1907 St. Louis Baseball Team From Hawaii Tours Japan

The 1907 St. Louis of Hawaii team. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

Located on the pathway between the US mainland and Japan, Hawaii was important in the history of US-Japan baseball exchanges. The baseball ties between the two islands began in 1907, triggered by a rivalry between two Tokyo universities.

In June 1907, Suejiro Ito was dispatched to Hawaii by the Toyo Migration Company to survey the labor situation of the 50,000 Japanese immigrants working in the sugar and pineapple fields. There, he came across a rumor that Waseda University was negotiating with Stanford University for a baseball team tour of Japan. Ito, a graduate of Keio University, thought, “I wanted my alma mater to be the first to invite a foreign team to Japan. Before Waseda.”1

For many years the college teams were the pinnacle of baseball in Japan. Right after the turn of the twentieth century, a group of teams in the Tokyo area, Waseda, Keio, Gakushuin University, First Higher School, and the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club (YC&AC: a sports club of foreign residents), battled to be the top team in Japan. The two universities, Waseda and Keio, developed a fierce rivalry. The Waseda-Keio match was called the Sokei-sen (the abbreviation for Waseda-Keio game), and it was watched with great interest by baseball fans across the country.

The history of the Sokei-sen began as follows. Keio University founded its official university baseball club in 1892. Waseda, on the other hand, had to wait for nine years, until 1901, for its baseball club to be bom. In 1903 the latecomer Waseda University sent a written challenge to Keio University. Following proper etiquette, Waseda asked in a humble manner for the more experienced Keio team to teach them baseball. The letter read, “Our team is still underperforming, and our players are still immature. We would be honored to have a lesson from you in the near future.”2 The first game of the Sokei-sen was played on November 21, 1903, with Keio beating Waseda, 11-9.

However, things changed in 1905. Waseda upset Keio, not on the field but in the international scene. Waseda carried out a monumental tour of North America, becoming the first Japanese team to visit the United States. The Waseda team, led by baseball director Isoo Abe, swung around the US West Coast, winning seven games and losing 19 against colleges, high schools, and semipros. Although the results were not encouraging, Waseda brought back to Japan the latest in baseball techniques and strategies, known as “scientific baseball,” including the hit-and-run, second-shortstop cooperative play, and pregame warmup, as well as equipment such as baseball shoes and gloves.3 Waseda willingly shared the new knowledge with other teams. With this, Waseda became the leaders of Japanese baseball.

After the US tour, the Waseda-Keio rivalry flared up even more. In the fall of 1906, the two teams planned a three-game series. After Keio won the first game, the school’s cheering group congregated outside the home of Waseda’s founder, Count Shigenobu Okuma, and shouted, “Banzai Keio!” The Waseda students viewed this as an extreme insult. At the second game, Waseda packed the stands with 1,200 cheerers, in clear violation of the agreement that limited the cheering groups to 250. The horde celebrated Waseda’s victory by marching to the former home of the late Keio founder Yukichi Fukuzawa (who had died in 1901) and yelling, “Banzai Waseda!” Fearing a riot at the third game, Keio president Eikichi Kamata and Isoo Abe of Waseda agreed to cancel the final match. The Sokei-sen would not be played for years to come.

The void left by the extinction of the Sokei-sen caused a sense of crisis in Japan’s top baseball world. A number of attempts were made to revive the Sokei- sen, but all failed. For example, at the end of 1906, the Tokyo Sports Press Club made a vain effort to mediate between the two schools. Another attempt was made in the summer of 1907 when Leroy E. McChesney, baseball captain of the YC&AC, proposed a formation of Japan’s first baseball league “Keihin Yakyu Domei,” but Keio refused to join. Waseda won the first and last championship, as the league lasted only one fall season.4

Ito was annoyed that Waseda had been the first Japanese team to travel abroad so he wanted to make sure that Keio would be the first to invite a foreign team to Japan. Luckily enough for Ito’s plan, Kakugoro Inoue, a graduate of Keio University and member of Japan’s House of Representatives, stopped in Honolulu on the way back from a four-month tour of Europe and the United States. On August 22, Ito met with Inoue to ask for his cooperation for Keio to bring over a baseball team from Hawaii. Inoue gave his word (“I will give my all for our alma mater”) and left for Japan.5

Ito selected the St. Louis College alumni team for the Japan tour, because it had recently won the 1907 championship of the Honolulu Baseball League.6 The Pacific Commercial Advertiser thought highly of the team: “The makeup of this team is nearly as strong as any aggregation which could be picked up in the Territory [of Hawaii].”7 The Hawaiian Star noted that a Japanese student who had seen St. Louis play believed that the team would be a very attractive drawing card if it came to Japan.8

The captain of the St. Louis team, Pat Gleason, brimmed with confidence and excitement: “We will certainly show those Japs something that they do not know about baseball, and the chances are we will come back with another championship tacked on our pennant.”9 It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for many of the St. Louis players who had never been away from the islands.

The passenger ship Siberia, with the 10-man squad on board, departed Honolulu harbor in the midst of the singing of “Aloha Oe” on October 16, and arrived at Yokohama port on October 27. Ito accompanied the team as manager. At the port, they were welcomed by several thousand fans, including Keio students, YC&AC players, and members of the Tokyo Sports Press Club. A l½-hour train ride took the Hawaii team from Yokohama to Shinbashi Station in the center of Tokyo, where another big crowd greeted them. The team’s accommodations were two guest rooms converted from reading rooms in a hall on the Keio University campus. Captain Gleason and his wife, separated from the players, stayed at the Imperial Hotel.

The visitors were thrilled with the great welcome, and so was the Japanese side with the unprecedented achievement. “After a year of great desolation, baseball fans were overjoyed when a word got out that a Hawaii team was coming.”10 Until then, the only opportunity for Japanese to play Americans was against the YC&AC or sailor teams from US battleships calling at Yokohama port. Tokyo newspapers were filled with praise for the hosting Keio and high hopes for the US-Japan baseball games. Keio decided to cover the cost of the St. Louis tour by collecting admission fees.

No sooner had the Hawaiian players changed clothes than they came out for practice at Keio’s Mita Tsunamachi Grounds. The curious Tokyo crowd was impressed with their workout. “The Hawaii players have outstanding ability, more than expected,” a newspaper commented.11

At this point, the lack of prior communication was exposed. The Japanese had been informed that a college team would come; however, it was revealed that the visitors were all semipro-caliber graduates of the school, except one student player, Lo On. The Japanese baseball circles were upset. This issue would hang on for a long time in Japanese baseball history. Chujun Tobita, Waseda’s center fielder and later coach, still claimed, even 47 years later, “We were cheated.”12

The practice was followed by a welcoming party.

On their first day in Tokyo, it suddenly got cold with a low temperature of 42 degrees Fahrenheit and it dropped further on the following day.13 The Hawaiian players brought their heaviest clothes for the seasonal Japanese weather, but still they were chilled to the bone. They needed six or seven layers of blankets and a fire in the fireplace to sleep.14

Game 1: On October 31, a “Welcome St. Louis” drapery was hung over Keio Grounds as 10,000 packed the ballpark. The St. Louis and Keio teams came out to the field to the music of a military band.

The St. Louis team starting lineup for Game 1 was:

1. En Sue, CF
2. Eddie Fernandez, LF
3. Henry Bushnell, 3B
4. Johnny Evers, SS
5. Lo On, RF
6. George Bruns, 2B
7. Pat Gleason, 1B
8. Bob Leslie, P
9. Luis Soares, C

St. Louis scored its first run in Japan in the bottom of the third. With one out, Leslie hit a hard grounder to shortstop Katsumaro Sasaki, who couldn’t handle it. It was followed by a base hit to center by Soares to put runners on first and third. En Sue then flied out to left to score Leslie.

In the top of the fifth, Keio came back with three runs on a hit-by-pitch, two bunt singles, two sacrifice bunts, and an error by third baseman Bushnell.

In the sixth, fleet-footed En Sue, a Chinese Hawaiian, got on with a bunt single, stole second, and advanced to third on a passed ball. Bushnell then singled to score him. En Sue’s baserunning amazed Japanese baseball fans. A high-school student who was dying to see the St. Louis games wrote his impressions on the swift player later: “En Sue was as short as Keio’s Katsumaro Sasaki, however, his running speed was marvelous. I had never imagined that a human being could run as fast as he did.”15

The 1905 Waseda tour brought back many new baseball techniques, and one of them was how to bunt. But the Japanese just used it to advance a runner. En Sue demonstrated how to bunt for a hit with no runners on.

In the eighth, St. Louis tied the game at 3-3. With two outs, runners on first and third, and Bruns at bat, Evers, the runner on first, jumped for second. Keio pitcher Yasuichi Aoki threw to second. At that moment, Fernandez, the runner on third, dashed home to tie the game.

The game went into extra innings. In the top of the 13th, with no outs, Eizo Kanki on first, and Tokuichi Takahama on third, Keio shortstop Sasaki laid down a beautiful bunt. Catcher Soares picked up the ball and tagged out Takahama in a rundown play. Then Soares saw Sasaki running to second, and made a wild throw to second. The ball went into the outfield, and Kanki and Sasaki scored to win the game.

It was a mutual surprise when the St. Louis team lost after 13 hard-fought innings, 5-3. “The semipro St. Louis team showed its competence in hitting but didn’t play well in defense. Especially the blunder in the final scene startled the crowd,” wrote the newspaper Miyako Shimbun.16

Keio backstop Nenosuke Fukuda, a cool analyst, spoke to reporters about the win: “The biggest reason why St. Louis lost was that they slighted us and played lousily. In fact, it was not that Keio was strong, but just that luck favored Keio in this game.”17

The St. Louis team’s sluggish play seemed to be caused by sea legs. But manager Ito knew why. “I am unwilling to admit, but shortstop [Evers] and second baseman [Bruns] pushed themselves to play despite they were not feeling well. The shortstop had caught a cold and had a high fever this morning. And the second baseman’s hemorrhoids started hurting last night and he felt terrible during the game. It was the first game so they pushed themselves to play. Ha, Ha, Ha, I am a sore loser.”18

The 10-man Hawaiian team was a real nine without able substitutes, because captain Gleason played only game 1. Instead, in game 2 and after, Oliver Jones played.

Game 2: On November 7 more fans turned out at Keio Grounds for the first St. Louis-Waseda game. It started raining in the sixth inning. The weather was bad, and Waseda suffered a bad defeat. Pitcher Leslie shut out Waseda, allowing one hit. In the sixth, Chujun Tobita hit a bloop single to right. Kinichiro Shishiuchi bunted to try to advance Tobita to second, but instead popped out to pitcher, and Tobita was doubled off first. So Leslie faced only 27 batters, striking out 10 with no one left on base. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported: “There are almost no Japanese hitters who can hit Leslie’s fastball.”19

St. Louis won, 2-0, on nine hits including three triples. During the game Shigeo Morimoto, the Waseda first baseman, was accidentally kicked in the face by a runner, leading the Kokumin Shimbun to joke, “That was a real stomping and kicking. Waseda was defeated as if it had been trampled.”20

Game 3: November 9 was blessed with rare fine weather for the season. The Saturday ballgame brought many baseball fans to Keio Grounds. For this game Bushnell started on the mound and Leslie played first base. They were the team’s only pitchers, and had to alternate positions every other game.

Bushnell’s short interval between pitches annoyed Keio batsmen. Still Keio tied the score at 2-2 in the top of the seventh on a triple by second baseman Yaichiro Sakurai and a bunt by left fielder Kiyoshi Yoshikawa. In the bottom of the inning, St. Louis threatened with runners on first and third with no outs. Soares hit a fly ball to center to allow Jones, the runner on third, to cross the plate. Evers hit a groundball to third, and third baseman Kanki seemed to field it well, but he slipped, allowing another run and making the score 4-2.

Keio had a good game at the plate with five hits, including two triples off Bushnell, but fielding blunders cost it the game.

Off the diamond, the Hawaiians had a great time in Japan, and were impressed with Japanese hospitality. For some players it was their first time to see snow, and they asked what the white thing on the top of Mt. Fuji was.21 Captain Pat Gleason exclaimed, “Totally unexpected!” when he saw Tokyo’s modem infrastructure, including its advanced railroad system.22 Pitcher Leslie wrote to his father back in Hawaii: “We are being treated splendidly here by the Japanese. They are the most polite people that you could find anywhere. The food is simply grand, and for fruits it beats Honolulu all to pieces.”23

Game 4: On Sunday, November 10, the St. Louis players went out to enjoy sightseeing in Yokohama, and got to the ball field just five minutes before game time. Tokyo Asahi Shimbun thought the team’s tardiness “was because they took Waseda lightly.”24 Without warming up, the Hawaiians had an easy victory over Waseda, 4-0, behind Leslie’s second consecutive one-hit shutout. Leslie cruised through nine innings, fanning 13 batters, at least one in every inning, and allowing two walks and a hit-by-pitch besides a single. High-school second-grader Kanji Kunieda, who was in the stands, remembered the superb pitching: “Leslie was a big man. His arm was as big as my thigh. He used his whole body to throw fire balls. They were blindingly fast.”25

After four games, it was obvious that St. Louis was superior to the Japanese collegians in pitching and batting. The Japan Times said: “The only thing that puts Keio and Waseda on the same level as St. Louis is their fielding,” and predicted, “From now on who would win is obvious.”26

Game 5: St. Louis blanked Keio, 4-0, despite Keio’s enthusiastic play.

Game 6: St. Louis beat Keio by a large margin, 10-1. “It was not a baseball game, but it was rather a teaching session,” reported the Chuo Shimbun.27

It was cloudy and chilly, but a good day for baseball. However, the number of spectators was not even half of that at the previous games. “Those who already knew what the Hawaii team was capable of must have felt uncomfortable watching their country men beaten, as Keio is no longer a match for the Hawaii team,” the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun commented.28

Game 7: On November 16, St. Louis played its third and last game against Waseda. Waseda put up a good fight compared with its previous two games. Future Japanese Hall of Famer Atsushi Kono pitched well, and Waseda had seven hits off Bushnell. Still Waseda fielding errors resulted in a crushing defeat, 9-2.

As Waseda and Keio were no match for the Hawaiian team, the Japanese not surprisingly theorized that the results were due to the obvious difference between collegians and semipros.29

On November 17, the fifth and final game against the Keio team was rained out and was rescheduled for the next day. In the evening Keio University held a farewell party for the Hawaii players.

Game 8: Keio shuffled its starting lineup for the first time with Mango Koyama pitching and three new players in the outfield. On the surface, the changes seemed to have worked, because Keio won the close contest over St. Louis, 5-4.

Keio led the game, 5-0, in the top of the fifth. In the bottom of the inning, St. Louis scored three runs on Jones’s triple and third baseman Kanki’s error. “It was the first and last time the St. Louis players were taking the game seriously,” noted the Miyako Shimbun30

The smallest crowd in the St. Louis series in occasional rain saw a number of lackluster performances by the Hawaiian players. Good defensive fielders Evers and Lo On made a few errors, catcher Soares allowed a passed ball, and the whole team suffered a slump in hitting.

Tokyo newspapers pointed out St. Louis’ fishy plays:31

• In the first inning, center fielder En Sue mis- played a routine fly ball. The error resulted in two runs for Keio.
• In the second, left fielder Manpei Kameyama hit a grounder to second. Second sacker Lo On fielded and threw to first. But first baseman Leslie failed to catch it. The error led to two runs.
• In the fifth with two outs, Evers muffed an easy grounder, resulting in two runs for Keio.
• Leslie was on third with one out in the ninth. Jones hit a fly ball to left, enough for a sacrifice, but Leslie did not tag up.

The Miyako Shimbun took a step forward to use the expression of “sluggish plays like throwing the game,” and criticized St. Louis, saying, “It was a disgrace to Keio and an insult to Japanese baseball.”32 Another newspaper inferred the reason: “As expected from a [semi-] professional baseball team, they let Keio carry the flowers in the last game and paid their respect to their host before leaving for home.”33 Of course Captain Gleason denied the charge on their two losses: “I give you my word that we lost it by their playing better on those days.”34

Manager Ito, who was blamed for throwing the game for his alma mater’s honor, disclosed the inside story. “Seventy people from Keio and Waseda Universities gathered at the party the previous night. Leslie and Soares loved to drink. They toasted with every one of the attendees there. Around two o’clock in the morning, I got a phone call from a policeman, saying two foreigners were stuck in the ditch in Shiba Park. I rushed to the scene and fetched the two awfully drunken men. However the battery of Leslie and Soares appealed to us to start the final game against Keio University, because with Leslie pitching and Soares catching, the Hawaii team had lost Game 1 to Keio. We had some anxiety, but we let them start. As feared, the game went like we expected.”35

After the eight-game series in Tokyo, on November 19 the St. Louis team moved on to Yokohama for a doubleheader.

Game 9: In the opener, the Hawaiian team pounded McChesney’s YC&AC team, 18-0. Bushnell struck out 11 batters, allowing only three hits to the Yokohama Americans. The YC&AC team, a good competitor with Waseda and Keio, was beaten by a large margin. It showed that the Tokyo teams had not had an opportunity to play against faster clubs before St. Louis. The second game of the day, between the Hawaiian team and the local Yokohama Commercial School team, could not continue after four innings due to darkness.

The next day, a party of 250 people from Keio and Waseda Universities and baseball circles gathered to see the St. Louis players off at Yokohama port. The team left on the America Maru for Honolulu with a record of seven wins and two losses.

The St. Louis aggregation, as the first foreign baseball team to invade Japan, elevated Japanese baseball to a new stage. Their splendid hitting, fast fielding, and inside plays were all revelations to Japanese players.

Isoo Abe, later dubbed the Dean of Scholastic Baseball, confessed after the series, “It will take another decade for Japanese baseball to catch up with the St. Louis team. The team was too strong for us to play against.”36 However, he said it was an invaluable opportunity for Japanese baseball: “The fact that we were able to put up a good fight against such a strong opponent was not a failure but a success, I believe.”37

Abe never failed to show rivals the utmost courtesy, saying, “I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Keio University for making the baseball world more exciting this fall.”38 Keio seemed to have made it even with Waseda in the hierarchy of Japanese baseball; however, the St. Louis series didn’t promote reconciliation between the two schools. It would take 18 more years for the Sokei-sen to resume on the field.

YOICHI NAGATA, a 41-year SABR member, has published books on Japanese-American outfielder Jimmy Horio, the 1935 Tokyo Giants’ tour of North America, baseball at the World War II Japanese American camps in Arkansas, and others. He is still working on a history of baseball in Hawaii. When he worked at a sushi restaurant in Philadelphia in the early 1980s, Steve Carlton was a regular customer. Since then, he has been a fan of Lefty and the Phillies. He is also a fan of the now defunct Nishitetsu Lions of Fukuoka, Japan, the team he grew up with.

 

 

NOTES

1 Suejiro Ito, “Memories of My Baseball Life Part 2,” Shin Aichi Shimbun, February 15, 1936: 4.

2 “Waseda University Baseball Club to the Keio University Baseball Club,” Letter dated November 5, 1903. Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Tokyo.

3 Suishu (Chujun) Tobita, ed., Waseda Daigaku Yakyubushi (Tokyo: Tomon Club, 1925), 59-60.

4 Yoichi Nagata, Why Wasn’t Babe Ruth Able to Hit a Home Run at Koshien Stadium? (Osaka: Toho Shuppan, 2019), 7-24.

5 Ito.

6 Honolulu newspapers called the team the St. Louis baseball team, the St. Louis College team, the St. Louis alumni baseball team, or the St. Louis Saints.

7 “Baseball Team May Go Today,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 16, 1907: 3.

8 “St. Louis Team May Go to Japan,” Hawaiian , August 22, 1907: 6.

9 “Ball Team Trip to Japan Settled,” Hawaiian , August 22, 1907: 5.

10 “Big Game Between Hawaii and Keio,” ‘Yokohama Boeki Shimpo, November 1, 1907: 3.

11 “Rare Baseball Team Comes to Tokyo,”Mainichi Dempo, October 28, 1907: 3.

12 Suishu (Chujun) Tobita, “Memoir of Baseball: Visits of Foreign Teams,” Baseball Magazine 9, no. 6 (June 1954): 114.

13 “Historical Weather Data,” Japan Meteorological Agency of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, http//www.data.jma.go.jp/obd/stats/etm/view/daily, accessed November 7, 2021.

14 “Detailed Report of the Visiting Team,” Yamato Shimbun October 29, 1907: 3.

15 Kanji Kunieda, “Baseball Memories: Invasion of the Hawaii Team,” Shukan Shokugyo Yakyu, June 4, 1949: 4.

16 “Fierce Battle Between Keio and Shimbun, November 1, 1907: 5.

17 “Keio Players View of Hawaiian Players,” Mainichi Dempo, November 1, 1907: 3.

18 “Manager Ito Talks Big” Mainichi Dempo, November 1, 1907: 6.

19 “Miscellaneous Impressions of the First Game Between Hawaii and Waseda,” Yomiuri Shimbun, November 9, 1907: 3.

20 “Waseda Beaten,” Kokumin Shimbun, November 9, 1907: 4.

21 “Rare Baseball Team Comes to Tokyo.”

22 Ito.

23 “Japanese Are Good Hosts,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 20, 1907: 5.

24 “Hawaii Players and Our Baseball,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, November 12, 1907: 4.

25 Kunieda.

26 “International Baseball: Keio’s Second Defeat,” Japan Times, November 13, 1907: 3.

27 “World of Sports,” Chuo Shimbun, November 15, 1907: 3.

28 “Baseball Competition Between St. Louis and Keio,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, November 15, 1907: 4.

29 “Review of Keio-Hawaii Game,” Tokyo Mainichi Shimbun, November 16, 1907: 5.

30 “Keio vs. St. Louis: Final Game,”Mzyako Shimbun, November 19, 1907: 5.

31 “St. Louis Loses to Keio by a Run,” Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun November 19, 1907: 4; “Keio vs. St. Louis: Final Game,” 5; “Keio Wins the Final Game,” Chuo Shimbun, November 19, 1907: 3.

32 “Keio vs. St. Louis: Final Game.”

33 “Surprising Victory,” Kokumin Shimbun, November 19, 1907: 5.

34 “Saint Louis Team Will Play: Dividing Ball Game Receipts,” Hawaiian Star, November 30, 1907: 1.

35 Suejiro Ito, “Memories of My Baseball Life Part 2,” Shin Aichi Shimbun February 17, 1936: 6.

36 Isoo Abe, “Review of the Hawaii Baseball Team,” Undo no Tomo2, no. 11 (November 1907): 3.

37 Abe.

38 Abe.