t give him what he wanted (a multi-year contract and an agent).

He made his US debut with the Bakersfield Blaze, a Class A team for the LA Dodgers at the time. He threw 90 pitches and 5 1/3 innings in a 2-1 loss. After spending a month in the minors he was called up to the Major Leagues, partly thanks to a player’s strike, making him the second Japanese League player to come to the majors. The Japanese media went crazy, showing up in huge numbers for his games and making him a star. The games in which he started were even broadcast live in Japan, despite the time difference. His “Tornado Delivery” also became something of a spectacle. If you’re going to stand out, do it in America where they appreciate it more, I suppose.

He had a great career in the MLB, and here are some of the highlights:

• 1995 – Rookie Of the Year Award, just beating out Chipper Jones, leading the league in strikeouts, throwing 11.101 stikeouts per 9 inning (beating the previous franchise record of 10.546), and starting that year’s All-Star Game.
• 1996 – Threw a no-hitter on September 17 in Coor’s Field, a stadium notorious for being a hitter’s park. Also had his own Nike sneaker, the Air Max Nomo.

• 1997 – Greatest honor of them all, appeared in a Segata Sanshiro commercial.

• 1997 – Joined Dwight Gooden as the only other pitcher to strike out at least 200 batters in each of his first three seasons.
• 2001 – Playing for the Boston Red Sox, he throws his second no-hitter, making him one of the few pitchers to have thrown a no-no in both leagues. He also leads the league in strikeouts again.
• 2002 – Returns to the Dodgers where he pitches well again.
• 2003 – Begins showing signs of his age :(
• 2008 – Nomo retires from Major League Baseball.

Nomo and his Nomo-mania were a big deal in both Japan and America. After the Japan Baseball League lost Nomo to the MLB, the two leagues came up with a “posting” solution, where MLB teams could make bids to talk to Japanese players, so that way if they lost the player they’d get compensated. This posting system would get used a lot in the coming years. Nomo really opened the doors for Japanese players to come to the MLB, and a good number of players have followed since.

Ichiro (2001)

Being the biggest Mariner’s Fan in the world, it pains me to write about Ichiro, just a little bit. I could go into the goods and bads of him being a Yankee right now, but let’s not focus on that. Let’s focus on his contribution to position players coming to America, because before Ichiro, only pitchers would make the jump from Japan to the MLB.

Before becoming the MLB’s most well-known Japanese player, Ichiro was a mere child with a father that was really into training him. After joining a baseball team at the age of seven, he asked his father to help him to get better. They began a regiment that included throwing 50 pitches, fielding 50 infield balls, fielding 50 outfield balls, and hitting 500 pitches (250 from his father, 250 from the machine). By age 12, he dedicated himself to pursue a career in baseball. In high school, his father told the coach to never praise Ichiro because he needed to be spiritually strong. Joining Nagoya’s Aikodai Meden High School, he was used as a pitcher due to his strong arm (which we’ve all seen in the majors). He batted .505 in high school with 19 home runs. Other strange training regimens that Ichiro did included hurling car tires, hitting wiffle balls with a heavy shovel, and practicing in the batting cages by getting closer and closer to where the ball shoots out the hole. To say the least, he worked really, really hard, much of it due to the training (which bordered on hazing, according to Ichiro) of his father. Anyways, it worked out.

Probably on their way to the batting cages

In 1992 at the age of 18, he made his Pacific League debut, though had to spend much of his first two seasons in the Japanese minors. The manager at the time didn’t like his unorthodox swing. Obviously, the “nail that sticks up” mentality was still prevalent in Japanese baseball, even in the 90s. Two years later a new manager was hired, and Ichiro then got playing time every day. His “pendulum” swing proved effective, and he broke the then Japanese single-season record with 210 hits in a season. He hit .385, had 13 home runs, and stole 29 bases. This would be the first of three straight MVP awards.

As if the nail that was Ichiro didn’t stick up enough, in 1994 they changed his jersey to read “Ichiro” instead of “Suzuki,” which is the most common last name in Japan. It was the management’s idea, not Ichiro’s (he was embarrassed by it, apparently), though it ended up catching on and helped him to achieve a greater fame.

It wouldn’t be until 1998, though, that he would see some major league action. In a seven-game exhibition between Japanese and American All-Stars, Ichiro batted .380 and collected seven stolen bases. He was now officially on people’s radars.

“Wanna hit for power? I got this guy, I can hook you up…”

Of course, in 2001 he joined the Seattle Mariners after they paid a $13 million posting fee, and then signed him to a three year $14 million contract. Apparently at first he didn’t feel too good about wearing ex-Mariner Randy Johnson’s number (51), so he sent a message to Johnson promising to not bring shame on the uniform. He turned out to do pretty well, batting .350 with 56 stoeln bases, making it to the first of ten All-Star games, winning Rookie Of The Year, and the AL MVP award. Pretty big stuff for a short guy from Japan who’s never played a “grueling” American 162 game season.

Ichiro went on to many other successes as well (and still plays for the Yankees to this day). Some highlights include:

• Ten All-Star Games (2001-2009)
• Rookie Of the Year Award (2001)
• 10-time Gold Glove winner.
• 200 hits in 10 consecutive seasons.
• 256 hits in one season, a Major League record.
• “The Throw”

People stopped running on Ichiro after this fateful day. Actually, people didn’t stop, but they were punished for their mistakes. With Ichiro becoming such a huge star in Seattle as well as the world, other Japanese players would make the leap across the pond. Some have done well, some have not. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got.

The Japanese Player Flood

All in all, 52 Japanese League players have come to the MLB, most of them arriving after Ichiro. While there are this many players, only some of them had seasons of great success. They include:

• Ichiro (10 All Star Games)
• Kazuhiro Sasaki (2 All Star Games)
• Hideki Matsui (2 All Star Games)
• Hideo Nomo (1 All Star Game)
• Shigetoshi Hasegawa (1 All Star Game)
• Hideki Okajima (1 All Star Game)
• Takashi Saito (1 All Star Game)
• Kosuke Fukudome (1 All Star Game)
• Yu Darvish (1 All Star Game)

Of course, more will come, and with the higher level that is the Major Leagues, better and better Japanese baseball players will come out of Japan too. If all the good players don’t just come over to the MLB, Japan’s teams may become comparable too, though we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

Awards And Notables

According to Wikipedia, here are the awards that have been given to Japanese League players in the MLB.

• Most Valuable Player Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 2001 AL
• Rookie of the Year: Hideo Nomo, 1995 NL; Kazuhiro Sasaki, 2000 AL; Ichiro Suzuki, 2001 AL
• Gold Glove Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 10 times, 2001–2010 AL OF
• Silver Slugger Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 3 times, 2001, 2007, 2009
• All-Star Game MVP: Ichiro Suzuki, 2007
• World Series MVP: Hideki Matsui, 2009
• Player of the Month: Ichiro Suzuki, August 2004 AL; Hideki Matsui, July 2007 AL
• Pitcher of the Month: Hideo Nomo, twice, June 1995 & September 1996 NL; Hideki Irabu, twice, May 1998 & July 1999 AL
• Rookie of the Month: Ichiro Suzuki, 5 times, April, May, June, August, September 2001 AL; Kazuhisa Ishii, April 2002 NL; Hideki Matsui, June 2003 AL; Hideki Okajima, April 2007 AL; Yu Darvish, April 2012 AL
• Player of the Week: Hideki Matsui, 4 times, June 23–29, 2003, May 24–30, 2004, June 14–20, 2005, July 18–24, 2011 AL; Ichiro Suzuki, 4 times, August 2–8, 2004, May 29-June 4, 2006, September 20–26, 2010, September 17-23, 2012 AL
• MLB Players Association Outstanding Player of the Year Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 2004 AL
• MLB Players Association Outstanding Rookie of the Year Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 2001 AL
• Sporting News Rookie Player of the Year Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 2001 AL
• Sporting News Rookie Pitcher of the Year Award: Hideo Nomo, 1995 NL, Kazuhiro Sasaki, 2000 AL
• MLB.com Defensive Player of the Year Award: Ichiro Suzuki, 2005
• MLB.com Setup Man of the Year Award: Hideki Okajima, 2007

There are a lot of names that get repeated (*cough* Ichiro *cough*), though this should give you an idea of some of the talent that’s coming out of Japan.

So, that’s the history of Japanese baseball, from the early days to present day. I wonder what the future holds for Japan. I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see. When it comes to Japanese baseball, it’s like they’re on first base, getting ready to steal second. There’s a lot more life yet, and I’m looking forward to seeing it spring forth from Ichiro’s loins.

Who’s your favorite modern-day Japanese baseball player? If you say Munenori Kawasaki maybe I’ll do the Mune dance for you.

—

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideo_Nomo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanori_Murakamihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichiro_Suzuki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Japan
http://www.psacard.com/Articles/ArticleView/2836/a-short-history-of-japanese-baseball-part-1
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/b820a06c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefty_O’Doul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_in_Japan
http://www.baywell.ne.jp/users/drlatham/baseball/yakyu/history/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaharu_Oh

There’s no arguing that a lot of what we consider stereotypically Japanese actually came from elsewhere.

Japan has China to thank for the Japanese language, which is also where ramen is from. Tempura, konpeito, and castella cake came by way of the Portuguese; likewise, curry was introduced by the British. The gakuran and the sailor uniform were modeled after European military and naval uniforms, and radio calisthenics is from the good old US of A.

So you can imagine my surprise when I found out the reverse has also happened: fortune cookies, that staple of Chinese restaurants in the US, is almost certainly Japanese.

Japanese Fortune Cookies…

In Japan, fortune cookies go by the names tsujiura senbei, o-mikuji senbei, and suzu senbei. They’re slightly bigger, and the addition of miso and sesame makes them browner and savory instead of sweet. Otherwise, though, Japanese fortune cookies are pretty much identical to the mass-produced stuff.

Left: Japanese fortune cookies; Right: “Chinese” fortune cookies, made in Hong Kong, from a Korean grocery store down the road

If old tales are anything to go by, Japanese fortune cookies have been around since at least the 19th century. The following illustration, for example, was found in a book of stories that dates all the way back to 1878. Check out the unmistakable C-shaped cookies on the grill – and even more tellingly, the noren at the top that reads tsujiura senbei.

The sign is really old school; read it from right to left.

The other name for fortune cookies, o-mikuji senbei, is also a clue. Those little paper fortunes that you can get for a small fee at shrines and temples? Yep, they’re called o-mikuji. Kyoto literally has thousands of shrines and temples – one of the more famous being the Fushimi Inari shrine. Now is it mere coincidence that there are several shops in the area that still make fortune cookies by hand? I think not.

Spooning batter into the mold, lifting out the cookie, tucking in the fortune, and folding up the still-warm cookie.

But this is only half the story.

… and How They Became “Chinese”

The person who invented the “Chinese” fortune cookie is up for debate. Several people have put their hand up, but I reckon only two claims are worth serious consideration: some people believe it was Kito Seiichi of the Fugetsu-do shop in LA, and others believe it was Hagiwara Makoto of SF’s Japanese Tea Garden.

Both men were Japanese immigrants and likely knew about fortune cookies and how to make them – but my money’s on Hagiwara Makoto. As the story goes, he first made and served it alongside green tea in 1914. This modified, sweetened version was so popular that Hagiwara decided to get them made on a commercial scale. In 1918, Benkyodo stepped in to become the Japanese Tea Garden’s exclusive supplier of fortune cookies. Descendants on both sides corroborate the other’s story, which I think is as good as it’ll get in terms of evidence.

Left: the tea house at the Japanese Tea Garden; Right: Benkyodo Candy Factory

Soon, several other bakeries began to make and sell fortune cookies; Umeya, for example, supplied them to both Japanese- and Chinese-owned restaurants. The bombing of Pearl Harbor really put a spanner in the works though. Japanese-Americans were sent away to internment camps, which basically meant the end of many Japanese businesses.

Now that the competition had been taken out, Chinese businesses experienced a huge boom. Chinese restaurants still served fortune cookies, of course, and people just began to think of them as a Chinese thing. There was a strong anti-Japanese sentiment at the time, so I really don’t blame the Chinese for keeping mum and letting their customers believe what they wanted to believe.

In any case, although several Japanese bakeries did make a comeback after WWII, by that point fortune cookies were irrevocably Chinese. They were still as popular as ever, though: it was only a matter of time before it spread all over the US, and then all over the globe. Well, except for China, anyway. “Too American,” apparently.

Oh delicious irony.

Fortune Cookies Remixed

Nowadays there really aren’t any rules when it comes to fortune cookies. Just look at some of the varieties I found:

Purists, look away.

Well… not my thing to be honest, although I suppose there must be a market for them.

So, did you already know that fortune cookies are actually Japanese? Have you tried both Japanese and “Chinese” fortune cookies? Which did you prefer? What was the last fortune you got? Let us know in the comments!

As the World Baseball Classic comes to a close, I think it has become clear that Japan is indeed a force to be reckoned with in terms of the world of baseball. Sure, they didn’t win it this year, but another trip to the championship round after winning it all the previous two Classics isn’t all that shabby. On top of this you can take a look at Japanese baseball stars  who have made it to America, like Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Hideo Nomo, Yu Darvish, and Kazuhiro Sasaki, and know that there’s quite a bit of talent out there.

But it wasn’t always like this. Japanese baseball had to start somewhere, and it turns out that somewhere was quite a long time ago, sometime in the 1870s, to be exact (or as exact as possible). But how did baseball come to Japan? It certainly wasn’t anything like Samurai Champloo’s rendition, though one can dream.

Instead, Japanese baseball got off to a slightly less dramatic start. Of course, as it is an American sport, we have to start this story with an American.

Japanese Baseball Is Born (1870s)

Most people credit American Horace Wilson (1834-1927), an English professor at Kaisei Gakko the predecessor to Tokyo Imperial University. He had spent some time in Japan before this, though. He also helped as a foreign adviser for the Japanese government to assist in the modernization of the Japanese education system. To say the least, he had some experience in Japanese education.

The thing is, before Horace Wilson, there weren’t really any team sports in Japan. You had Sumo, kendo, kyudo, and other one-on-one physical activities, but something that involved teams? Not really. I do find this a bit strange considering how group-based Japanese culture is and was, but nonetheless it really explains why Japan has embraced baseball the way it has. It also explains a lot of the differences in how it’s played.

Professor Wilson  can’t be credited for baseball’s popularity in Japan, however. Albert Bates, an American teaching at Kaitaku University, also cannot be credited with the “birth” of Japanese baseball, though he did organize the very first game in Japan. No, that credit goes to Hiroshi Hiraoka, a Japanese railway engineer who was a student in America (not to mention a huge Boston Red Sox fan). He was the one to organize the very first Japanese baseball team, known as the Shinbashi Athletic Club Athletics. So, in 1878, Japanese baseball was officially born.

Hiroshi Hiraoka and the first baseball team: The Shinbashi Athletic Club “Super Blurry” Athletics

Due to being the very first Japanese team ever, the Shinbashi Athletic Club Athletics had the best Japanese baseball team in Japan and (in my opinion) the worst name ever. We get it, you’re athletic. Other teams started popping up in Japan following their founding, but nobody could really keep up in skill for nearly ten years.

Team Ichikou (1886)

Team Ichikou, the “First Higher School of Tokyo” (aka super prestigious prep school), was founded in 1886. Apparently they were pretty good. So good, in fact, that they thought they could challenge the whites-only Yokohama Athletic club (yep, there were non-Japanese baseball teams in Japan at the time, they just didn’t want to play with the Japanese). Of course, being a whites-only baseball team, they went ahead and refused the challenge. Upon hearing about this, the Christian Missionary school Meiji Gakuin offered to play Ichikou. Turns out, all that Ichikou prep school life didn’t “prep” them for such a decisive defeat. The Meiji Gakuin team destroyed them, but it opened their eyes as to how much training they needed to do.

Ichikou players began a practice regimen that would bring them to the point of complete physical exhaustion. Why? So the team can get better as a whole. This isn’t too much different from the practice philosophies of sumo or kendo. Now we can see some crossover between Japanese sporting culture and this American sport. This style of practice would (and still does) continue to stick around throughout Japanese baseball history.

They practiced like this for ten years, and in 1896 the Yokohama Athletic Club finally accepted their challenge. Guess what? All the vomiting and blood-urine paid off, apparently. Team Ichikou crushed the whites-only Yokohama Athletic club by a score of 28 to 4. It was also the first ever recorded international baseball game in all of Asia.

Due to the win and fervor behind this, many universities began to play baseball and the sport gained popularity in Japan.

Universities Era (1900-)

As baseball in Japan gained popularity, the most obvious place for teams to sprout was in the universities. As teams became more competitive, schools would send students to America to learn and get better. In 1905, Waseda University was the first team to do this, and many other schools followed suit to keep up. American teams also began to reciprocate, sending teams over to Japan to play in exhibition games as well as to teach Japan a thing or two about American baseball.

It was also in this time that the rivalries begin to pop up. One such rivalry, between Waseda and Keio University, still goes on today. It even has a name (the Sokeisen/早慶戦) and people go nuts over it, classes are canceled, and it is even broadcast on national television. It has gotten so rowdy that games get canceled, which seems ridiculous considering that people get rowdy because they’re super excited about the games. In fact, there was a two decade period where the games were banned because people got too crazy about it. That should give you an idea how big of a deal this is, anyways.

Growth in Universities continued to happen, and American amateurs would play baseball with Japanese amateurs. But, Japan was starting to get serious about baseball. America took some notice to this.

• 1908: A mix of minor and major league players known as the “Reach All-Americans” visit Japan and other countries to play baseball.
• 1913: The Chicago White Sox and New York Giants play in Japan with Japanese teams.
• 1920s: Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis helps to send a team of major and minor league players to Japan to both play games and run coaching clinics.

Over twenty or so years, we see quite an increase in Japanese baseball skills. More and more people are coming from America to help out, and Japan keeps getting better. Universities establish themselves as the Japanese baseball force of this era, so much so that they eventually form their own league.

“The Tokyo Big6″ (1925)

In 1925, the Tokyo Big6 league was established. It basically consisted of the six best and most established collegiate baseball teams in Tokyo. The league still exists today, and of course the rivalries do as well. The teams and their all-time records are:

• Waseda University (1197-703-83)
• Keio University (1110-797-87)
• Meiji University (1139-780-97)
• Hosei University (1113-795-109)
• University of Tokyo (244-1520-55)
• Rikkyo University (851-1058-91)

Can we just take a moment to feel really bad for the University of Tokyo? They’ve come in last place in 118 of the league’s 156 seasons. Their best ever season was when they came in third… but it was also a season in which both Meiji University and Waseda University did not play, so… yeah, ouch.

Besides University of Tokyo, however, the Big6 were powerhouses of Japanese baseball talent. Even University of Tokyo was pretty good when you compared them to most Japanese baseball teams outside of the Big6. But, they had to get better. That’s where  good ol’ “Lefty O’Doul” comes in.

The “Father” Of Japanese Baseball: Lefty O’Doul (1932)

Some people call Lefty O’Doul the “Father of Japanese” baseball. There’s a reason for this. Not only was he a great American baseball player (started as a struggling pitcher, switched to being a hitter, had a .349 batting average over seven seasons winning the batting title twice), but he invested a lot of time and effort into the Japanese baseball scene as well.

The first time he went to Japan was in 1931. This was during a trip that involved baseball trips to China and the Philippines as well. But, something must have stuck, because in 1932 he went back for almost three months. Lefty, Ted Lyons, and Moe Berg held 40 lessons at each of the Big6 schools. There were also Americans with them that played in exhibition games with the Japanese that drew crowds of over 60,000 people. Baseball, it seems, was a big hit in Japan. The American baseball players were celebrities, and Japanese baseball grew leaps and bounds over the years thanks to Lefty O’Doul and friends. He came back every year from 1933-1937.

1934, however, was one of Japan’s best pre-war baseball years, though. And of course, it was all thanks to Lefty.

Striking Out The Pros (1934)

In 1934, Lefty O’Doul got together a group of All-Star players from America and brought them over to Japan. Players included Earl Averill, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Babe Ruth, Earl Whitehill, and more. It was a pretty good American team. In order to face a team as stacked as this one, Yomiuri Shinbun (newspaper) owner Matsutarou Shouriki brought together Japan’s version of the dream team. Despite this, they lost all 18 games that they played against the Americans. I mean, I guess it makes sense, but that’s a lot of losses. Still, perhaps it gave Japan the shock they needed, just like team Ichikou of 1886.

One particular instance out of these 18 games stood out, however. Pitcher Eiji Sawamura became a national hero when he struck out Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx… in order. I suppose over 18 games it was bound to happen, but it was the sort of thing that Japanese baseball needed to really light a fire under everybody’s pants. Baseball was more popular than ever, so in 1935 Matsutarou Shouriki kept the dream team together and took a tour of the US and Canada to play more baseball. By 1936, they had gone pro.

Japan’s First Professional Baseball Team (1936)

I’m not sure if calling yourself “professional” is enough to be professional, but apparently this time it was. Shouriki’s team was the first and only team to join the “Japanese Baseball League.” Their name? The Tokyo Giants. One may wonder where they “found” the name the Giants, and one may wonder correctly if they thought of the New York Giants. But, it wasn’t just on a whim. It was a sort of “thank you” to Lefty O’Doul, who brought over the American All Star team that got the Japanese team together in the first place. O’Doul was a New York Giant, so they would be Giants too. The name is still around today, though very few know it was thanks to Lefty that they got the name.

Soon after, six other teams would join the party. The Osaka Tigers, Hankyu, Dai Tokyo, Nagoya Kinko, Nagoya Dragons, and the Tokyo Senators. As is often the case today, many were sponsored by newspapers hoping to cash in on baseball’s rising popularity. If you run the newspapers, you run the news. If you run the news, you can promote your baseball team quite a bit, make more money, and then get better players. If you weren’t a newspaper, though, you may have been a train line (Tigers and Hankyu). If people want to see your baseball teams play, they’ll ride on your trains. I think it’s funny how the whole sponsorship thing panned out.

Strangely enough, the Tigers became the team to beat for quite a while (until 1939). Then, the gained dominance until World War II brought an end to Japanese baseball… at least temporarily.

World War II Strikes And You’re Out?

The war brought much strife to everything, including a little bit of said strife to baseball. Lefty O’Doul started to become upset about Japan’s rise in militarism, which of course meant a lot less Japanese-American baseball friendships. The Tokyo Giants changed their name to the Tokyo Kyojin (also means “giants,” but now it’s Japanese), the Osaka Tigers became the Osaka Hanshin, and the Tokyo Senators became the Tokyo Tsubasa.

In 1939, the Japan Baseball League combined their “split season” into one single season of 96 games. In 1940, they expanded to 104 games. During these years there were nine teams in the league. Things were still going well for baseball, despite the war. Then things got bigger. Resources and people began to get thin. In 1941, the number of games were reduced to 84. Despite this, they ramped back up to 104 games in 1942. Then, things got worse for Japan’s war effort. 1943 saw 84 games once again, 1944 saw only 35 games with six teams, and 1945 never happened. You can probably guess why.

Still, baseball was hardly dead in Japan. In fact, things were just getting started. I think it really took the end of the war, American occupation of Japan, and a few big events to allow Japanese baseball to blossom. None of this happened until after the war, though, so you’re going to have to wait to learn more about that in part two of this “History of Japanese Baseball” series. Don’t worry, I’m planning on covering all the bases.

–

Sources:
http://www.psacard.com/Articles/ArticleView/2836/a-short-history-of-japanese-baseball-part-1
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/b820a06c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefty_O’Doul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_in_Japan
http://www.baywell.ne.jp/users/drlatham/baseball/yakyu/history/history.htm
http://mcel.pacificu.edu/as/students/baseballjapan/sum.html
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/History_of_baseball_in_Japan
http://umdrive.memphis.edu/g-sig/www/japanesebaseball.htm