Throughout my tenure as Commissioner of Baseball, I often said that baseball was a social institution with important social responsibilities. In that context, I would mention Jackie Robinson’s entry into major-league baseball on April 15, 1947, which forever ended the game’s racial barrier, as, perhaps, baseball’s proudest and most defining moment. But baseball, as a social institution, is not limited only to national interests. I have always believed it also is in the game’s best interest to serve the sport and expand its fan interest throughout the world.

Baseball’s long and rich history in Japan dates back more than 150 years—to the 1870s—when American visitors played the first game there. In 1872 an American educator, Horace Wilson, introduced baseball to his Japanese students in Tokyo, which led to the founding of the first Japanese baseball team, the Shinbashi Athletic Club in 1878. By the early part of the twentieth century, baseball was being played in schools throughout the country and had become Japan’s most popular sport. Baseball had become a pastime enjoyed by the people of two completely different cultures.

Early in the twentieth century there were numerous goodwill tours featuring American teams from all levels—college, professional, semi-pro, Negro Leagues and Japanese American—against Japanese players that took place in both countries. But the most famous tour surely was the one that US major leaguers made to Japan after the 1934 World Series. The All-American team included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, and others. They played 18 games in 12 cities against Japanese competition over four weeks. It was a huge success even though at the start there was skepticism among some people in both countries because of the conflicts that were brewing in the 1930s.

But Babe Ruth and company were a sensation. News reports in Japan estimate that a half-million Japanese cheered the players as they rode through Tokyo in a motorcade upon entering the city. The Japanese fans warmly welcomed all the American players, but Ruth was the big hero. They chanted “Banzai Babe Ruth!” whenever he appeared on the field or anywhere in public. The tour produced competitive games and the performances of their own players produced great national pride. It also led to the formation of the Japanese professional baseball league two years later. However, whatever goodwill the 1934 All-Americans tour generated between the two countries would come to an end several years later.

After World War II baseball resumed in Japan and once again the sport became wildly popular. There were a few US tours along the way, including one by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s. But it wasn’t until 1986 that the National and American Leagues began their all-star tours of Japan, sending a delegation to play against their Japanese counterparts every other year.

During my commissionership, I envisioned a greater global opportunity to expand the game and its influence in Japan as well as in other foreign destinations by playing regular-season games and even opening the season overseas. At first we stayed close to home. At the urging of the San Diego Padres, we held a three-game series between the New York Mets and San Diego Padres in Monterrey, Mexico, in August 1993 and we opened the 1999 season—again in Monterrey—with a game between the Padres and Colorado Rockies. While these events were certainly successful, they did not draw the kinds of crowds we did in Tokyo for four season openers during my term as Baseball Commissioner in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012.

The 2000 series was especially memorable. On March 29 and 30, at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, two teams—the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs—for the first time in major-league baseball history played regular-season games overseas. Each team won a game before massive crowds of 55,000 fans for each game.

The next season opener in Japan, in 2004, was equally memorable but for a different reason. This two-game series, between Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees, featured Japanese star Hideki Matsui, who had played in the Tokyo Dome for the Yomiuri Giants of the Nippon Professional Baseball League and, at this time, played in the Yankees outfield. The fans, of course, went crazy over Matsui and he rewarded them with a two-run home run in the second game, which was won by New York. The teams split the series. Each game drew a sold-out crowd of55,000.

Matsui wasn’t the only Japanese star to return home and play an opening series for a US major-league team. Four years later, in late March of 2008, Daisuke Matsuzaka, who had played for the Seibu Lions of the NPB two years before, started for the Boston Red Sox in the first game against the Oakland A’s. Matsuzaka pitched five strong innings. The Red Sox won the game in extra innings and Hideki Okajima, who also had joined the Red Sox from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league, picked up the win in relief.

And then, another four years later, in 2012, Seattle opened the season at the Tokyo Dome against Oakland along with its All-Star outfielder and Japanese legend Ichiro Suzuki, who was beginning his 12th season with the Mariners. Ichiro had been a great player in Japan with the Orix Blue Wave in the NPB and continued his greatness with the Mariners. He had four hits and an RBI in the first game, while Oakland won the second game.

The other Opening Games played overseas during my tenure took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2001 and in Sydney, Australia, in 2014.

Another global adventure MLB launched was the World Baseball Classic in partnership with the Major League Baseball Players Association. The agreement, which was to allow the participation of major leaguers, set the stage for an international baseball tournament to be played every four years. MLB players could play for a foreign team as well as for the US team. Japanese baseball played a key role in the Classic. Not only did Japan host games in each of the four tournaments but it won the first two tournament titles. Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka both played for Japan during those two tournaments and both times Matsuzaka was named the World Baseball Classic Most Valuable Player.

Suzuki, Matsuzaka, and Matsui were not the only Japanese players to make an impact. More than 60 Japanese-born players have played in US major-league baseball over the years, beginning with Masanori Murakami, who pitched for the San Francisco Giants toward the end of the 1964 season and through the next season. But it took another 30 years before Hideo Nomo signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers and became the second Japanese player. Nomo was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1995 and threw two no-hitters during his 12-year US career.

Ichiro Suzuki, of course, had a stellar 19-year career and, I believe, will surely make the Hall of Fame. Besides accumulating a lifetime .311 batting average and accumulating more than 3,000 hits after transitioning from nine years in the Japan Pacific League, he too was a Rookie of the Year in addition to being named the 2001 American League Most Valuable Player during his first season.

And at present there is Shohei Ohtani who entered the major leagues with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018 as the first bona fide hitter/pitcher since Babe Ruth. He was the American League’s Rookie of the Year and in 2021 was the unanimous choice for the AL Most Valuable Player Award. In 2021 he was the first player in baseball history to play in the All-Star Game as both a hitter and pitcher.

Baseball in Japan has come a long way over the last 150 years and much of its success, if not all of it, can be attributed to “Baseball’s Bridge Across the Pacific,” beginning with that first game played in Yokohama between American residents and visiting crew members on board the USS Colorado as well as American teacher Horace Wilson, who introduced the game to his students, all the way to the present, when Angels outfielder-pitcher Shohei Ohtani, a native of Japan, is on the top tier of American baseball.

ALLAN H. “BUD” SELIG was the ninth commissioner of baseball, a position he held for 22 years, and is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In his current role as commissioner emeritus, Selig advises the commissioner and contributes to many special projects. Prior to his work as the commissioner, Selig served as the chairman of Major League Baseball’s Executive Council. Selig’s memoir, For the Good of the Game, was published by HarperCollins in July 2019. Selig has been recognized for his great work in baseball and philanthropy. His many awards include the Jackie Robinson Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Taylor Hooton Foundation’s inaugural Taylor Award, the Green Sports Alliance’s Environmental Leadership Award, B’nai B’rith International’s Distinguished Humanitarian Award; the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Chairman’s Award, the New York Baseball Writers’ William J. Slocum/Jack Lang Award, and the St. Louis Baseball Writers’ “Red Award.” The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum unveiled the Allan H. “Bud” Selig Center for the Archives of Major League Baseball Commissioners, a permanent research space within the halls of Cooperstown, dedicated in his honor. In October 2014, he was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. Bud attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been honored by having numerous scholarships named after him. He taught at Marquette University’s Law School and currently teaches at Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He and his wife, Sue, have three daughters, five grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

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.

1908 University of Washington and Waseda teams. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

Links between Japan and the Seattle area are nothing new. They were first forged in the late nineteenth century when Japanese began immigrating to the Pacific Northwest, and they’ve strengthened over the years. One of the consequential connections has been baseball.

In 1905 a team from Japan’s Waseda University toured the American West Coast and played against various US teams. That led to a trip to Japan three years later by a group of a dozen University of Washington players, and those two journeys set the stage for frequent travels by Japanese and Seattle teams. The 1914 Seattle Nippon was the first Japanese American club to go to Japan, and the 1921 Suquamish Tribe became the first Native American team to do so. Teams from the University of Washington also made trips to Japan in 1913, 1921, and 1926 (and then returned 55 years later, in 1981). Before World War II, 13 clubs from the Pacific Northwest traveled to Japan, and about a dozen Japanese university teams made the reverse trip.1 The 1908 University of Washington tour was the first US collegiate tour of Japan and the first by a mainland US team. It was made possible by arrangements completed by Professor Isoo Abe, a Japanese college athletic instructor who had been the driver behind Waseda’s trip to the United States in 1905.2 Professor Abe—known in Japan as the “Father of University Baseball”—had been impressed by the hospitality shown by the University of Washington and the Seattle residents during the 1905 visit. In addition, the University of Washington had accepted the largest number of Japanese students in the United States at the time and was familiar to the Japanese people.3

Abe had persuaded his university to subsidize the 1905 tour, despite the fact that Japan was fighting a war with Russia at the time.4 Baseball historian Kerry Yo Nakagawa said, “From a baseball standpoint, [Waseda was] the best team in Japan, and they wanted to test the water of American baseball at the university level. They wanted to dissect the American game, use it as a laboratory to learn.”5

Three years later, that still held true, and Waseda invited the University of Washington to come to Japan. Washington did not send its official team, but all 11 players making the trip had played for the Huskies and were from the state of Washington. They included first baseman Webster Hoover of Everett, pitcher Huber Grimm of Centralia, right fielder Byron Reser of Walla Walla, second baseman Arthur Hammerlund of Spokane, catcher Roy Brown and pitcher Earle Brown of Bellingham, third baseman Ralph Teats and center fielder Leo Teats of Tacoma, and shortstop Walter Meagher, pitcher Ed Hughes, and left fielder Percy Logerlof of Seattle. Howard Gillette managed the team.6

The team had been scheduled to leave Seattle on September 1. Instead, it left on the vessel Tosa Maru on August 18, and docked in Yokohama on September 3, much earlier than expected and 16 days prior to the first scheduled game, so there were few Japanese there to greet the team. One of the Washington players said they had come earlier to visit attractions that their fellow Japanese students had told them about, and they also wanted to have time to prepare since they knew that the Keio team had played well during a recent tour of Hawaii.7

Game 1 was scheduled for September 19, and the buildup began immediately.

The Jiji Shinpo newspaper wrote, “We usually think that most American baseball teams are professional teams. However, they are college students and do not play baseball for money. Probably because of that, those twelve men are very graceful youngsters with high spirits. They wore fine suits and a golden ring with a diamond and looked very handsome.” The newspaper also rated the University of Washington as the third-best college team in the United States behind Yale and Harvard, though the source of that rating is unknown.8

Some 2,000 spectators watched Washington’s first practice. The Tokyo Asahi Shinbun wrote that the practice “drew more spectators than some official games,” adding that “since [the Washington players] have been training hard in baseball’s mother country, their movements in fielding practice were very steady and also dynamic.”9

Writing in the 1910 university yearbook, the Tyee, shortstop Walter Meagher said the players were surprised to see so many people at the initial practice. “We were so stage-struck that we didn’t practice as long as we intended. Soon, however, we got so used to the crowds that we were disappointed if they did not come.”10

Ticket prices ranged from 20 sen to 50 sen (a currency demonetized at the end of 1953) and were sold at seven locations in Tokyo.11 A sen was worth one one-hundredth of a yen. Between 1897 and December 1931, the yen’s value was frozen at 50 US cents. Therefore, the most expensive tickets cost a half-yen, or 25 US cents. Though the Japan Times called the 50-sen cost “a large sum” in one article,12 it also said that “those interested in the sport would not afford to miss such a fine treat, and we hope that the days will be favoured with beautiful weather.”13

The Japan Times also reported that “[u]ncommon interest is aroused by the baseball match to be played on the Waseda ground between Waseda and [the] Washington University team. Tickets for spectators have been issued to the number of 15,000 for that day; still the number is considered inadequate to meet the demand.”14 Even “the Americans resident in Yokohama will come up to town by a special train to Mejiro to see the baseball game at Waseda. They will root for the Washington team.”15

Poor weather unfortunately kept many fans away when the series got under way on September 19, but many people—variously reported as 6,000 or 7,000—showed up despite clouds and drizzling rain. They saw Washington rally with three runs in the eighth inning to overcome a 2-1 deficit and win 4-2.

Washington got a run-scoring triple by center fielder Leo Teats, an RBI single by Reser, and an error by Waseda left fielder Moriichi Nishio. The visitors’ other run had come in the third inning when Webster Hoover scored on a passed ball by Masaharu Yamawaki. Takeshi Iseda’s third-inning sacrifice bunt and Yamawaki’s single in the sixth that scored Iseda accounted for Waseda’s two runs.16

According to the Seattle Daily Times, “Captain Edward F. Hughes, of the U of W team” wrote that “Washington won … but had to keep moving all the time. The University only obtained three hits off the Waseda pitcher and these came in a bunch in the same inning, netting three runs. The Nipponese were lightning fast on their feet and are accurate fielders.”17

A reporter for the Jiji Shinpo overheard two students talking after the first game. One said that Washington had lost badly to the University of Santa Clara, which had easily defeated Keio in an exhibition game. “Now I understand why they didn’t play as well as we expected. … They are not as good as St. Louis [the Hawaiian semipro team that had toured Japan in 1907], for sure. The Waseda team will win the next game.”18

He was right.

Game 2 was scheduled for the next day, but heavy rain forced its postponement to September 23. When the game finally commenced, Washington scored single runs in the third and fifth innings, while Waseda got one in the fourth, so the Huskies carried a 2-1 advantage into the last half of the eighth inning. Then Waseda broke through with five runs en route to a 6-3 victory. The hosts scored once on a bases-loaded error by UW first baseman Hoover, a two-run single by Kinichiro Shishiuchi, and two more on a throwing error by shortstop Meagher.

The Japan Times observed, “One fault of the American boys is that they become easily confused when the game is unfavorable to them. But they have many strong points. They talk boisterously when in the field, while Waseda boys are very silent. Keio boys are said to imitate the American players in this noisy talking, but we rather think the Japanese method is more becoming to the Japanese.”19

Game 3 of the series matched Washington against Keio on September 26 and was “an interesting game” before “a large assembly of spectators,” according to the Japan Times. Each team scored a run in the first inning. Eizo Kanki’s fly out for Keio scored Katsumaro Sasaki, and the Huskies countered with Grimm’s double that drove home Hoover. Keio went ahead 2-1 in the fourth inning when Kanki stole home—or, as the Japan Times story put it, “Kanki made an adventure and got home.” The article further revealed that “Washington made strenuous efforts to recover arrears, but their efforts were frustrated by the excellent fielding of Keio. … The game closed with 2 to 1 in favour of Keio.”20

Game 4 the following day again matched Washington and Keio, and it was the polar opposite of the previous day’s low-scoring affair. This time, Keio took a 6-1 lead after four innings and then scored five more runs in the fifth inning en route to a 14-3 victory. Nenosuke Fukuda, Yokote, Katsu, Sasaki, and Tokuichi Takahama all scored in Keio’s decisive fifth-inning outburst.21

The Japan Times reported, however, that the “Washington boys … endured the defeat with good grace and admirable fortitude. Pitcher Grimm when deposed to center went thither with quite amiable good humour. The sympathy of all spectators were with the vanquished and they often cheered for them.”22

By then standing 1-3 on its tour, the Washington team had a four-day break before playing its next game, against the Yokohama Cricket & Athletic Club, a team made up of Americans, on October 1. Each team scored twice in the first inning, but Washington took control with a three-run third inning, as Leo Teats, Grimm, and Meagher crossed the plate. Yokohama got a run in the sixth inning, and UW scored once in the seventh to account for the final 6-3 score. The Japan Times wrote that the “game was perhaps the best ever played in Yokohama.”23

Two days later came a rematch between Washington and Waseda, with the Huskies taking a 4-1 victory to even their record on the trip at 3-3. Hoover, Leo Teats, and Meagher scored in the fourth inning for Washington, and Hammerlund crossed the plate in the seventh. Yamawaki scored Waseda’s only run in the fourth inning. In contrast to its coverage of previous games, the Japan Times printed only a one-paragraph story about this game and reported that “Waseda batters were remarkably idle.”24

The next day Washington again played Keio and again lost, this time by 3-2, making the Huskies 0-3 against Keio on the tour. Kanki, Denji Murakami, and Ryokichi Sawahara scored for Keio in the first, fourth, and seventh innings, respectively. Hoover singled and later scored for UW in the sixth inning. In the ninth, he tripled and later came across to pull his team to within one run, but the Huskies could get no closer.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted that Keio was a “stumbling block” for the “tourists. … The Keio players had returned home from a ballplaying tour of the Hawaiian Islands and were in perfect training. The Washington players entered the games stale and out of shape from climactic conditions.” Team manager Gillette was quoted as saying, “Our pitchers were considerably distressed by bad arms throughout all our stay in Japan, but … there was not a game in which we did not get more hits than our opponents.” (Keio actually outhit Washington twice.)25

A day later, UW took a 4-1 victory over the Yokohama Commercial School, as Hoover and Grimm scored first-inning runs, Ralph Teats crossed the plate in the fourth, and Meagher came across in the fifth.

On October 7 Washington and Waseda again played, with UW winning 5-3 in 15 innings. Washington opened with a run in the first inning. Waseda scored twice in the second inning to take a 2-1 lead, but UW tied the game in the fourth inning. The score remained tied, 2-2, until each team scored a run in the 12th. Washington finally got the game-winning runs when Ralph Teats and Hoover crossed the plate in the 15th inning. According to the 1910 University of Washington yearbook, the Tyee, “Meagher described the victory as the best game ever played in Japan.”26

The Washington team concluded its 10-game tour on October 9 with a 14-5 victory over the Yokohama Cricket & Athletic Club. Yokohama scored four runs in the first inning to take a 4-0 lead, but UW scored three times in the second inning, once each in the third, fifth, and sixth, and then twice in the seventh for an 8-4 advantage. Then came a six-run rally in the eighth inning that put the game out of Yokohama’s reach. Ralph Teats, Hoover, Leo Teats, Meagher, Reser, and Roy Brown all scored for Washington in the decisive inning.

The Washington team began its 15-day trip home on October 10. As reported by the Japan Times, “The baseball team from the University of Washington … who has given such a splendid series of baseball games in Tokyo and Yokohama[,] left Yokohama for home by the … steamer Tosa Maru yesterday. … Teams from Waseda and Keio Universities … and others saw the party off. The Washington boys looked very brilliant and happy in their school uniform. When the ship was to weigh anchor, Waseda and Keio college yells were given, and [the] Washington team replied with their college yell. The ship sailed amid hearty wishes of bon voyage of the home teams.”27

In his master’s thesis, “Seattle and the Japanese- United States Baseball Connection, 1905-1926,” Ryoichi Shibazaki writes that “when Ichiko defeated the Yokohama Athletic Club in 1896, the Japanese people took it as the victory of the Japanese over Americans, rather than a simple win in baseball. In so doing, the Americans were treated like the enemy by the Japanese media. However, the Japanese people and media treated the Washington team fairly and warmly. … [I]t suggests that the Japanese people had adjusted to the Western culture fairly well by that time and could abandon the hostile feeling toward the American people who were often treated as ‘invaders’ a decade before.”28

Indeed, between their arrival and their first game, the Washington players were squired around Tokyo and visited temple sites, attended a theater performance, and met politicians. “We were royally entertained by Count Okuma, the great Japanese diplomat [and founder of Waseda University], who showed us about his garden and magnificent mansion,” Meagher wrote in the school’s yearbook.29

The trip was considered a rousing success. It was said that the total attendance for the 10 games was 70,000, and the attendance for the first game—variously reported as either 6,000 or 7,000—came despite the drizzling rain much of the time.30 Reportedly, crowds of 9,000 people showed up for two of the games with Waseda.31

“We arrived home Oct. 25, all in good health and feeling we had one of the greatest trips that any college team had ever taken,” Meagher concluded.32

Gillette, the Washington manager, said, “The Japanese boys played better ball than we thought they would, and our work was hardly up to standard. The Japanese players proved the shiftiest men on their feet I have ever seen on a baseball diamond, and their fielding was probably superior to that of the average American amateurs.”33

In the same article, the Seattle Evening Star fully acknowledged the Japanese baseball prowess, though in a manner that indicated Americans’ prevailing attitude at the time toward Asians and Japanese in particular—“It is an indication of the Jap’s adaptability that he defeated the Americans four times out of ten. He simply beat the Americans at their own game.”

Gillette added, “Our reception by the Japanese from the hour we left Seattle could not have been more cordial. Every detail and arrangement was carried out harmoniously and the cordiality provided makes us all feel that Japan’s ball players and their loyal fans constitute sportsmen to emulate.”34

An article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that “the entire press of Japan treated the visit of the American ballplayers as the one big athletic incident of the year.” There was “intense interest … and every detail of the game was studied with care.” The story added that “the spirit of fairness … was the subject for favorable remark by each of the returning players,” and it also said that “from the standpoint of closer athletic relations with Japan, the trip is reported as peculiarly successful.”35

Okuma, the Japanese diplomat, “gave a dinner at which he delivered an address highly commending the spirit of athletics and expressing a wish for an extension of the tests of skill between his people and Americans.”36

Meagher, the team’s shortstop, wrote that “We … took a short trip to Nikko, the great temple site of Japan. … This was one of the finest visits we had while in Japan. … We attended a Japanese theatre a few nights afterwards. … Ushers conducted us to chairs in the first balcony, prepared especially for us. We could not understand much about the play, but the acting and scenery interested us a great deal.”37

Shibazaki wrote that while the impact of the UW tour “on Japanese baseball, culture, and politics was almost invisible,” it did “set a precedent for other American colleges such as the University of Wisconsin, University of Chicago and Stanford University.” Teams from those schools, as well as the University of Washington, visited Japan in later years “and became main figures in the Japanese-United States baseball connection during this decade.”38 Additionally, since the 1908 tour, bonds between UW and the Waseda and Keio universities have steadily grown. There are currently four programmatic relationships between Washington and Waseda.39 As well, Washington and Keio have “inclusive exchange programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. For many years, comprehensive agreements between the Universities’ Schools of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Law have enabled the institutions to work together in teaching and research.”40

CARTER CROMWELL is a former sportswriter for daily newspapers and a corporate public-relations professional. He works with an independent-league baseball team and contributes baseball-related articles to various websites. When not doing that, he has a passion for world travel, photography, and rescue dogs.

 

 

NOTES

1 John Rosapepe, “A Pastime with a Past,” Seattle Times, March 20, 2003. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20030320&slug=japan2o; Columns Staff, “Husky Baseball Is No Stranger to Globetrotting,” University of Washington Magazine, March 1, 2019. https://magazine.washington.edu/husky-baseball-is-no-stranger-to-globetrotting/.

2 “University Boys Tell of Japan’s Baseball Spirit,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 26, 1908: 1.

3 Ryoichi Shibazaki, “Seattle and the Japanese-United States Baseball Connection, 1905-1926,” Master of Science Thesis, University of Washington, 1981, 40-41.

4 Robert K. Fitts, “Baseball and the Yellow Peril: Waseda University’s 1905 American Tour,” Baseball 10 (2018): 141-159.

5 Rosapepe.

6 Walter Meagher, “The Japan Trip,” The 1910 Tyee of the University of Washington (Seattle: University of Washington, 1910), 148.

7 Shibazaki, 41.

8 Shibazaki, 42.

9 Shibazaki, 42.

10 Meagher, 146.

11 Shibazaki,43.

12 “Baseball at Waseda: Initial Victory for Washington,” Japan Times, September 20, 1908: 2.

13 “Baseball Match Between Washington and Waseda Teams,” Japan Times, September 16, 1908: 3.

14 “Waseda Baseball Display,” Japan Times, September 18, 1908: 6.

15 “Baseball,” Japan Times, September 19, 1908: 3.

16 “Baseball at Waseda: Initial Victory for Washington.”

17 “Washington Takes First Game,” Seattle Daily Times, October 12, 1908: 11.

18 Shibazaki,44.

19 “Waseda Baseball: Collapse of Visitors,” Japan Times, September 25, 1908: 6.

20 “Baseball at Waseda: Keio Defeats Washington,” Japan Times, September 27, 1908: 2.

21 Yokote’s and Katsu’s first names are unknown.

22 “Keio-Washington Baseball: Washington’s Disasters,” Japan Times, September 29, 1908: 6.

23 “Baseball at Yokohama,” Japan Tim, October 2, 1908: 2.

24 “Waseda Baseball,” Japan Times, October 4, 1908: 6.

25 “University Boys Tell of Japan’s Baseball Spirit,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 26, 1908: 1.

26 Columns Staff.

27 “Washington Baseball Team: Departure from Yokohama,” Japan Times, October 11, 1908: 2.

28 Shibazaki, 44-45.

29 Meagher, 148.

30 “Japanese Teams Defeat Americans,” Seattle Evening Star, November 2, 1908: 13.

31 “University Boys Tell of Japan’s Baseball Spirit.”

32 Rosapepe.

33 “Japanese Teams Defeat Americans.”

34 “Japanese Teams Defeat Americans.”

35 “University Boys Tell of Japan’s Baseball Spirit.”

36 “University Boys Tell of Japan’s Baseball Spirit.”

37 Meagher, 146.

38 Shibazaki, 45.

39 “Connections between the UW and Waseda University” Japan Studies Program, University of Washington, February 17, 2017: https://jsis.washington.edu/japan/news/connections-uw-waseda-university/.

40 “Japan’s Keio University and the University of Washington Launch a Dual Masters Law Program,” Asia Matters for America, June 13, 2017: https://medium.com/asia-matters-for-america/japans-keio-university-and-the-uni-versity-of-washington-launch-a-dual-masters-law-program-aoa7ic339d9.

1908 Reach All-Americans with Mike Fisher (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

The “King of Baseball” was on the prowl for a new opportunity. Mike Fisher, known by everybody as Mique, was a bom promoter and bom self-promoter. He was a risk taker, tackling daunting projects with enthusiasm and usually succeeding. He was the quintessential late-nineteenth-century American man; through hard work and gumption this son of a poor Jewish immigrant transformed himself into a West Coast baseball magnate.

Bom in New York City in 1862, Fisher grew up in San Francisco. Renowned for his speed, he played baseball in the California League during the 1880s before an industrial accident in March 1889 damaged his left hand and sidelined his career. Fisher soon became a policeman in Sacramento, rising to the rank of detective. During his time away from the game, he put on weight and by 1903 was a repeat champion in the fat men’s races held at local fairs.

In February 1902, a new opportunity presented itself when the California League offered Fisher the Sacramento franchise. Fisher pounced on it. In December 1902, the league transformed into the Pacific Coast League, but within a year Fisher relocated his franchise to Tacoma, Washington. Hampered by poor attendance, despite winning the 1904 championship, Fisher sold his share in the team but stayed on as manager as the franchise moved to Fresno in 1906. But his stay in Fresno was short as he left the team after the 1906 season. Without a franchise, Fisher turned to promoting and, in the fall of 1907, took a squad of PCL all-stars to Hawaii.1

“So pleased is Mike Fisher with the reception that his team has met with here,” reported the Hawaiian Gazette, “that he is already planning for more worlds to conquer. He is now laying his lines for a trip to be made … next year, which will extend farther yet from home. … The plan, as outlined by Fisher, will include a start from San Francisco, with a team composed exclusively of players from the National and American leagues,” and a stop in Hawaii before continuing on to Japan, China, and the Philippines.2 It was the first time an American professional squad headed to the Far East.

By early December 1907, Fisher had teamed up with Honolulu athlete and sports promoter Jesse Woods to organize the trip.3 Woods sent a flurry of letters to Asian clubs to gauge their interest. In February, John Sebree, the president of the Manila Baseball League, responded “that Manila would meet any reasonable expense in order to see some good fast baseball by professional players.”4 In early March, Woods received a letter from the Keio University Baseball Club stating that they would help arrange games in Japan for the American team. The Hawaiian Gazette noted, “This was good news for Woods, who has been in doubt as how such a trip would be received by the Japanese. There has been so much war talk that Woods was afraid that Japanese might refuse to play baseball with us.”5 A letter in early April from T. Matsumura, the captain of the Yokohama Commercial School team, confirmed the enthusiasm for the tour in Japan: “When you visit our country, you would certainly receive a most hearty welcome from our baseball circles.”6 Isoo Abe, the manager of the Waseda University team, added, “We are preparing to give you a grand ovation. We are going to make you feel at home, and we will strive to make your visit to Japan to be one that will linger long in your memories.”7

In late June, Woods sailed for Asia to finalize the details for the tour. The touring team was now known as the Reach All-Americans. With the name change, it is likely that the A.J. Reach Company sponsored the team but despite extensive research, the nature of the sponsorship is unknown.8 Woods’s reports from the Far East were encouraging. “I have all the arrangements made. Forfeit money is up everywhere, and everything is on paper. The team will take in Japanese and Chinese ports and Manila.”9

While Woods was working out the itinerary, Fisher built his roster. As usual, he thought big. It would be “a galaxy of the best players in the country.”10 He began by engaging Jiggs Donahue, the Chicago White Sox’ slick-fielding first baseman, to manage and help recruit the team. “I do not know why Mike Fisher came to me to ask me to get up the team, for I did not know him,” Donahue told a reporter. “I will willingly undertake the work, however, for I believe it will prove to be a grand trip and a success.”11 Donahue quickly recruited fellow Chicagoans Frank Chance, Orval Overall, and Ed Walsh and began working on the leagues’ two biggest stars, Honus Wagner and Napoleon Lajoie. “Both Wagner and Lajoie are said to be enthusiastic over the plan,” reported the Inter Ocean of Chicago, “but cannot decide whether or not they will be able to arrange their affairs in such a way as to make the trip, which will last two or three months.”12 By June, Fisher had added New York Highlanders star Hal Chase, Chicago’s Doc White, and Bill Bums of the Senators. Although Wagner and Lajoie declined the invitation, Fisher’s team received a boost on August 23 when Ty Cobb announced that he would join the tour. The recently married star planned to take his bride on the trip as a honeymoon.

At the last minute, things began to unravel. First, Frank Chance and Ed Walsh decided not to go, then near the end of the major-league season Orval Overall, Doc White, and Jiggs Donahue dropped off the roster. In early September, Hal Chase deserted the Highlanders after a dispute with management and returned to his home in California. With Chase suspended from Organized Baseball, Fisher cut him from the team. The news only got worse.

On October 17, just two weeks before the team’s scheduled departure for the Far East, Ty Cobb announced that his wife was in poor health and that he might not make the trip. A week later Cobb was still undecided. After an appearance at the Georgia State Fair, he told reporters that he might winter in Georgia as “the hunting is a lot better around Royston than in Japan.” On October 27 Cobb officially announced that he would remain home with his ailing wife.13 The true reason for Cobb’s cancellation soon emerged. In mid-October, Cobb had demanded that Fisher pay travel expenses for his wife. Fisher refused. He would pay the players’ travel expenses as agreed but not for their guests. Not happy with the decision, Cobb pulled out of the tour.14

In place of the advertised “galaxy of the best players in the country,” the Reach All-Americans now consisted of four marginal big-leaguers (Jack Bliss, Bill Burns, Jim Delahanty, and Patsy Flaherty) and eight Pacific Coast League players (Joe Curtis, Babe Danzig, Bill Devereaux, Jack Graney, Heinie Heitmuller, George Hildebrand, Harry McArdle, and Nick Williams). On November 3 a large crowd gathered at the Pacific Mail Dock in San Francisco to wish the team luck as they boarded the S.S. China. After a brief stop in Honolulu, where the team played no games, the All-Americans continued to Japan.

The All-Americans were the third US team to play in the Land of the Rising Sun that fall. In September, the University of Washington varsity became the first American college squad to visit the country. The team stayed for five weeks, playing 10 games against Japanese university clubs. A week after the Washington team left Japan, the American Great White Fleet, an armada of 16 battleships designed to display the country’s formidable power but painted white to symbolize peace, arrived in Yokohama. To emphasize shared values, the sailors played a series of nine baseball games against Keio and Waseda Universities. The visitors were no match for the college squads as Keio won all five of its games and Waseda won three of its four games.

The China arrived in Yokohama on Sunday morning, November 22, three days behind schedule. Although a launch packed with dignitaries met the ship before it docked, the elaborate welcoming ceremony was curtailed as the team needed to get to Tokyo for an afternoon game. An 11 A.M. train took the All- Americans to the capital, where they checked into the Imperial Hotel and changed into their gaudy uniforms.

Produced by the A.J. Reach Sporting Company, the uniforms consisted of scarlet blazers with blue bindings and a star on the left sleeve; white pants; white jerseys trimmed in blue with “Reach All Americans” in block letters across the front; and “a shield bearing the stars and stripes on the left arm.” Both the undershirt sleeves and “the stockings were startling productions resembling barbers poles with a series of parallel bands of red, white and blue.”15

The team traveled across town to open their tour against Waseda University, whose team had visited the United States in 1905, playing 26 games against collegiate, amateur, and California State League teams. Eight thousand spectators thronged the small ballpark, which contained no grandstands and only a handful of crude bleachers. Most fans sat on earthen embankments either on elevated platforms where they squatted on cushions or on seats terraced into the little hills.16 Reporter H.L. Baggerly, who accompanied the team on the tour, noticed, “In Japan, baseball is a man’s game exclusively, for as yet I have to see my first native woman in attendance. … We have found the spectators quite as enthusiastic as the Americans. Clever plays are liberally applauded, especially when made by the home club, and the [Japanese] start to root just as soon as they get men on base.17 To the Americans’ surprise, “the Japanese fans divided themselves into equal rooting sections, one side with the Stars and Stripes flying, yelling for the Yankees, and the other, Waseda enthusiasts, with the university pennants waving supreme.”18

As Count Shigenobu Okuma, the university’s founder and a former prime minister, prepared to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, the American pitcher Jack Graney “took his sporting cap and put it on the count’s head, replacing the latter’s silk hat. The count with a smile accepted this and holding the ball in his right hand cast it and it was caught by the catcher. The ceremony being duly ended amidst deafening cheers the game was opened.”19

Graney dazzled the Waseda batters.20 His “swerve and drop were produced in such variety and with such perfection that the batters might well be excused for fanning the air in fruitless efforts to strike the elusive ball.” As a result, “very little hitting was done by the home team. A few ‘flies’ rose into the air and fell into sure and steady hands, and only twice did a Waseda player get onto first base, whilst none of them ever got to second.”21 Although Hiroshi Oi pitched well, limiting the Americans to seven hits, the visitors’ timely hitting led to a comfortable 5-0 victory. The highlight was Heinie Heitmuller’s drive over the center-field fence, believed to be the longest hit made in Japan to that date.22 The friendly game was marred by an argument between an unidentified All-American player and the umpire. Although arguing with umpires had a long and colorful history in the United States, it was nearly unheard of in Japan and was a major breach of etiquette. “This incident, however, smoothed itself out.”23 Despite the loss, the visitors and the press praised the Waseda players for their “grit and ginger.”24

 

Keio’s ace Kazuma Sugase. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

To make up the games missed by their tardy arrival, the All-Americans played a doubleheader on November 23 at the Mita grounds in Tokyo despite frigid temperatures and strong chilling winds. In the morning, they faced the Tokyo Club, an aggregation of graduated stars from Waseda and Keio universities. Several of the players, including pitcher Atsushi Kono, catcher Masaharu Yamawaki, and outfielder Kiyoshi Oshikawa, had played in the United States with the 1905 Waseda team. But the game turned into a mere warm-up as the visiting professionals pounded the former stars, 19-1. Aided by “a hurricane of wind which blew in the batters’ faces,” Babe Danzig “pitched so fast that the batters could do nothing with his shoots. … During this time the American players, through a combination of fourteen hits and eleven errors, ran up [the] score.”25

The main event was the afternoon match against Keio University, Japan’s top squad. During the recent games against Washington University and the Great White Fleet, Keio had swept all eight games. “In spite of the wind and dust,” reported the Japan Times, “the ground was crowded by spectators who numbered over 10,000.”26 “Seldom have I seen such interest in a baseball game in the States,” added Mike Fisher. The fans “had a sneaking idea that their crack team would whip us, and they wanted to see it done.”27

Fisher started his best pitcher, Bill Burns, who 11 years later would be one of the conspirators in the Black Sox Scandal, while Keio countered with Nenosuke Fukuda. The crowd witnessed a thrilling pitching duel. “There was no international courtesy about the game,” wrote B.W. Fleisher in Collier’s Weekly. “The Americans played ball for all they knew how. … Keio managed to hold down the All Americans to 1 to 0 until the eighth inning, neither side making a safe hit until the third.”28 The Americans tacked on two more runs to win 3-0. “They gave us a good fight as the score would indicate,” noted Fisher, “but we won and hope to win every game we play while we are away on this long trip.”29

After this tight game with Keio, the All-Americans were rarely challenged again during their stay in Japan. The next day, November 24, saw a rematch with the Tokyo Club. To make the game more competitive, the two teams swapped batteries. Graney and Nick Williams started for Tokyo while pitcher Denji Murakami and catcher (first name unknown) Yokote played for the Americans. But the swap did not go as planned. Murakami “walked three men in succession, and the Japanese [fans] thought it was intentional,” recalled Fisher. “It looked as if a riot would eventuate for a while. The rooters were calling us all sorts of names—fortunately, we did not understand [what] the crowd was yelling—so we pulled our pitcher out of the box.”30 With the pitchers back on their usual teams, the Americans won comfortably, 11-4.

After three days in Tokyo, the All-Americans moved to Yokohama. Founded in 1858 as a settlement for foreign traders, Yokohama soon grew into a major city with Western institutions including an English- language newspaper, brewery, racetrack, racquet club, and cricket club. By 1871, American residents had formed a baseball team and began playing at the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club. After visiting Japan, tour organizer Jesse Woods recalled, “My first stop was at Yokohama, Japan and I was taken to the Yokohama [Cricket] and Athletic grounds shortly after my arrival. It was a treat for me to find such a beautiful field almost in the center of the city. It is the finest I have ever seen, as far as turf is considered, and can only be compared to a billiard table. This field is surrounded by 1/2-mile bicycle and running track, inside are the cricket, baseball and tennis courts. … Conveniently located is the handsome clubhouse, with every facility that an athlete could desire. Refreshments are always served.”31 The club’s baseball team, consisting solely of foreigners, played a pivotal role in the development of Japanese baseball, when it lost three straight games to the all-Japanese First Higher School (known as Ichiko) in 1896. The victorious schoolboys became national heroes and spurred the spread of the game across Japan.

On November 25 the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club hosted the All-Americans. Nobutaka Mitsuhashi, the mayor of Yokohama, gave a short speech before throwing out the first ball. Although the club’s weekend warriors fought bravely, they “were outplayed from the start” by the visiting professionals and lost 17-1.32

The highlight of the series was the November 26 rematch against Keio University. A large enthusiastic crowd packed the stands at the cricket club. The All- Americans offered Keio a three-run handicap, which the collegians refused. “In consequence,” noted the Japan Times, it “was a spirited game.” Mango Koyama started for Keio and after setting down the Americans in the first, gave up three runs in the second. The All- Americans tacked on three more runs, finishing the game with six. Meanwhile, Bill Burns dominated the Keio hitters, allowing no hits into the eighth inning when Nenosuke Fukuda’s groundball somehow “flew over [the] pitcher and he got [on] first.” Bums walked the next batter before pinch-runner Eizo Kanki was thrown out trying to steal third to end the inning. That would be all for Keio as the Americans cruised to a 6-0 victory in just 1 hour and 15 minutes.33

The next day the All-Americans defeated the city’s other club, the Yokohama Commercial School, 11-0. In Tokyo, on November 28, Patsy Flaherty, starting his first game on the tour, bettered Burns’s performance by throwing a perfect game against Waseda University as the Americans won, 3-0. Strangely, the game was not covered in the English-language newspapers in Japan.

The All-Americans spent the next week in the Tokyo area, splitting their time between the capital and Yokohama, as they continued the series against Keio, Waseda, and the Tokyo Club with a pair of games against each. The Americans won each game comfortably, finishing off Keio 6-0 and 15-2, Waseda 13-2 and 10-0, and Tokyo 8-5 and 3-0.

As the team traveled around Tokyo, the players were stuck by the popularity of America’s national pastime. Bill Devereaux noted, “The first game we played was at Tokyo. It was on a Sunday. To reach the grounds from our hotel we had to drive fully two miles, and on our way we passed several parks and, believe me, there were baseball games between small boys and big in every one of them.”34 “Every college, every high school, every middle school in Japan has its baseball team, and judging by the number of apparently infantile youngsters who sport baseball uniforms in the parks, the primary and kindergarten schools are similarly equipped,” explained reporter Joseph Ohl. Even “Japanese girls take great interest in baseball. They are not much in evidence at the college contests, for these are held within the college enclosers: but there are always many of them watching the games in the parks. They flock by themselves, understand the game and show understanding by discriminate applause. They go to see the game, not to flirt, and they devote their whole attention to what is going on in the field; which may be hard to believe but is nevertheless true.”35

On December 4, the All-Americans left Tokyo by train for Kobe. According to the Morning Union, “Fisher secured a special car for his men, who traveled in all the luxury possible in this country. Everything went along smoothly until lunch. … A Japanese dining car, like the other cars here, is about the size of a chicken coop and the provisions are in proportion to the size of the cars. The players gave the dining car an awful storming at lunch, and after dinner there wasn’t enough food left to feed a sick canary. It was the conductor’s first experience with a bunch of hungry ballplayers, who can eat as no other set of men. As an illustration, Bill Devereaux devoured three orders of ham and eggs and one steak.”36

Their first game in the new city was on December 5 against the Kobe Country Club, a team consisting of Americans living in the city. Like their rivals in Yokohama, the recreational ballplayers were no match for the visiting professionals. “The Americans simply toyed with the Kobe boys, winning by the one-sided score of 14 to 2. Flaherty, who pitched, didn’t half extend himself and besides holding Kobe down to a few hits slammed out a couple of home runs.”37

The All-Americans closed out their official games with a doubleheader on December 6. In the opening, the professionals faced the Kobe Club, an aggregation of the local squad and the top players from Keio University. On the mound for the Japanese was the tall, bespectacled 18-year-old Kazuma Sugase, the son of a German father and Japanese mother. He would become the best pitcher of his generation and was singled out by John McGraw as “one of the greatest all-around athletes in Japan,” but he could not hold the Americans, who won 6-1. In the second game, the All- Americans embarrassed the local Kobe Federation, 14-1.38 The Kobe games were so popular that local fans persuaded the All-Americans to play two informal games the next day. In the first match, the city’s top high-school players, reinforced by some members of the Kobe Club, had a chance to play against the professionals. Not surprisingly, the All-Americans won easily, 10-0. The second match was a pickup game with combined-roster teams, played just for fun. Neither of these last two games was included in the official tour results.39

During their two-week stay in Japan, the All-Americans won all of their 17 games by a combined score of 164 to 19. One reporter noted that “if the boys had tried awfully hard, they could have blanked them in nearly every contest.”40 “We are insects compared with the giants,” a Keio player supposedly concluded.41 Observers noted, “the weak point of the Japanese team is their batting. … [but] considering that they are novices at the game, they are simply marvelous at all the other points. They are quick, active, and heady.”42 “They put up a mighty nice fielding game,” noted Bill Devereaux. “The infield work of the Keio club was as snappy and fast as any I’ve seen this season. … They don’t bat the ball as hard as we do, but they are going to improve.”43 “They watch the playing of our men with the keenest attention,” explained Fisher. “They are anxious to pick up the fine points and become expert at playing our national game.”44

H.L. Baggerly noted, “While the attendance of the games of the All-Americans has exceeded expectations, the receipts are only fair. Ten, 20 and 30 cents are the maximum prices a manager can charge right now and get the money. There are hard times in Japan as well as America. … Wages are very low. … Hence if a [Japanese] gives up 30 cents at the box office to see a baseball game he is parting with a large chunk of his salary.”45 The exchange rate also hurt Fisher’s bottom line. While 30 cents was dear to a Japanese worker, it barely covered Fisher’s expenses. “Mike Fisher … almost fainted on the diamond when he saw the huge crowd that came out for the first game,” wrote columnist Bob Ray in 1934. “Mike’s team’s share of the receipts was so big he had to hire a truck to haul the huge pile of coin down to the bank. ‘I had visions of retiring and becoming one of the filthy rich,’ says Fisher ‘But when we got to the bank and exchanged it for American money, that big truck-load of coin amounted to only $18.75.’”46

On December 7 the All-Americans sailed for Shanghai, where they played a doubleheader against the local club, before moving on to Hong Kong and Canton.47 In the British colony, they played a mixed doubleheader—a baseball game and a cricket match. Not surprisingly, the Americans won at baseball, but cricket was another matter. “The Hongkongers kept slugging away and we hadn’t got them out by teatime,” recalled Devereaux. “They had scored, if I remember rightly, 678 runs for six men out. Oh, but it was a painful experience alright!”48 The team arrived in Manila on Christmas. Although baseball had only been introduced to the Philippines 10 years earlier, US troops stationed on the islands gave the All-Americans their first stiff competition during the tour. The professionals played six games against military teams and four against squads of expatriates aided by Filipino schoolboys enrolled in missionary schools. Army teams beat the professionals twice and lost another by a run in 11 innings. After a brief stop in Japan, the All- Americans finished their tour in Hawaii, where they won three games comfortably against the All-Hawaii team before losing the last game, which featured Bill Bums on the mound and Jack Bliss behind the plate for the All-Hawaiians.

As the All-Americans returned to San Francisco on February 15, Fisher was pleased with the team’s accomplishments. “Our trip through Japan should go down in history, as it was one of the greatest baseball invasions ever made. We won [over] the people every place we went, and we sent all of Japan baseball mad.”49 H.L. Baggerley summed up the tour perfectly: “I can say without fear of contradiction that the trip has been an unqualified success and promoters Fisher and Woods are entitled to all the glory. From a financial point of view, it has been successful. Money has been made—not a mint of money, but enough to remunerate the enterprising promoters for their labor and loss of time. … The All-Americans have done some noble missionary work. They have made scores of converts to our national game. It would be a great thing if a team could tour the Orient annually. Interest in baseball would intensify with every visit. Japan has caught the spirit and will welcome with open arms any and all ambassadors of our national game.”50

ROBERT K. FITTS is the author of numerous articles and seven books on Japanese baseball and Japanese baseball cards. Fitts is the founder of SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee and a recipient of the society’s 2013 Seymour Medal for Best Baseball Book of 2012; the 2019 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award; the 2012 Doug Pappas Award for best oral research presentation at the annual convention; and the 2006 and 2021 SABR Research Awards. He has twice been a finalist for the Casey Award and has received two silver medals at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. While living in Tokyo in 1993-94, Fitts began collecting Japanese baseball cards and now runs Robs Japanese Cards LLC. Information on Rob’s work is available at RobFitts.com.

 

 

NOTES

1 Thom Karmik, “Mique Fisher and the POL,” Baseball History Daily, May 6, 2013. https://baseballhistorydaily.com/20i3/o5/o6/mike-fisher-and-the-pacific-coast-league/.

2 “Fisher Plans Trip to Orient,” Hawaiian Gazette, November 29, 1907: 5.

3 “Fisher’s Stars Love That Dear Honolulu,” Grass Valley (California) Morning Union, December 10, 1907: 7.

4 “Manila See GoodBall,” Honolulu Advertiser, February 18, 1908: 3.

5 “Baseball Tour to Orient,” Honolulu Hawaiian Gazette, March 3, 1908: 5.

6 Frank B. Hutchinson Jr., “Local Players to Invade the Orient,” Chicago Inter Ocean, May 10, 1908: 18.

7 “Ball Team for Japan. Mike Fisher Will Take a Strong Nine to the Land of the Mikado.” Brooklyn Daily , June 4, 1908: 8.

8 Keith Robbins, “The 1908 Reach All American Tour,” unpublished manuscript in author’s collection.

9 “Jess Woods Has Trip of Star Team to Orient All Fixed,” Honolulu Evening Bulletin, September 21, 1908: 7.

10 “Woods Will Take Team,” Honolulu Advertiser, March 24, 1908: 3.

11 “Jiggs Donahue Going to Japan,” Pittsburgh Press, March 19, 1908: 8.

12 Hutchinson.

13 “Cobb’s Trip to Japan Doubtful,” Detroit Times, October 17, 1908: 2; “Cobb May Cut Out Jap Trip and Spend Winter in Georgia,” Atlanta Georgian and News, October 23, 1908: 36; “Cobb Abandons Trip to Japan,” Topeka State Journal, October 27, 1908: 2.

14 “Cobb Will Be Left at Home,” Butte Daily , October 31, 1908: 6.

15 “Reach-Alls Far Too Good for Orient,” Hawaiian, December 7, 1908: 6.

16 H.L. Baggerly, “Japs Eager to Become Expert in Baseball,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 20, 1908: 28.

17 Baggerly, “Japs Eager to Become Expert in Baseball.”

18 “American Nine Defeats Waseda,” Oakland Tribune, November 23, 1908: 11.

19 “The Reach All Team,” Japan Times, November 25, 1908: 6.

20 Despite the attention given to the tour, accurate box scores do not survive for all games. Some published box scores are incomplete and contain errors. There are also discrepancies between articles published in Japanese and English, making it difficult in some cases to verify the starting pitchers. For example, some articles state that Bill Burns started this first game. Furthermore, the first names of the Japanese players were rarely published so these are sometimes lost to time.

21 Joseph Ohl, “Japan Coming Along with Baseball Game,” Duluth News Tribune, November 8, 1908: 2; “Reach-Alls Far Too Good for Orient.”

22 “Japs Give Champs a Royal Time,” Grass Valley Morning Union, December 16, 1908: 7.

23 “Reach All Stars Far Too Good for Orient.”

24 “American Nine Defeats Waseda.”

25 “Japs Give Champs a Royal Time.”

26 “The Reach All Team.”

27 “Mique Fisher Is Heard From,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 5, 1908: 3.

28 B.W. Fleisher, “Baseball in Japan,” Collier’s Weekly 42, no. 15: 29.

29 “Mique Fisher Is Heard From.”

30 “Michel Fisher’s Impressions,” Honolulu Evening Bulletin, February 10, 1909: 7.

31 Jesse Woods, “All the East Has Baseball Fever,” Grass Valley Morning Union, October 8, 1908: 7.

32 “Baseball,” Japan Weekly Mail, November 28, 1908: 654.

33 “Reach and Keio Baseball,” Japan Times , November 27, 1908: 2.

34 Bill Devereaux, “Baseball Nippon’s National Game,” Honolulu Evening Bulletin, February 2, 1909: 6.

35 Ohl.

36 “All Americans Are Champion Eaters,” Grass Valley Morning Union, December 29, 1908: 7.

37 All Americans Are Champion Eaters.”

38 Conflicting sources exist for the final games in Kobe. Yoshikazu Matsubayashi lists a doubleheader on December 6 while Shinsuke Tanaka notes a single game on the 6th and a doubleheader on December 7. Yoshikazu Matsubayashi, Baseball Game History: Japan vs. U.S.A. (Tokyo: Baseball Magazine, 2001); Shinsuke Tanaka, Kobe no Yakyushi: Reimeiki (Kobe: Rokko Shuppan, 1980), 644-656.

39 Tanaka, 654-656.

40 “Jack Graney Pitches Great Ball in Japan,” Oregon Daily Journal (Portland), December 29, 1908: 9.

41 Fleisher.

42 Fleisher.

43 Devereaux.

44 “Mique Fisher Is Heard From.”

45 Baggerly, “Japs Eager to Become Expert in Baseball.”

46 Bob Ray, “The Sports X-Ray,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1934: Part II, 14.

47 “Baseball Team in China,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Evening News, January 29, 1909: 8.

48 “Mike Fisher’s Players Arrive,” Hawaiian Star, January 30, 1909: 3.

49 Mike Fisher, “Baseball Tour of Americans a Success,” San Francisco Call, February 16, 1909: 8.

50 H.L. Baggerly, “Baggerly Writes of Travels of Baseball Champions,” Honolulu Evening Bulletin, January 30, 1909: 1, 3.

University of Wisconsin and Keio University, September 22, 1909. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt sent his eldest daughter, Alice, and Secretary of War William Howard Taft on a tour of the Far East, making stops in China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. The trip was part of Roosevelt’s plan to act as mediator in the Russo- Japanese War, in the process solidifying the United States’ place in the hierarchy of trading in the Orient. While the visit was successful on both accounts, by the end of the decade the relationship between Japan and the United States was growing contentious over actions being taken in South Manchuria (China). In essence, the United States was on the brink of being blocked out of Oriental trading by Japan’s South Manchurian train line. Taft, who became president in 1909, saw an opportunity to work toward an agreement of some kind, where both countries could continue to utilize the area. Hoping that a resolution could be made, Taft saw a prospect for bonding in one of the two nations’ few common grounds—the baseball diamond. The University of Wisconsin-Madison had a series of games planned for the fall in Japan, and Taft wanted to capitalize on the game’s international appeal.

Baseball was one of the University of Wisconsin’s first athletic teams. The first recorded game was played on April 30,1870, when the university’s team, the Mendotas, thumped the Capital City Club, 53-18. In 1877 a baseball association was formed. By the first decade of the 1900s, the school’s baseball program had become a victim of the game’s nationwide success. Seemingly every club and fraternity on campus was fielding a team. In January 1909, when financial constraints arose, university officials proposed that the intercollegiate team be dropped in favor of skating and intramural baseball. Ultimately, the plan never came to fruition, but the baseball team, under coach Tom Barry, did little to prove its worth, ending with a 4-8 record and a fifth-place finish in the Big Ten Conference.

During the tepid 1909 season, Genkwan Shibata, a native of Toyama, Japan, and an honor student in the university’s commerce program, had been negotiating a series of games between the school team and ballclubs in Japan.2 “Shibby” worked with Professor Masao Matsuoka of Tokyo’s Keio University (a 1907 alumnus of Wisconsin) to bring the plan to fruition. Just before commencement, it was announced that the university would send a baseball team to Japan in the fall for a series of games. To offset some of the cost, Keio helped sponsor the trip, guaranteeing up to $4,000 toward Wisconsin’s finances. This was the second time in as many years that an American university had traveled to Japan to play an exhibition series. The previous fall, Waseda University sponsored a trip for the University of Washington.

Due to Barry’s commitments as the head football coach, a replacement baseball coach was sought out. The university didn’t have to look far, turning to part-time political science faculty member Charles McCarthy. The timing couldn’t have been any better for McCarthy, who had recently suffered a self-described “nervous breakdown.”3 A renaissance man, he had been steeped in work for the past decade. After obtaining his doctorate in American history from Wisconsin-Madison in 1901, McCarthy helped set up the Wisconsin Legislative Library.4 His knowledge of economics made him a frequent sounding board for President Roosevelt. He remained at the university as a part-time political science lecturer and assistant football coach. He was also heavily involved in the state’s progressive movement and the political movement’s quintessential work, the “Wisconsin Idea.”

As much as McCarthy was involved in politics, he was an athlete at heart. Despite his slight frame, McCarthy had been an All-American fullback and standout punter at Brown University. While attending law school at the University of Georgia, he took over the football coaching duties from Glenn Scobey “Pop” Warner. He coached for two years (1897-98), leading the team to a 6-3 record. When he came to Wisconsin as a doctoral student, he immediately immersed himself in the athletic program, focusing on football. In the years leading up to the trip to Japan (1907-09), he “played an extremely important part in the athletic situation” at the university.5

In addition to McCarthy acting as coach and university representative, Shibata was named business manager and interpreter. Ned Jones was the press correspondent.6 Everyone on the Badgers’ 13-man roster was a Wisconsinite: catchers Elmer Barlow and Arthur Kleinpell; pitchers Douglas Knight and Charles Nash; first baseman Mike Timbers; second basemen John Messmer and Kenneth Fellows; third baseman Arthur Pergande; shortstops J. Allen Simpson and Oswald Lupinski; and outfielders David Flanagan, Harlan Rogers, and R. Waldo Mucklestone.

The Badgers didn’t have any future major leaguers, but they were a talented group. Knight pitched for former big leaguer Emerson “Pink” Hawley’s Oshkosh Indians of the Wisconsin-Illinois League while waiting for the trip. Barlow and Messmer attracted interest from professional ball teams.7 Messmer, the team’s best all-around athlete, was the university’s first nine-letter winner, collecting three each in football, baseball, and track.8 He also captained the swim team, dabbled in water polo, and was a “prime candidate for the crew team,” perhaps the school’s most popular and competitive athletic team.9 Rogers was a three-sport star (football, basketball, and baseball).

In July, University president Charles R. Van Hise received a letter from President Taft, an ardent baseball fan, for McCarthy to pass along to Thomas J. O’Brien, the ambassador to Japan. It read:

My dear Ambassador: I am advised that the faculty of the University of Wisconsin has accepted the invitation of the Keio University of Japan to play a series of ten games of baseball with the Japanese university in the month of September.

I am glad such a trip is to be undertaken, as it can not but be of advantage to the universities in the encouragement of manly sports and athletics, and will lead to a better understanding between the universities of the two countries.

I shall greatly appreciate any courtesies of consideration within your power which you may be able to extend to the team while in Japan which may add to the usefulness and pleasure of their visit there.10

University of Wisconsin professors also praised the trip as a great educational experience for the students. McCarthy assured faculty that though the excursion would cause the student-athletes to miss the beginning of the fall semester, he would make sure that they were keeping up with their academic pursuits while in Japan.

Shibata, though an academic achiever, was strictly thinking about the games. In a letter to the players, he expressed this sentiment: “We cannot come back to the university with defeats; the Japanese men never love unworthy opponents. I desire to show them that Wisconsin can raise men too.”11 Shibata guaranteed that it would be an experience they would never forget, commenting, “Please take care of your health and I can promise to show you the time of your life in Japan.”12

On August 22, 1909, the group boarded the Great Northern Railway’s Oriental Limited in Minneapolis. Two days were spent traveling through Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and into Washington where they were given a scenic tour of the state as they made their way to Seattle. When they pulled into King Street Station on August 24, nearly 2,000 miles from Madison, they were greeted by a cheer of “U Rah Rah Wisconsin!” by Western alumnus of the university.

For several days the team made trips to Tacoma and Port Ludlow, Washington, for exhibition games. Finally, on the morning of August 31, the group enthusiastically boarded the Aki Maru of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line. Over the next two weeks, the Midwestern boys endured sea sickness and suspect food, while taking in the sights (including humpback whales). Finally, on September 16 they arrived in Japan, docking at the Yokohama pier. A large banner greeted them that read “Wisconsin Cead Mille Tfailte,” Gaelic for “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes to Wisconsin.” The Badgers were met by hundreds of Keio students who greeted them with the university’s “U Rah Rah Wisconsin!” cheer. Professor Matsuoka had prepared a group to act as Badger backers, writing Shibata “for the words of the Wisconsin yell, the words and music of the college song, and 500 cardinal-colored armbands, to be used by Japanese students who were to represent Wisconsin fans at the games.”13

When the Badgers came to Japan, Keio was considered to be the top team in the country, and they were given great support in their training. Supposedly, “as soon as the Wisconsin faculty sanctioned the trip the Keio boys were hurried off to a cool, quiet place in Northern Japan to spend the summer in practice. Each day they spent six hours in practice, and when it came time for the first game they were in the best of physical condition.”14 This was apparent when the two teams held a joint practice the first day the Wisconsin boys arrived. As one member of Badgers recalled, “That afternoon we had our first practice. After we were done the Keio team came on the field. They proved to us that we could not play ball at all. That first practice of theirs was one of the ‘classiest’ affairs that we had ever seen.”15

Keio’s serious approach to the series may have been a response to the thorough beating they took the year before. Although they had success during the University of Washington’s 1908 visit, a group of professionals visited the island that November and December. The Reach All-Americans, made up of Pacific Coast Leaguers and a few second-string major leaguers, traveled to the Orient on a barnstorming tour, leaving with a record of 17-0, including four decisive defeats of Keio.

On September 22,1909, the Badgers traveled to the ballpark by rickshaw to play Keio in the first game. They were told that a large crowd was expected, but as they made their way to the park, the streets were eerily silent. Even when they arrived, there was no one outside the ballpark. They were shocked by what they saw when they entered the gates. David Flanagan recalled the scene, “Sitting there before us, grave and silent as a multitude in a church, was a crowd of twenty-five thousand Japanese fans.”16

Silence was an essential part of the Japanese game plan, for both players and fans. When the Wisconsin players started their chatter, or “line of talk,” they were hissed by the crowd. The Japanese felt that the “encouraging of a player by another on his own team was intended to rattle the opposition.”17 Unfazed, the Badger nine continued their talk, and, according to Oswald Lupinski, “before the close of the international series our opponents were making just as much, and perhaps more noise than we were.”18

The first two games went into extra innings, both Wisconsin losses. The first was a 3-2,11-inning affair that saw the Badgers outhit Keio, 7 to 3. The second lasted 19 innings, ending in a 2-1 loss. More importantly, Doug Knight, who had pitched all 11 innings in the first game and the first 16 of the second, injured his arm and wasn’t able to pitch for the next few games. In both games, Japanese pitcher Kazuma Sugase stifled the Americans. A few years later, when John McGraw led a group of major leaguers on a world tour, he described Sugase as “one of the greatest all-around athletes in Japan” in “the same position here that Jim Thorpe occupied in the United States after the last Olympic games.”19

Sugase wasn’t the only Keio player whose skills caught the attention of the American players. Three others impressed, including Nenosuke Fukuda, the university’s catcher, who had a throwing arm that “kept base runners glued to the bases.”20 A Badger described shortstop Katsumaro Sasaki as “one of the fastest fielding players that we had ever seen and his fielding would possibly win for him a place in our major leagues.” The other standout was center fielder Manpei Kameyama, the “best runner in Japan.”21

As a whole, the Japanese team’s approach to the game reflected the Deadball Era in which they played: midline pitching backed by superb defense, and weak hitting supplemented with keen baserunning, bunting, and squeezing. “The Japs are a bit weak with the bat, but play a fielding game which can hardly be improved upon,” recalled Lupinski. “They are dangerous men on bases, and when a runner reaches first he generally goes all the way around to home. They use the squeeze play and the bunting game extensively. Often a base runner goes from first to third on a bunt.”22

In the first two contests, Wisconsin felt that differences in rules interpretations by umpire Takeji Nakano cost them the game. A former player and coach for Ichiko, Nakano umpired games between Keio and Waseda for years and was known for his fairness. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

The Badgers gracefully accepted the umpire’s decisions, which “won for the Americans the general approbation of the Japanese public and all foreigners who witnessed the games.”23 According to Genkwan Shibata, after the game, Nakano, true to his nature, approached the Wisconsin team and “excused himself for his mistakes.”24

Scoring information for the entire series of games was sparse, because the Japanese box scores included only runs, hits, and errors. For a few games, putouts were recorded. The summary under the box score included only extra-base hits and the pitchers’ records.

After starting 0-2, the Badgers rebounded to win the next three, with Charles Nash taking over the pitching duties from the injured Knight. The first game saw Wisconsin shut out a group of Americans living in Tokyo, 10-0. In the next contest, the Badgers edged the Tokyo Club, 8-7. The game wasn’t as close as the score indicated, with the Japanese team scoring six unearned runs in the eighth inning. Knight, now playing in the outfield, hit a solo home run. Messmer hit a two-run home run in the next game, helping the Badgers defeat Waseda University, 7-4.

The Badgers’ power surge continued into the next game when they looked to defeat Keio on October 4. Wisconsin finally solved Sugase, the Japanese ace, delivering two triples and two doubles. The offensive outburst still wasn’t enough as Keio was victorious for the third consecutive game, 5-4. Errors had plagued the Badgers throughout the trip, but according to the Japan Advertiser, “The fortunate hitting of the Keio team when a hit was most needed won the game for them.”25

Away from the diamond, the Badgers were allowed to experience Japanese culture, reveling in the colleges, shops, temples, theaters, and museums. They traveled by rickshaw, ate with chopsticks, and occasionally indulged in sake. Excursions to the cultural sites of Kamakura and Enoshima greatly enhanced the foreign experience. Additionally, they frequented Keio students’ homes, where they talked and dined with their families. The Wisconsin boys became celebrities, drawing a crowd as they walked through the streets. American culture was also of great interest. Several of the players conducted classes in English at the university. Coach McCarthy took on a much more ambitious schedule, delivering a lecture series on American law and making presentations to the transportation department.

One of the most memorable social affairs took place on the evening of October 6 at the Chitose Ro, the premier teahouse in Yokohama. After a lavish meal, entertainment was provided by “the most beautiful geisha girls.”26 Several speeches were given; the most notable was by Mayor Nobukata Mitsuhashi of Yokohama, who lauded the Badgers on their sportsmanship. He ended by saying, “You have come, and by your example taught us that this is not only possible, but that it really forms the highest, best kind of sport, for a man to be as keen as mustard at the game, and yet have such excellent control over his own feelings as to submit without question to the decision of the umpire.”27

The next day, October 7, Nash shut out Waseda, 5-0, four times escaping jams that saw the Japanese university put men on second and third with no one out. Two days later, Waseda’s pitcher, Takayuki Omura, threw his own shutout, 3-0. Waseda scored runs on a hit, an error, and a passed ball in the first inning, and a similar combination of miscues accounted for two more in the sixth. Wisconsin had an opportunity to tie the game in the seventh, but a few close calls by umpire Nakano “took considerable ginger out of the Badgers.”28 This time, Wisconsin wasn’t as courteous in their treatment of Nakano, openly berating him, for which the Japanese press “complained in letters” to the Washington Post.29

After a two-day excursion to Nikko, a tourist site in the mountains, roughly 90 miles north of Tokyo, the Badgers returned to the capital city for a final game against Keio. It was a wet, rainy day, and the Wisconsin boys “seemed to be more at home in the slippery going.”30 They roughed up Sugase for 10 hits. In the fifth inning alone, they had five singles, a double, and a triple, resulting in six earned runs. Nash was at his best, shutting out the university, 8-0. It was the Badgers’ first victory over Keio and put their final record for the tour at 5-4. After the game, a large farewell banquet was held for the Badgers at one of Tokyo’s largest social clubs, the Kojunsha Club. It was attended by the Keio and Waseda teams, prominent businessmen, and members of the media.

When the team departed from Yokohama the next morning, they were shown off by the Keio and Waseda teams, who showered them with remembrances, flowers, and fruit. Sixteen days later, on October 29, they arrived in Seattle. When they returned to Wisconsin on November 3, a large rally was held and mementos of the trip were displayed for several weeks. An unidentified member of the Badgers summed up the feelings of his teammates: “All of us hope some day to meet again as friends, the best true sportsmen we have ever met.”31 On a larger scale, Wisconsin Secretary of State William A. Frear gushed that “Wisconsin unlocked[ed] the door of social fraternity with Japan in a manner never before equaled.”32

JOE NIESE is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Professional Football Researchers Association. To date, he has written four sports biographies: Burleigh Grimes: Baseball’s Last Legal Spitballer (McFarland), Handy Andy: The Andy Pafko Story (Chippewa River Press), Gus Dorais: Gridiron Innovator, All-American and Hall of Fame Coach (McFarland), and Zack Wheat: The Life of the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Famer (McFarland). In 2015, Handy Andy won a bronze prize in Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Award (Sports). That same year Joe received the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association State Media Award. Zack Wheat won SABR’s 2021 Ron Gabriel Award and was on the shortlist of finalists for their Larry Ritter Award. Joe lives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, with his wife and three children, where he works as library director of the Chippewa Falls Public Library.

 

 

NOTES

1 Adapted from NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture Volume 22, No. 1 (Fall 2013) by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2014by the University of Nebraska Press.

2 Shibata was the university’s first Japanese student to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the academic honor society.

3 Marion Casey, Charles McCarthy: Librarianship and Reform (Chicago: American Library Association, 1981), 62.

4 The first of its kind in the United States, the Legislative Library became the model for the Congressional Reference Service of the Library of Congress.

5 Irma Hochstein, “College Spirits and Patriotism,” Wisconsin Alumni Magazine 23, no. 1 (November 1921): 12.

6 After the trip, Jones stayed in Tokyo, writing for the Japan Advertiser.

7 Barlow, who was finishing up law school, turned down offers from professional teams to pursue a career in law.

8 >Messmer qualified for the 1908 Olympic track team in discus but withdrew because one of his brothers was severely ill.

9 “Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame,” Wisconsin Sports Development Corporation, https://www.wihalloffame.com/john-messmer.

10 “Taft Speaks Kind Words,” Daily Northwestern (Northwestern University), July 28, 1909.

11 “Badgers Ready for Japan,” Racine (Wisconsin) Daily Journal, August 12, 1909: 3.

12 “BadgersReady for Japan.”

13 Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour-Mills, Baseball: The People’s Game (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 171.

14 David Flanagan, “Wisconsin vs. Japan in Baseball,” Independent 67 (December 1909): 1493.

15 Walter Buchner, “A Member of the Wisconsin Team: Our Opponents,” Wisconsin Magazine 7, no. 2 (November 1909): 29.

16 Flanagan:1495.

17 “Wisconsin’s Ball Players Find Japs Hard to Beat,” Washington Post, November 21, 1909: Sports 3.

18 Oswald Lupinski, “To Japan with the Ball Team,” Wisconsin Engineer 14, no. 2 (February 1910): 137.

19 John McGraw, “Americans Defeat Great Jap Pitcher,” New York Times, December 8, 1913: 9.

20 Fukuda, who later changed his name to Zensuke Shimada, was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991.

21 Buchner: 29-30.

22 Lupinski: 136.

23 “University of Wisconsin vs. Japan,” Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide, vol. 34 (New York: American Sports Publishing, 1910), 305.

24 Genkwan Shibata, “The Japanese Trip,” Wisconsin Magazine 7, no.2 (November 1909): 26.

25 “Wisconsin’s Ball Players Find Japs Hard to Beat,” Washington Post, November 21, 1909: Sports 3.

26 Lupinski: 138.

27 Lupinski: 138.

28 “Wisconsin’s Ball Players Find Japs Hard to Beat.”

29 “Wisconsin’s Ball Players Find Japs Hard to Beat.”

30 “Wisconsin’s Ball Players Find Japs Hard to Beat.”

31 Buchner: 30.

32 Seymour and Seymour-Mills, 171.

1930 University of Chicago team in Japan. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

On the fourth day of spring in the 20th year of the Imperial Heisei era, just as the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom, another chapter in one of the most significant stories in US-Japan sports history was about to be written. It was Saturday, March 22, 2008, and while the Boston Red Sox held off the Hanshin Tigers and the Oakland Athletics rallied to beat the Yomiuri Giants in an exhibition double bill at Tokyo Dome, what really mattered that day was the long-awaited return of another American baseball team: the University of Chicago Maroons.1

The Chicago squad was coming for its sixth Japan tour, once again at the invitation of Waseda University, as part of that prestigious Tokyo-based institution’s 125th-anniversary celebrations.2 Given that the first time the Maroons came was in 1910 while the last had been in 1930—not to mention Waseda’s five return tours between 1911 and 1936—Chicago’s arrival was touted as renewing a nearly 100-year-old rivalry, with promotional posters and merchandise declaring it to be the “Restart of Legend.”3

The matchups between Waseda and Chicago in the late-Meiji, Taisho, and early-Showa eras were truly epic battles fought on both sides of the Pacific, yet they sprang from the labors of an idealistic Japanese professor with support of two Maroons turned missionaries, so these baseball exchanges were always imbued with goodwill. As the 10 series were contested over the course of three decades, American dominance slowly gave way to spirited Japanese play inspired by the unlikely pairing of a manager who derided putting too much importance on results and his team’s former captain turned coach who became hellbent on winning. And although the two teams were torn apart by war, the baseball ties between Chicago and Waseda would fully heal when at long last their legendary rivalry was restarted in 2008.

The bond between Waseda and Chicago began forming in 1904, shortly after Fred Merrifield—former standout third baseman and Maroons captain—was sent to Tokyo as a missionary by the American Baptist Union.4 By the time Merrifield arrived, Waseda had just won Japan’s college baseball crown quite impressively, doing so only a few years after Professor Isoo Abe—one-time pastor and graduate of Doshisha and Hartford Theological Seminary—established their first full-fledged team in 1901.5 Abe had inspired his men to the title by promising that if they won he would arrange a trip across the Pacific to play against other university nines. Upon learning that a former Chicago ballplayer was teaching Sunday school nearby, Abe begged the American to become their part-time coach.6 Merrifield was happy to help and spent several days a week with the club. Although he wasn’t able to accompany Waseda to the United States due to his missionary obligations, he suggested they take a token of his baseball pedigree with them by adopting the same type and color of lettering he had worn while playing for his alma mater. So Abe’s team embarked on the first-ever foreign trip by a Japanese sports team donning jerseys with “Waseda” emblazoned in the same shade of maroon worn by Chicago.7 Merrifield then said in a letter published by the Chicago Tribune: “Give the Japanese player a little more training in the fine points of the game and I prophesy he will hit your curves, field and slide with the zest, and make his share of the fun. And then, after bowing politely to the umpire, he will go home and teach his younger brother to do still better at the great game of baseball.”8

After Waseda returned with a decent record of 7-19, Merrifield resumed coaching the team. By early 1907 he and Abe were trying to arrange a tour all the way to Chicago; but before a plan could be set, an illness forced his resignation from the Baptist Union. Yet it still seemed providence was at play, for another former Maroon standout was soon on his way.

Alfred Place, who hit a club-best .357 playing alongside Merrifield in 1900, was being sent over by the Foreign Christian Ministry.9 It was reported that “[h]e will work among the students of the Imperial and Waseda universities … and while he is teaching them athletics, he will also endeavor to win them over to Christianity.”10 After arriving in Tokyo in January of 1908, Place helped Waseda secure wins over the University of Washington later that year and the University of Wisconsin during its Japan tour in 1909.11 Now with some success against American teams on both sides of the Pacific, on April 18,1910, Abe wrote to University of Chicago Director of Athletics Alonzo Amos Stagg, issuing a formal invitation:

It is a great pleasure for me to ask you if it is possible for the University of Chicago baseball team to come over to Japan. … If you come here next fall, all the baseball fans will surely welcome you with open arms. … You know Fred Merrifield and Alfred Place have done a great deal in coaching our teams, and we believe we can give you tolerably good games if you would come here.12

It was agreed that Chicago would tour Japan that October and play five games against both Waseda and Keio University.13 Although Stagg regretted to inform Abe he couldn’t “visit Japan with the boys” due to football-coaching duties, he would do everything he could to ensure that his team was ready.14 After receiving Place’s scouting reports as well as insights from Merrifield, who was now living in Michigan, captain J.J. Pegues later recalled, “[W]e determined to go prepared to play our best game,” while noting that they spent the summer practicing and playing against local semipro teams.15 Pegues added, “As a result, we were really in better shape for a hard series in the fall than during the regular spring college season. … The teams of Waseda and Keio also spent the summer months in practice; so that all three teams were in the pink of condition.”16

The Chicago team even took lessons on Japanese language and culture, then were honored with letters of introduction to the Imperial Japanese government from President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox.17 Shortstop Robert Baird recounted in 1976 that their trip was deemed “an opportunity for each member of the team to consider himself as an American ambassador of goodwill to improve relations between the two countries.” Baird added, “Even today, sixty-six years later, I am sure that every one of us accepted this responsibility to a high degree.”18 All of this preparation served them well, for upon arriving at Yokohama aboard the Kamakura Maru on September 26, 1910, they were surrounded by reporters.19 As Pegues later detailed in an article for The Independent:

Thruout [sic] our stay we were considered not only as guests of Waseda University, but also as guests of the Japanese nation, and while objects of constant curiosity, we were at the same time subject to every form of Japanese politeness. Also I may say that while the Japanese stared at us constantly and questioned us continually, we returned both stares and questions with interest, as they seemed far stranger to us than we can have seemed to them. … When we were hauled thru the streets of Yokohama in “rickshaws,” on our way to the train for Tokio [sic], we insisted on leaving the tops of our man-drawn carriages down in spite of the steady rain; so that we might have an unobstructed view of the strange sights … and it was only thru stern necessity that we forewent sightseeing during our first few days in Tokio [sic], and devoted our time to practising [sic] for the games now close at hand.20

Pegues noted how they were “requested to practice in secret as far as possible, and without previous announcement, as it was feared students would desert their class-room work to watch us in action.” Yet large crowds still came to see the Maroons train, leading him to declare, “Only a ‘world’s series’ could excite such interest at home, and we looked forward with much curiosity to the first game.”21 In the meantime, the players stayed at the Imperial Hotel and were guests of honor at a banquet held at a Western-style restaurant fit for dignitaries, with Abe presiding while the American team’s chaperone, Professor Gilbert Bliss, said the University of Chicago hoped to return the favor the following year.22

Stagg had appointed his ace, Harlan Orville “Pat” Page, as the team’s player-manager, who, in addition to his baseball duties, served as a “Special Correspondent” for the Chicago Tribune. In Page’s report about that evening, he described how, “Following the twenty courses of both American and Japanese variety the two teams sang their alma mater, and the old Chicago yell drowned out the Waseda battle cry, although the new dress suits of the Maroons interfered with the vocal efforts.”23 The US ambassador to Japan, Thomas O’Brien, also hosted Chicago along with players from both the Japanese universities, as well as “a number of the Japanese nobility,” including Waseda’s founder and former Prime Minister Shigenobu Okuma.24 “After a musical concert the guests adjourned to the garden, where American dainties were served,” Page recalled, and then added that “Mr. O’Brien promised to be with the Maroons at the games.”25

When the day finally arrived for the opener, “The fences were draped with red and white bunting and the entrance festooned with American and Japanese flags,” Pegues recalled and then noted, “Practically all of the spectators had entered the field when we arrived, an hour and a half before the game was to commence, and as we passed in we were greeted with a great outburst of handclapping.”26 Despite lopsided support for Waseda, Pegues acknowledged how “[e]veryone rose to salute us and then settled down once more and waited for the game to start.”27 Before getting underway, Waseda’s cheer captain Nobuyoshi “Shinkei” Yoshioka—infamously known as the “Heckling Tiger Beard Shogun”—led a parade of the team’s most hard-core supporters down behind the third-base line.28 Yoshioka had been recruited a few years earlier to lead the cheering squad after Abe observed that students in America would chant their “college yell to take away the enemy’s spirit.”29

Afforded the courtesy of whether or not to bat first, Chicago elected to start off in the field, with Page on the mound and Fred Steinbrecher behind the plate, William Sunderland at first, Omo Roberts at second, John Boyle at third, and Baird at shortstop, with an outfield consisting of Mansfield Cleary in left, Frank Collings in center, and Pegues in right, while on the bench were pitcher Glen Roberts, catcher Frank Paul, and outfielder Herman Ehrhom.30 So aligned, Page threw out the first pitch at 10 minutes past three o’clock on October 4.31

The leadoff hitter for Waseda was second baseman Keito Hara, who to the delight of Shogun Yoshioka and the Japanese fans “drove a clean hit to the outfield,” and as Pegues recalled, “to our amazement, as we had expected absolute quiet, the whole crowd rose as one man and yelled till they were hoarse.”32 Yet instead of becoming rattled by the chorus of cheers, Pegues said, “Once the noise commenced we felt natural. The odd surroundings faded out of our minds and we were playing baseball, not some queer Japanese game.”33 Chujun Tobita flied out to Collings in center and third baseman Takeshi Iseda’s fly to Pegues advanced Hara to second, but Page then induced a grounder from Hitoshi Oi to end the threat.34 In the bottom of the first, with Oi on the mound, Collings grounded out but Pegues tripled and came home on a passed ball. Then Boyle walked and scored when Steinbrecker hit one over Jukichi Ogawa in center.35 Chicago tallied three more in the second, one each in the fourth and sixth, and two more in the eighth.36 The Japanese scored once in the sixth as catcher Sutekichi Matsuda hit a triple and scored on a fly out to center, and Ogawa scored an unearned run in the seventh, but as Iseda tried to score in the ninth, he was thrown out at home to end the game as a 9-2 Chicago victory.37 Yoshioka was disappointed that the team hadn’t done better and Tobita felt largely responsible after going 0-for-4, but they must have felt even worse upon seeing Keio lose to Chicago by only two runs.38

In the second game against Waseda, Tobita tried to make amends by going 3-for-4 with a steal and showed his determination by knocking Glen Roberts to the ground when they collided at first base, but his team’s only other hits were a triple by left fielder Goro Mikami and a single by pitcher Takayuki Omura, as Roberts fanned 11 in the 5-0 shutout.39 Chicago then crushed Waseda 15-4 in their third game and went on to rout the school’s alumni, 11-2, while it twice took them 10 innings to beat Keio in their next two matchups.40

Waseda and Chicago then traveled to Osaka, where, as Page wrote, “The teams were greeted at the Imperial station with many flowers and escorted through the city by a Japanese lantern parade.”41 With everything organized and promoted by the Mainichi Shimbun, there were more than 12,000 in attendance at the first game, and Page heard “that a number camped on the ball grounds all night so as to see the Maroons in action.”42 Osaka’s mayor threw out the first pitch and it seemed the tides had turned in favor of Waseda, which took an early lead against Roberts, but Chicago’s hitting proved too much: The team rallied and cruised to an 8-4 win.43 “Before the largest crowd of the international series,” Chicago then crushed Waseda, 20-0, as Page declared, “Never before was such a swatfest witnessed in Japan.”44 In the finale, Waseda took an early lead but ultimately lost yet again by another lopsided score, 12-2.45

As the players returned from Japan unbeaten, several hundred students gathered to “welcome home the University of Chicago baseball team, from its triumphal invasion of the Orient.”46 A few days later the players were “formally welcomed at a spirited and joyous baseball mass meeting,” and a theater troupe put on an “American-Japanese Night performance.”47 The team was praised by Stagg, who along with Japanese Consul Keiichi Yamasaki then jointly proclaimed, “[I]f Japan and America ever were to have a war, it would be in the form of a baseball contest.”48

In Tokyo, Abe tried to remain optimistic by telling the press that Chicago was a top team on par with Harvard and Yale, but critics were still harsh about the team’s embarrassing losses.49 Tobita claimed responsibility and quit.50 Losing so badly devastated Tobita, who described his initial encounter with the sport while in elementary school at the age of 10, saying, “From the first day I saw the leather ball, it was as if my heart had completely taken up residence inside it.” Yet it wasn’t his first time being crushed by defeat. When Tobita was 16 and playing competitively for his school in Mito, it became clear how much the sport meant to him. After his previously undefeated team lost a game to Ibaraki prefectural rivals Shimotsuma, he “cried tears of regret” as the opposing “troops” were “wrapped in honor.” At that time, Tobita would later recall, “What I vowed secretly in my heart was the great desire to avenge Shimotsuma.” Starting that following day, Tobita set to work with his teammates, who were desperate to “erase the only stain they had left,” but a rematch was never secured and so they had to settle for vicarious vengeance by defeating the Ikubunkan team from Tokyo after hearing that they had beaten Shimotsuma. Tobita suffered another humiliation when he was held hitless in a 15-0 drubbing by Keio University’s feeder school, after which he admitted, “We were ashamed to go home in broad daylight, so we waited for dusk and snuck home through the back gate.” This time, he and his teammates would eventually exact revenge directly, but Tobita’s animosity apparently stayed with him as he decided to enroll at Keio’s archrival in 1907. Yet when Tobita joined Waseda’s baseball team that spring, the notoriously explosive “Sokei-sen” series of baseball “battles” with Keio were still on hiatus due to concerns from administrators that emotions on and off the field had been getting way out of hand. Now, just three years later, feeling horrible that he had let Chicago stain the reputation of both his team and that of Abe, he essentially committed baseball harakiri by walking away from the game.51

Abe’s reputation took a serious hit, too, and his tenure as manager was even in doubt when he reportedly resigned ahead of Waseda’s upcoming 1911 tour of America. Yet it was later clarified that Abe “was unable to come, occupied as he is with his faculty work and the worries involved as president of the baseball association.”52 Whatever the case, Abe then made a managerial change that, although only temporary, surely had an impact on his players both on and off the field.

Although the ballclub was chaperoned by Professor Takizo Takasugi, the man whom Abe asked to take charge of Waseda’s team was their former foe and recent graduate, Pat Page.53 This wasn’t simply aimed at trying to improve the skills of his squad, for these exchanges weren’t just about wins and losses to Abe, as he first made clear on their 1905 tour when he told an audience at Stanford:

We are not here to win games, but to learn to play baseball as it is played in America. And it is not in baseball only that this trip should be a help to our men. It will broaden their views and help them to a better understanding of the world, and I expect they will gain from it far more than they put into it.54

After returning from that trip, he and his captain, Shin Hashido, shared the latest techniques they learned in America, which Abe then combined with his own spiritual and moral views to create a new form of Japanese baseball philosophy.55 In Abe’s lecture, entitled “Three Primary Virtues of Baseball,” he spoke of “wisdom, humanity, and courage,” while he “communicated to the team the importance of cultivating and strengthening the spirit.” He insisted that his team adhere to two key principles: “The first is to fight with the same passion throughout the entire match. … The second is to avoid placing all importance on winning or losing.”56 Abe shared similar sentiments with Page before his team’s departure for America, writing that “international friendship was more important than any other consideration in making the trip.”57 Page clearly valued the friendship too, for he gave up a chance to pitch an exhibition game against the Cubs so he could be in San Francisco when Waseda arrived on April 13, 1911, and even though the team went on to lose all three of its matches against Chicago and ended the tour with a record of 17-35-1, Page was encouraged by their performance.58 Waseda may have fared even better if Page hadn’t prematurely relinquished his management duties to get married in mid-June, at which point the entire squad saw him off as guests at his wedding.59

After his honeymoon, Page went to work at his alma mater as a coach under Stagg, so four years later when the Maroons returned to Japan in 1915, he was once again managing Chicago against the Japanese.60

Waseda now had Atsushi Kono as its part-time coach, the hurler mentored by Merrifield who earned the nickname “Iron Man” while pitching 24 out of 26 games during its 1905 tour. Fans hoped that his coaching would help his pitchers tame Chicago’s bats. Although Waseda’s pitchers fared better than in 1910, Chicago won the opener 5-3 in front of a crowd of 20,000. Then the Maroons swept the Tokyo series by winning the next three games 2-0, 1-0, and 5-0, with the latter a masterpiece by Page, who abandoned his role as manager to take the mound and faced only one over the minimum while striking out nine.61

As with the 1910 tour, three additional games were then played in Osaka. The Maroons shut out Waseda 3-0 in the opener behind the pitching of Paul “Shorty” Des Jardien, a 6-foot-4 ace who reportedly agreed to join the Cubs upon graduating but instead stayed with the Maroons to go to Japan. But in the second game, Rowland George spotted Waseda a three-run lead. Fearing Chicago’s unbeaten streak in Japan was in jeopardy, Page lifted George and took over on the mound, pitching in relief and holding Waseda scoreless the rest of the way as the Americans rallied and won 5-3. The Maroons then completed their sweep with a 9-1 victory in the finale, which, combined with three wins over Keio in Tokyo, gave Page and the university another perfect Japan tour record.62

Backup first baseman Dave Wiedemann saw little on-field action during that tour, yet in 1973 at the age of 78 he recounted the trip fondly: “We were royally entertained because at the time Japan was one of the Western Allies and Prime Minister Okuma also was honorary president of Waseda.”63 Okuma had taken time to entertain the Maroons in the garden of his private villa, where he told them, “Chicago’s visit in 1910 did much for younger Japan,” and declared that baseball “has practically become the National sport of Japan.”64 Okuma added, “Exchange visits by athletic organizations form a real means of promoting better understanding and peaceful sentiment,” before concluding his remarks by expressing his “hope that the relation of the University of Chicago and Waseda University would always be cordial.”65 Relations at that time were clearly cordial, for no one objected to Page playing even though he was technically ineligible, with everyone instead simply marveling at his pitching prowess. This served as another example of Abe’s insistence that his players not place too much importance on winning or losing.

In 1916 Waseda went on a return tour to the United States and once again lost all three of its games in Chicago, this time not even coming close, falling 7-1, 9-2, and 8-4.66 They would have to wait another four years for a chance to beat their American rivals, but for the next series in Japan, Waseda was to have its first full-time coach. Abe previously discussed the idea of dedicating someone to the job, but the problem was securing funds for a salary. After he consulted with the alumni club, it was decided membership fees would be charged to raise money for that purpose.67 Hearing of the plan, Tobita was instantly intrigued, for over the past 10 years every time he watched baseball he was tormented by the losses suffered to Chicago in 1910. He nearly gave up his ideas of vengeance as he wondered if his children might one day repair his legacy, yet knew that such an idea was ridiculous to expect of his own boys. But now Tobita realized, “Maybe I could get revenge on Chicago with my own hands.”68

Despite his wife’s apprehensions, given that the position paid two-thirds less than what he earned as a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Tobita thought, “I couldn’t afford to throw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to avenge Chicago,” so he took thejob.69 Coach Tobita then became a man possessed—described as looking like a demon on the diamond—as he prepared his team for its next battle with Chicago.70 Practices were so arduous that they became known as “Death Training,” yet Tobita simultaneously embraced some aspects of Abe’s baseball philosophy.71 “The purpose of training is not health but the forging of the soul, and a strong soul is only born from strong practice,” Tobita explained, while stressing, “In many cases it must be a baseball of pain and a baseball practice of savage treatment.”72 Although many were unsure of his methods, Tobita proudly said that his players “truly enjoyed baseball and practiced hard with a cheerful spirit.”73 Most important to Tobita was that his players were now also eager for their chance at vengeance against Chicago.74

When the Maroons returned to Japan in 1920 for their third tour, they too had a new coach. Page had moved on to Butler University and handed the reins over to Fred Merrifield, who had returned to Chicago as a professor.75 After a 13-year absence, Merrifield arrived in Yokohama with his team on May 4, and as he would recall, “Professor Abe, ‘Father of Baseball in Japan’ went to great expense of time and money to give us a perfect time for the five weeks we were there.”76 The players were then treated to “tiffin with Marquis Okuma and came thru with out [sic] a social error in their first meeting with nobility.”77 As for baseball, the Maroons had a strong squad with seven seniors on their roster, so they looked forward to the best-of-seven series against Waseda along with a four-game series with Keio, and for the first time, games against Tokyo Imperial University and Hosei University, as well as a match against Kwansei Gakuin, located in the heart of western Japan.78

On May 11 Tobita’s long-awaited rematch against Chicago finally got underway.79 After both teams scored a run in the first, the second inning saw the Maroons add two while Waseda added three to take a 4-3 lead. The Japanese stretched the advantage to 6-4 in the sixth inning; however, the visitors came back with two in the seventh and the game ended in a 6-6 tie when play was halted in the 12th by darkness.80 This was the closest Waseda had ever come to beating Chicago, yet the momentum didn’t carry over as the Maroons never trailed in the next game against their hosts, which they won 4-2.81 After giving up 10 combined runs in the two games, Tobita had lost confidence in his pitchers’ ability to contain the Americans and began to despair, but then Shukichi Matsumoto literally came out of left field and surprised his coach by saying, “Please let me pitch.”82

 

Paul Hinkle and Juro Ito, starting pitchers of the May 19, 1920 Chicago—Waseda game. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

Matsumoto was a highly regarded pitcher while growing up in Osaka who suffered a shoulder injury that forced him off the hill before joining Waseda. Yet after studying Chicago’s batters for two games he told his coach he was confident he could get the job done. Knowing Matsumoto was never one to brag, Tobita agreed to let him take the mound, then watched him use superb control to allow only three hits in a shutout, while Herbert “Fritz” Crisler gave up two runs and took the loss.83 Tobita described it as an “extraordinary performance” that led to Waseda’s first-ever win over the Maroons, but the jubilation was short-lived as the Americans bounced back to beat Waseda in Osaka by a score of 3-1.84 The next day Tobita called upon Matsumoto again, and although he gave up two runs in the sixth and the tying run in the eighth, he kept the score tied for another four innings until Tokuyoshi Tominaga made a clever bunt to outsmart Chicago captain and catcher Clarence Vollmer and squeeze in the run that made it 4-3. Matsumoto then closed out Chicago in the bottom of the 14th, “achieving his second great victory.”85

In Kyoto on June 1, however, Chicago held off Tobita’s men to win, 4-3, then reasserted their dominance with an 8-1 blowout in Nagoya, so although Waseda’s long winless streak against the Maroons finally ended, they still lost the series.86 Meanwhile, Chicago barely squeaked by Keio 1-0 in 10 innings, was held to a 3-3 draw in another 10-inning affair halted by rain, and then was beaten in its two other meetings with Keio, 2-1 and 1-0, marking the first time the team lost a series to a Japanese opponent.87 In its other two Tokyo matchups, Chicago had little trouble beating Imperial University, 5-0, and defeated Hosei University 4-1, while in Kobe the Maroons outlasted Kwansei, 6-4.88 For Tobita, all this meant that Waseda still had a ways to go in relation to its two biggest rivals,89 while Merrifield in a tour recap acknowledged the progress Japanese baseball had made:

Needless to say, we did not play as well as Chicago teams of other years, and all the Japanese teams had apparently improved in the mastery of our game. We were fortunate indeed to win eight games, tie two, and lose only four. Several other games were nip and tuck, and a breath would have turned them the other way. With the full Spring and Summer practice we would doubtless have cleaned up the entire series, as our predecessors had done; but we had to make the best of a serious handicap against teams that played practically the year round. If they, in turn, play as well in their return game of 1921, they will give our American teams a bad time. … This exchange of international courtesies, this cultivation of wholesome and friendly athletic rivalry is good seed sown for a great future harvest of good will.90

For Waseda’s return tour in 1921, Abe accompanied Tobita and the team, which played in Hawaii and on the mainland en route to Chicago.91 The pitching staff became depleted due to injury and illness, so Tobita relied heavily on Goro “Iron Arm” Taniguchi, who lost, 4-2, in the first game vs. Chicago, but rebounded with wins over Northwestern and Page’s team at Butler, before tossing three innings of relief against Indiana.92 Iron Arm was sent out again for the rematch against Chicago, but after giving up four runs in six innings he pleaded to be relieved. Tobita wanted to send him back to the slab but was rebuked by Abe, who recognized that Taniguchi’s arm was wrecked.93

Clearly desperate, Tobita declared that he would suit up and take second base so that the ailing Matsumoto could move to the mound, but even though Page played during the Japan tour the previous year, Abe emphatically rejected this idea too. Tobita then reluctantly accepted a brave offer from shortstop Tadashi Kubota to step up to the mound, and although he gave up a run in the eighth, the first-time pitcher threw a scoreless ninth to keep Waseda close, allowing his team to respond with an amazing three-run rally to tie the game.94 Although Chicago retook the lead with two runs in the 10th, Waseda never gave up and fought back again for an incredible 8-7 win.95 Tobita later reflected, “The fierce battle turned out to be a bizarre victory for Waseda yet as Stagg Field was filled with cheers, Americans came down from the stands one after another to shake hands with us.”96

Four years later, with Merrifield now retired from coaching, Chicago was skippered by Nels Norgren, a former Maroon who as a freshman missed out playing against Waseda in 1911, but then coached the University of Utah in an 8-4 loss to the 1916 Konoled team.97 Since returning, Norgren had “topped off his career to date with the restoring of Chicago to Conference honors on the diamond in the Spring of 1925,” and now he had his own chance for redemption against Waseda.98

Far from deterred, Tobita’s mindset was fixed: no matter how elite the Maroons were, he couldn’t let them get away with the series this time.” With the opener taking place on a national holiday and Waseda’s ace Yoshikazu Takeuchi on the mound, it had all the makings of a Japanese fairy tale.100 It was a pitchers’ duel, and in the bottom of the ninth with one out, the bases loaded and down, 2-0, Tobita sent up a right-handed pinch-hitter, Sadayoshi Fujimoto.101 Lefty Joe Gubbins called for a towel to dry his sweaty hands, then proceeded to throw three strikes to sit Fujimoto down without a swing.102 Tobita then sent up right-handed pinch-hitter Eijiro Mizuno, who worked the count full, setting up a dramatic finish:

Joey started a wide hook that looked like it was headed about two inches wide of the plate. That would have been ball four and would have forced in a run, leaving the bases still full. But just before the ball reached the plate it hooked in and darted across a corner of the rubber. The umpire yelled “strike three,” and the dazed Mizuno, who had been all ready to start for first base had to chart his course along another tack. Nobody cared very much, however, just where Mizuno went, for a crowd of more than 20,000 was giving vociferous tribute to the courage and skill of Joey Gubbins. Joey, only 21 and modest, was looking for the quickest and most obscure route to the club house.103

Tobita had let the chance slip away, but he was determined not to lose to Chicago again. The rest of the Japanese teams also put up fierce competition against the Americans, as the next four games all ended in scoreless draws: a rain-shortened five-inning tie with Keio, two extra-inning games with Meiji halted by darkness, and a nine-inning rainout against Waseda.104 Norgren would later point out, “In order to keep their heads above water, both teams had to make perfect plays at the plate, double plays, brilliant catches and stops in the field.”105 The “jinx” was finally broken when in the second game against Keio, with the score tied, 2-2, in the ninth, shortstop Albert McConnell pulled off a daring squeeze play to send Bob Howell home for the winning run.106 Chicago and Waseda then played to a 1-1 tie in 10 innings, but Tobita’s men finally seized their first win of the series in the next game when Fujimoto shut out the Maroons, 1-0.107

The Americans then battled two professional teams, defeating Takarazuka twice but losing, 2-1, to Daimai in 10 innings, then traveled to Korea, where they easily notched five straight victories.108 While Chicago played in Seoul, Waseda and Keio faced off for the first time in nearly 20 years with a doubleheader kicking off the new Tokyo Big Six Baseball League.109 In the opener, Waseda’s Yoshikazu Takeuchi had a perfect game broken up in the ninth en route to an 11-0 win. Fujimoto followed that performance by allowing only one run in a 7-1 decision to complete the two-game sweep of Keio.110

Abe was surely proud of his team for capturing the first real Japanese baseball championship since 1906, but for Tobita it didn’t really matter, for in his mind Waseda’s biggest foe was still Chicago.111 While “in Korea the team seemed to find its batting eye,” and when Chicago returned to Japan they continued their hot hitting, beating Montetsu 14-0 and the Fukuoka All-Stars 12-3.112 Norgren’s pitchers had taken their play to the next level, too, as Gubbins threw a no-hitter in Kyoto backed by 14 runs to turn the tables against Daimai. William Macklind followed that with a one-hitter in a 6-0 win against a team from Nagoya in Chicago’s last game outside of Tokyo.113

The Maroons thus returned to the capital for their final game of the tour, which as fate would have it was also to be the decisive match of the Waseda series, now deadlocked at 1-1-2.114 Norgren selected Gubbins, who was well rested after his no-hitter, while the obvious choice for Tobita was Takeuchi, who after his near-perfect game against Keio went on to beat Hosei and shut out the powerful Meiji team.115

The winner-take-all matchup between Waseda and the University of Chicago had all the makings of a pitchers’ duel; however, when the game got underway in front of a capacity crowd packed into the newly built stands at Totsuka Stadium, “The Maroon team started with a rush and scored four runs.”116 It was clear Takeuchi didn’t have it that day, meanwhile Gubbins’ fastball was so good that it seemed Waseda was surely doomed.117 If they lost the series yet again, Tobita knew it would mean another long wait for a chance at redemption, and he doubted if “in the fever of a broken heart, it would be possible to endure another five years.”118 So Tobita pulled Takeuchi and replaced him with Fujimoto, then stared at the ground frozen with grief.119

But in the bottom of the fifth Waseda’s luck started to change, as the number-seven hitter, Toshinobu Yasuda, swung at the first pitch he saw from Gubbins and hit a blooper into right field.120 When Fujimoto followed this with a single past second, Norgren figured Waseda’s number-nine hitter was going to bunt so he adjusted his infield accordingly.121 Tobita recognized the trap, so he called Yukisato Nemoto over before he entered the box and told the left-hander to look for an inside pitch to pull.122 Nemoto stepped to the plate and prayed for a changeup but got a fastball instead, yet somehow he still managed to turn on it and sent the ball “like a meteor through space” until it skimmed the outfield fence, scoring Yasuda and putting Fujimoto on third while Nemoto made it into second with a double.123 Takehiko Yamazaki then belted a triple to right that pulled Waseda within one, but Gubbins finally settled down and got out of the inning.124

Entering the seventh, Norgren lifted his southpaw in favor of Macklind. The righty gave up a double to Shinjiro Iguchi and issued a walk to Kimitsugu Kawai.125 With the right-handed Fujimoto due up, Tobita was faced with a tough decision: let his pitcher bat, or bring in a left-handed pinch-hitter. Although Fujimoto blew his chance by taking three straight strikes from Gubbins in the first game of the series, Tobita elected not to make a change, and what a decision this turned out to be, as Fujimoto took Macklind deep with a three-run homer over the center-field fence.126 Waseda added to its lead in the eighth with Yamazaki sending one over the right-field wall, clouted its way to a 10-4 victory, and in the process won a series against the Maroons for the first time.127

It was a historic season in which Waseda swept Keio in the first Sokei-sen fought in nearly two decades, then beat Hosei, Meiji, Rikkyu, and Imperial to secure the first Tokyo Big Six Baseball League championship. But looking back, Tobita would say that despite all this, “beating Chicago had a different flavor.”128 His players weren’t as thrilled as they had been when they defeated Keio and Meiji, and the fans didn’t seem as happy either, but Tobita went home in a dreamy state, and as he held his two children in his arms, tears rolled down his cheeks.129 He thought to himself, “I had done what I had to do,” believing his steep debt to the Waseda team and to his mentor, Abe, was at least partly repaid.130 So the next day, without telling his wife his intentions, Tobita met with Abe and tendered his resignation.131 His manager stared at him for a while, and then said, “I’ll discuss it with my seniors.”132 But as much as Tobita respected Abe, he knew his decision could not be reversed, no matter what the circumstances, so he gathered his players on the first-base bench to say goodbye:

I was so full of gratitude that hot tears fell harshly on the players as I shook hands with each of them. They all hung their heads except one, Takeuchi, who said, “It’s still good, don’t you want to do more?” He sounded as if he was giving me an order in a ridiculous voice full of Kyoto dialect. Then as soon as I crossed the threshold at home, I said, “Hey, I quit coaching today.” As expected, my wife looked a little surprised, but [my children] Tadahiro and Chuei suddenly shouted ‘Banzai.’”133

The Maroons, despite losing their series to Waseda, returned home with a record of 19 wins, 8 losses, and 5 ties. Norgren would have to wait longer than expected for a rematch since Waseda decided to postpone its return tour until 1927. By then Waseda had a new coach, Tadao Ichioka, who was a catcher when Waseda hosted Chicago in 1915.134 After the teams split two games, Norgren was redeemed as the Maroons clinched the 1927 series with a 9-3 win in the finale.135

Three years later, Norgren prepped his team for its 1930 Japan tour by playing 13 games while en route to Seattle, from where they set sail on August 20.136 The coach later recalled, “Without exception, the boys played a class of ball that was encouraging when one contemplated the approaching contests in Japan.”137 By the time the Maroons arrived at Yokohama, Abe had retired from Waseda and was elected to the Diet in 1928, literally and figuratively getting off the sidelines in an attempt to stem the tide of militarism and advance a social democratic agenda.138 Yet there were still two familiar faces to greet Norgren at the port, as both coach Ichioka and manager Takasugi were still with the team.139 After taking the electric tram to Tokyo, Norgren and his squad of a dozen players were greeted with a rousing welcome from the Waseda students and then spent a half-hour posing for pictures and being filmed alongside the Japanese team.140

Chicago was to play two games apiece against Waseda, Keio, and Meiji at Jingu Stadium, with a capacity of 50,000, as well additional games vs. Waseda and other teams outside Tokyo.141 In the opener, Chicago and Waseda both scored three runs in the first three frames, after which the Japanese scored five more runs and held on to win 8-5.142 Then, as Norgren later recalled, “The going was hard! We were defeated in the next four games, by Waseda, 8 to 3, Keio, 4 to 2, and Meiji, 10 to 5, and 6 to l.”143 Chicago finally won its first game of the tour when it bettered Keio, 2-1, but fell again to Waseda 7-6 in Yokohama.144 Everything began to change, however, once the Maroons reached Takarazuka, where they outlasted Waseda, 6-4, in 10 innings, then beat them again the next day, 4-1.145 Chicago went on to beat Kwansei, 6-4, and twice defeated Waseda’s alumni, 3-1, and 4-1, before tying the Tokyo Club, composed of all-star collegiate graduates, 1-1, in 12 innings.146

One last game was to be played against Waseda in front of a large crowd in Maebashi, about four hours north of Tokyo, where Chicago completed its turnaround by beating its hosts, 4-1, and in the process clinched a series split with Waseda.147 This was followed by a finale against the Waseda alumni who up to this point had never beaten Chicago, but this time the “old boys” finally broke through, scoring a run in the ninth to win 5-4.148 Norgren later shared his reflections on the tour:

After being completely snowed under in the first five games of the series, the boys fought their way out from underneath and finished with a record of seven victories, seven defeats, and one tie. We broke even with Waseda and Keio, but Meiji holds two victories over us.

Five years ago I thought the popularity and the development of baseball in Japan had reached its peak. I found that in five years there was considerable growth in the popularity of baseball as well as in the proficiency of the teams. The keen rivalry which results in close games between the six teams of the University League in Tokyo has taken the fancy of fans, and their interest is greater in this series than it is in any series with a foreign team. While games with American college teams sometimes bring out crowds of about 25,000 spectators, the crucial games between the Tokyo universities has [sic] been known to attract a throng of 40,000 to 50,000 people. In the case of the championship series in the fall of 1929 between Waseda and Keio, they had a sell-out for both games which meant between 50,000 and 60,000 people. Naturally, such interest is due to the keen rivalry developed through the proficient performance of the members of the league. There is no doubt in my mind that only a champion college team can hope to win more than half of its games against Waseda, Keio, and Meiji Universities, as they are playing ball today. The day is past when a college team can make a clean sweep of the series in Tokyo, unless it is a team of unusual calibre.149

For reasons not entirely clear, there was no return tour in 1931 and although Chicago had been traveling to Japan every five years since 1910, there was no tour in 1935, but Chicago once again welcomed Waseda back to the Midway in May 1936.150 Now coached by Kyle Anderson, who was the leadofif hitter on Norgren’s 1927 squad, Chicago rocked Shozo Wakahara and withstood a late rally to win 18-16.151 The Japanese ace bounced back, striking out 17 in a 10-5 victory, then followed that with a no-hitter against Yale, but he failed to repeat his heroics in the rubber match with Chicago, as the Maroons routed Waseda and took the series with a 13-3 win.152 That was the last time the two teams met for more than 70 years, so when Chicago finally returned, it truly marked the restart of a legendary rivalry.

Before taking the field on Easter Sunday in 2008, the Maroons donned suits while Waseda wore their student uniforms to attended Mass at Noboricho Cathedral, and then both teams paid their respects at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park.153 Some of the Chicago players were familiar with their university’s role in the development of the atomic bomb. (Manhattan Project scientists created the world’s first nuclear reactor inside a makeshift laboratory built beneath the stands at old Stagg Field.)154 Ahead of the trip, Maroon southpaw Nathan Ginsberg discussed the Chicago-Hiroshima connection with a reporter, yet noted, “As important as that is and as tough as it may be to concentrate, we want to go out and win a few games.”155 Indeed, most of the media attention focused on the history of the baseball rivalry itself, with pitcher Payton Leonhardt saying, “It has hit home with us that this is a tradition that has dated back far more than we can comprehend. That is what is driving us.” Co-captain and outfielder Mike Serio added, “Every decision made, and every play we have, in the back of everyone’s head is that we have to win in Japan,” while co-captain and first baseman, Dominik Meyer admitted, “We will try to do our best and not embarrass ourselves.”156

In the opener at Hiroshima Municipal Stadium, the Maroons were, in fact, embarrassed, losing 15-0 in front of some 14,000 fans. After Waseda’s lopsided victory, a reception was held at which dignitaries praised the visitors, not for their performance that day, but for the historic role their school played both in the evolution of Waseda’s team as well as baseball throughout Japan.157 In the next game, played under the lights in the Osaka Dome, Serio scored his team’s first run of the series, but Chicago was held scoreless the rest of the way while Waseda’s up-and-coming batters scored six runs in the final three innings for an 8-1 win.158

Ahead of the finale at Seibu Dome, just outside Tokyo, Wasaburo Yawata, son of right fielder Kyosuke Yawata, who played against Chicago during Waseda’s 1911 tour, presented flowers to Waseda coach Atsuyoshi Otake, while Junko Kuwano and her daughter Kiyoko presented a bouquet to Chicago coach Brian Baldea.159 Junko’s father was Goro Mikami, left fielder on Waseda’s 1910-1911 tours, who after graduating from Waseda played in the United States for Knox College and then professionally for the barnstorming All Nations club.160 A reporter noted at the time, “If this news is flashed around among the ball playing universities it ought to do more to cement peace and promote international good feeling than the tracts which are being scattered by many of the Japanese-American organizations.”161

So as Junko watched along with Kiyoko and Wasaburo at her side, the Waseda team looked to secure its first ever series sweep of the Maroons on either side of the Pacific.162 Then just as Merrifield prophesied over a hundred years before, the Japanese players proceeded to hit the American curves and made their share of the fun while on their way to a 10-0 victory, after which they bowed politely to the umpire.163

CHRISTOPHER FREY is a writer, director, and producer at Cross Media International, a production company based in San Francisco and Tokyo that he co-founded in 2003. While earning degrees in Asian studies and diplomacy and world affairs with a minor in Japanese from Occidental College in Los Angeles and the International Program at Waseda University in Tokyo, he was awarded a Richter International Fellowship for research conducted in Hong Kong and Southern China, as well as an Anderson Fellowship for research conducted at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1988 Chris attended his first professional baseball game in Japan as the Hiroshima Toyo Carp hosted the Yakult Swallows, then 20 years later was at Tokyo Dome to see his hometown Oakland Athletics take on the Boston Red Sox in the 2008 edition of the MLB Japan Opening Series.

 

 

NOTES

(Article titles originally in Japanese have been translated into English)

1 “Opening Series Japan 2008,” mlb.com/mlb/events/opening_series/y20o8/; Jodi S. Cohen, “Honoring Old Rivalry a World Away,” Chicago Tribune, March 15, 2008: 1-2.

2 David Hilbert, “Chicago Baseball to Tour Japan,” Uchicago.edu, February 15, 2008. http://athletics.uchicag0.edu/news0708/bb-waseda-021408.htm.

3 Waseda Alumni Club, “Restart of Legend: Waseda University vs. the University of Chicago,” Tokyo, NTT Quaris, 2008: 3.

4 Ernest Wilson Clement, “Duncan Baptist Academy,” American Baptist Missionary Union Ninety-First Annual Report (Boston: Missionary Rooms, 1905), 276-277.

5 Suishū Tobita, Fifty-Year History of the Waseda University Baseball Club (Tokyo: Waseda University Baseball Club, 1950), 74-91.

6 Waseda University, Centennial History of Waseda University: Volume II (Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 1990), 146.

7 Waseda University, 149.

8 Fred Merrifield, “Love Baseball in Japan,” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1905: 9.

9 “Base Ball Team: 1900,” Cap and Gown: Volume VI (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1901), 218-221; They Went to Japan: Biographies of Missionaries of the Disciples of Christ (Indianapolis: United Christian Missionary Society, 1949), 29-30; “Religious and Charitable,” Pittsburgh Press, October 26, 1907: 5.

10 “Athlete as Missionary: Rev Alfred W. Place to Introduce Baseball and Football to Students of Japanese Universities,” Boston Globe, October 28, 1907: 5.

11 Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 107, 113; “Certified Copy of the Registration of an American Citizen at the American Consulate-General, Yokohama, Japan,” Deputy Consul General of the United States of America, January 20, 1911.

12 >David E. Sumner, Amos Alonzo Stagg: College Football’s Greatest Pioneer (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2021), 149.

13 “Maroon Nine to Visit Japan,” Chicago Tribune, June 19, 1910: 23.

14 Sumner, 149; “Maroons May Learn Tricks,” Chicago Tribune, June 21, 1910: 10.

15 J.J. Pegues, “International Baseball,” Independent, January 19, 1911: 70; Gerald R. Gems, The Athletic Crusade: Sport and American Cultural Imperialism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 36; “Miss Anna H. Marshall Becomes Wife of Fred Merrifield at Home Wedding,” Rock Island Argus, September 5, 1907: 5.

16 Pegues, 70-71.

17 H. Orville Page, “Maroons on Trip of 19,000 Miles,” Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1910: 25; “Undergraduate Life: The Japanese Trip,” University of Chicago Magazine 3 no. 1, (1910): 50; Pegues: 70.

18 Robert W. Baird, “The Longest and Most Successful Baseball Trip of All Time,” University of Chicago Magazine, Autumn 1976: 56-59.

19 Pegues: 71-72.

20 Pegues: 71-72.

21 Pegues: 72.

22 H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Maroon Team Guests of Japs,” Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1910: Sec. III, 4; Gilbert A. Bliss, “Bliss Writes Story of Arrival In Japan,” Daily Maroon, October 28, 1910: 1-3; Katarzyna Joanna Cwiertka, Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity (London: Reaction Books, 2006), 14-15.

23 Page, “Maroon Team Guests.”

24 Page, “Maroon Team Guests.”

25 Page, “Maroon Team Guests.”

26 Pegues: 72.

27 Pegues: 72.

28 “International Base-Ball Match at Waseda University, Ushigome, Tokyo,” Gurahikku (The Graphic) 4, 1910: 233.

29 Waseda University, 575.

30 “International Baseball Match at Waseda,” Japan Times, October 5, 1910: 6.

31 “International Baseball Match at Waseda;” “Invasion of the East,” Cap and Gown: Volume 16 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1911), 12.

32 Pegues: 72.

33 Pegues: 73.

34 “International Baseball Match at Waseda,” Japan Times, October 5, 1910: 6.

35 “International Baseball Match at Waseda,” Japan Times, October 5, 1910: 6.

36 “International Baseball Match at Waseda,” Japan Times, October 5, 1910: 6.

37 “International Baseball Match at Waseda”; Pegues, 73.

38 “The Supporters of Waseda,” Gurahikku (The Graphic) 4, 1910: 217; “International Base-Ball Match at Waseda University: 251; Yujiro Koike and Yuko Kusaka, “The Theory of Human Building of Tobita Suishu in Baseball,” 74. https://rose-ibadai.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&item_id=i7522&item_no=i&page_id=i3&block_id=2i; Suishu Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball: History of Japanese Baseball in the Early Days (Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2005), 353-354.

39 “International Baseball Match at Waseda,” Japan Times, October 9, 1910: 2; H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Page Writes of Conquests,” Chicago Tribune, November 2, 1910: 11.

40 “International Baseball Match at Waseda,” Japan Times, October 7, 1910: 6; “Invasion of the East,” 12-13; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 119: H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Clean Sweep for U. Of C. Ball Team,” Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1910: 10.

41 H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Page Tells of Japan Trip,” Chicago Tribune, December 28, 1910: 8; “Invasion of the East,” 12.

42 Page,“Page Tells of Japan Trip.”

43 Page,“Page Tells of Japan Trip.”

44 H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Japs Treated to Real ‘Thrillers,’” Chicago Tribune, November 22, 1910: 14; “Page Tells of Japan Trip.”

45 “Maroon Nine Continues Victories Over Japs,” Chicago Tribune, October 28, 1910: 11; Page, “Japs Treated to Real ‘Thrillers’.”

46 “Return from Japan,” University of Chicago Magazine 3, Number 3, January 1911: 167.

47 “Return from Japan.”

48 “Return from Japan.”

49 “International Base-Ball Match at Waseda University: 233.

50 Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 118; Waseda University, 577; Koike and Kusaka, 74.

51 Koike and Kusaka, 72-74; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 96; Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 353-354.

52 “Abe Resigns as Waseda Manager,” Honolulu Advertiser, April 1, 1911: 3; “Waseda Baseball Team Will Tour the United States,” Japan Times, March 9, 1911: 6.

53 “Japanese Team Tour Schedule Given Out,” Washington Times, April 8, 1911: 11.

54 “Professor Abe Lectures,” Daily Palo Alto, May 1, 1905: 6; Robert K. Fitts, Issei Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020), 57.

55 Shin Hashido, Recent Baseball Techniques (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1905), 199-208; Sheng-Lung Lin, “The Development of the New Bushido Yakyu Culture,” Journal of Physical Culture 16, December 2014: 49-104.

56 >Hashido, 199-208; Lin.

57 “Baseball and Peace,” Chicago Tribune, March 29, 1911: 6.

58 “Jap Ball Team Arrives Today,” San Francisco Call, April 13, 1911: 13; “American Tour of Waseda University (Japan) Team,” Official College Base Ball Annual for 1912 (New York: American Sports Publishing, 1912), 23-27.

59 “‘Pat’ Page Gains Bride in Athletic Romance,” Chicago Examiner, June 15, 1911: 2; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 122-123.

60 “Chicago Team Coming, Some Lively Games Expected by Local Nines,” Japan Times, August 14, 1915: 5.

61 Waseda University, 1070; “20,000 Japs See Ball Game,” New York Times, September 25, 1915: 13; H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Maroons Score Two Shutouts; Win Seven Straight in Japan,” Chicago Tribune, November 13, 1915: 11; H. Orville “Pat” Page, Baseball Tour of the Far East,” Cap and Gown: Volume 21 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1916), 273-275; Tobita, Fifty-Year Histoy, 139-140.

62 H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Maroon Nine Sweeps Series; Wins Ten Straight in Japan,” Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1915: 11.

63 John Husar, “Baseball in 1915: Have Yen, Will Travel,” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 1973: Sec 3, 1.

64 “20,000 Japanese Fans Saw Chicago Varsity Team Win,” Boston Evening Globe, September 24, 1915: 7; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 14-23.

65 H. Orville “Pat” Page, “Japan Greets Maroon Team with Spirit,” Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1915: 23; “20,000 Japanese Fans Saw Chicago Varsity Team Win.”

66 Cap and Gown: Volume 22 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1917), 276-278.

67 Waseda University: Volume III: 517.

68 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 352-355.

69 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 355-360

70 Koike and Kusaka, 74.

71 Lin, 49-50.

72 Robert Whiting, You Gotta Have Wa (New York: Collier Macmillan, 1989), 38-39.

73 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 375.

74 Koike and Kusaka, 74.

75 “Pat Page Quits as Maroon Coach,” Quad City Times, February 11, 1920: 21; “Dozen Maroons Named for Ball Tour of Orient,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1920: 13.

76 Fred Merrifield, “1920 Baseball Team in Japan,” Cap and Gown: Volume 26 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1921), 411.

77 Ted Curtiss, “High Spots on the Japan Trip,” Cap and Gown: Volume 26 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1921), 413.

78 “The Baseball Schedule and Scores of the Games Played in Japan, 1920,” Cap and Gown: Volume 26 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1921), 410.

79 Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 167.

80 “U. of Chicago Plays 6-6 Tie with Waseda College,” Chicago Tribune, May 14, 1920: 12; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 167.

81 Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 168.

82 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 290.

83 Tobita, ‘Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 290-291.

84 “The Baseball Schedule and Scores of the Games Played in Japan, 1920.”

85 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 291.

86 “Chicago University Baseball Nine Defeated Waseda at Kyoto,” Japan Times and Mail, June 3, 1920: 8; “The Baseball Schedule and Scores of the Games Played in Japan, 1920.”

87 “Chicago Wins Fast Ten Innings Game,” Times and Mail, May 15, 1920: 1; “Keio Nine Holds Chicago to Tie,” Japan Times and Mail, May 22, 1920: 8; “The Baseball Schedule and Scores of the Games Played in Japan, 1920.”

88 “The Baseball Schedule and Scores of the Games Played in Japan, 1920.”

89 Tobita, ‘Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 292-293.

90 Merrifield, “1920 Baseball Team in Japan,” 411.

91 Tobita , Fifty-Year History, 176-182.

92 James Crusinberry, “Japs Play Well, But Batina Whisper, So Maroons Win, 4-2,” Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1921: 18; “Maroons Win from Japanese Ball Team,” Decatur (Illinois) Herald and Review, May 11, 1921: 4; “Japanese Win By 17 to 1,” New York Times, May 12, 1921: 14; “Japs Nose Out Butler, 2 to 1,” Indianapolis , May 15, 1921: 25, 35; Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 61; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 182.

93 “Japs Nose Out Maroons,” Quad City Times, May 19, 1921: 7; Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 61-62.

94 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 63-65; “Japs Nose Out Maroons”: 7.

95 “The Waseda Series,” Cap and Gown: Volume 27 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1922), 377; Tobita, Thirty Years, 65-66; “Japs Nose Out Maroons,” 7.

96 Tobita, ‘Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 66.

97 “Japanese Team Displays Real Diamond Class,” Salt Lake Herald-Republican, May 13, 1916: 15; “Cal’s Comments,” Green Bay Press Gazette, September 10, 1921: 5.

98 “The Baseball Coach,” Cap and Gown, Volume 31 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1926), 409.

99 Tobita, ‘Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 386-387.

100 “The Japanese Trip,” Cap and Gown: Volume 27 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1926),415.

101 “Maroons Beat Waseda, 2-0,” Chicago Tribune, September 24, 1925: 21; Luther A. Huston, “20,000 Tokyo Fans Cheer as Chicago Boy Fans Man with Bases Full in Ninth,” Tampa Tribune, November 2, 1925: 11; “Japanese Trip,” Cap and Gown: Volume 31 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1926),415.

102 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 386-387; “Maroons Beat Waseda, 2-0,” 21; “Huston.

103 Huston.

104 “Fourth Called Game for Chicago Maroons,” Honolulu StarBulletin, October 6, 1925: Sec. II, 9; “Maroons and Waseda U. Nines Play Scoreless Tie,” Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1925: 26; Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 386-387; “The Japanese Trip,” 415.

105 Nels Norgren, “The Japan Trip, The Seventh International Baseball Series,” The University of Chicago Magazine, VOL. XVIII NO. 3, January 1926: 114.

106 “The Japanese Trip,” 416.

107 “U. Of C. Nine Like Grid Team; Plays to a Tie,” Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1925: 30; “The Japanese Trip,” 416; “Maroons Lose to Waseda,” Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1925: 32; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 250;

108 “The Japanese Trip,” 416-417.

109 Waseda, Centennial History, V. III: 517-525.

110 “Keio Loses First Tilt of Japan’s Big Series,” Honolulu Advertiser, October 20, 1925: 6; Waseda, Centennial History, V. III: 517-525.

111 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 386.

112 >“The Japanese Trip,” 417.

113 “The Japanese Trip,” 417.

114 “The Japanese Trip,” 417.

115 Tobita, Thirty Years, 116.

116 “The Japanese Trip,” 417.

117 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 116.

118 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 387.

119 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 117.

120 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 326.

121 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 327.

122 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 327.

123 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 327.

124 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 328.

125 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 328.

126 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 327-328.

127 “The Japanese Trip,” 417; Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 328.

128 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 328.

129 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 388.

130 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 388.

131 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 388.

132 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 388.

133 Tobita, Thirty Years of Hot Ball, 388.

134 “Japanese Team Displays Real Diamond Class”: 15; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 266.

135 “Chicago Nine Scores Win Over Waseda Team,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), June 2, 1927; “Waseda Evens Series; Beats Maroons,” Chicago Tribune, June 3, 1927; “Maroons Beat Waseda,” Chicago Tribune, June 8, 1927: 23; Tobita, Fifty-Year History: 266-267.

136 Nelson H. Norgren, “Japan Trip,” Cap and Gown: Volume 36 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1931), 182.

137 Norgren, “Japan Trip,” 182.

138 “Politics as Practiced in Orient Will Be Detailed by Speaker at Men’s Meeting,” Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal, January 15, 1928: 5.

139 Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 298-304; Abe Resigns as Waseda Manager,” Honolulu Advertiser, April 1, 1911: 3.

140 Nelson H. Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series,” University of Chicago Magazine, December 1930: 71.

141 Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series”: 72.

142 Norgren, “Japan Trip,” 183.

143 Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series”: 73.

144 “Maroon Ball Nine Loses to Waseda University, 7-6,” Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1930: 24; Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series”: 74; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 304.

145 “Chicago Beats Waseda,” New York Times, September 21, 1930: S6; Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series”: 74; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 304.

146 Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series,”: 74; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 304.

147 Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series”: 74; Tobita, Fifty-Year History, 304.

148 Norgren, “Ninth International Baseball Series”: 74.

149 Norgren, “Japan Trip,” 185.

150 “Maroon Diamond Squad Faces Waseda University in Three Game Series Opening Friday,” Daily Maroo, May 27, 1936: 4; “Waseda Is Due Tomorrow for Maroon Series,” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1936: 22.

151 “Maroon, Waseda Teams Split Two Weekend Games,” Daily Maroon, June 2, 1936: 4.

152 “Maroons Defeat Waseda 13 to 3 to Win Series,” Chicago Tribune, June 18, 1936: 24; Tobita, Fifty-Year History: 383-384; “Maroons, Waseda to Play Deciding Game Tomorrow,” Chicago Tribune, June 16, 1936: 24; “Japanese Pitcher Hurls No-Hitter Against Yale,” Scranton Tribune, June 9, 1936: 15.

153 “Baseball: Japan 2008 Blog,” University of Chicago, edu, March 25, 2008. https://athletics.uchicago.edu/about/history/travel_blogs/baseballjapan_20o8_blog.

154 David N. Schwartz, “What It Was Like to Witness the World’s First Self Sustained Nuclear Chain Reaction,” Time magazine, December 1, 2017.

155 >Joe Lombardi, “Have Bat, Will Travel (Japan) Ex-Dobbs Ferry Standout Also Pitches for Chicago Squad,” White Plains (New York) Journal News, March 18, 2008: 23.

156 Cohen, “Honoring Old Rivalry a World Away”: 1-2.

157 “Baseball: Japan 2008 Blog.”

158 Jodi S. Cohen, “U. of C. Team Wins Fans, but No Games, in Japan,” Chicago Tribune, April 4, 2008: 2-8; “Baseball: Japan 2008 Blog.”

159 Junko Kuwano, daughter of Goro Mikami, email correspondence, February 2022; “Baseball: Japan 2008 Blog.”

160 “Japanese Baseball Player Captain of College Team,” Chicago Tribune, April 11, 1915: 23; Kuwano; “Japan Tour 2008.”

161 “Jap Will Lead Knox College Team,” , April 17, 1915: 8.

162 Kuwano.

163 “Waseda University 125th Anniversary Exchange Game March 25 at Seibu Dome,” Waseda Sports, March 25, 2008; Kuwano; “Baseball: Japan 2008 Blog.”

Stanford and Keio players discuss the controversial ninth-inning call on May 29, 1913. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

The Stanford University Baseball Team is closely connected to the development of baseball in Japan. This stems from 1904-05, when Waseda University was planning an expedition to the United States and negotiated with different universities there, and Stanford University was the first to respond. One of the reasons Stanford accepted Waseda’s request was that Zentaro Morikubo was a student at Stanford and facilitated negotiations between the two universities.1 Zentaro was the son of Sakuzo Morikubo, a member of the House of Representatives in Japan’s Imperial Diet; Zentaro later became a member of the Japan Amateur Athletic Association and was appointed a member of the Japan Baseball Umpires’ Association (an organization founded in 1916 with the intent of spearheading the establishment of baseball rules in Japan). As such, Zentaro Morikubo was a prominent figure in the baseball world at the time.2

The Waseda team traveled to the United States in 1905, played against the Stanford Cardinals twice, and lost both games. They lost because the Waseda team’s play did not extend much beyond the rudimentary stages of throwing and hitting the ball, whereas the Stanford team approached the sport in an organized and systematic manner.3

On March 31,1913, Keio University announced an invitation to the Stanford University baseball team to visit Japan later that spring.4 At the time, St. Mary’s College and Santa Clara University were the two best college baseball teams on the West Coast, and Stanford was second to these universities, alongside the University of California and the University of Washington. Stanford had won games against all of these universities before they visited Japan, and therefore Keio was “expected to probably lose.”5

An 11-man contingent boarded the passenger ship Nippon Maru and departed San Francisco on May 10, 1913.6 Graduate student R.W. Wilcox was the manager.7 The players were Ray Maple, pitcher; Al Gragg, pitcher; Leslie Dent, catcher; Tom Workman, first base; Louis Cass, second base; Pete McCloskey, third base; Zeb Terry, shortstop; Arthur Halm, left field; Walter Argabrite, center field; and Heinie Beeger, right field.8

The trip was scheduled for 10 weeks, longer than any previous trip by a Stanford team. They planned to play at least 12 games, starting with Keio in Japan, with a two-week visit to Hawaii on the way home. Keio provided 7,000 yen ($3,500) to cover the trip expenses. In 1913, 7,000 yen was equivalent to approximately 28 million yen (approximately $240,000) in 2022.9 In addition, the Stanford baseball team raised $200 from a match against the Santa Cruz Colored Giants; the university donated $250; and the Quadrangle Club donated $50, making for a total of $500.10 With the funds provided from the Japanese side and the donations from Stanford, the large amount of money they were able to raise suggests high expectations for the trip in both countries.

The Stanford group arrived at Yokohama around 8 A.M. on May 27.11 The Japan Times reported, “Immediately after the health inspection, the six-foot huskies were swarmed by a gang of newspaper reporters, and the Keio ball players and students who went out in a launch to meet them. ‘Banzai’ and college cheers were exchanged on the deck.”12 The team held a press conference at the request of the Japanese press, in which they described how they spent their time training during the 17-day voyage on the Nippon Maru. “Thankfully, the seas were calm, so we were able to practice every day. We still ended up dropping 15 of the four-dozen balls into the sea. However, perhaps because of the daily practice, everyone gained weight, with some of us gaining as much as 12 kg [about 26 pounds].”13

Obviously, the team had indulged in a comfortable lifestyle during the voyage. However, when the Stanford players arrived at Yokohama, despite their massive weight gain, their physiques drew little attention from the Japanese, who remarked only that their physiques were “imposing.”14

By way of example, the Yomiuri Shimbun favorably introduced the players in the following terms: “They are all elegant young gentlemen, dressed in winter suits and caps. Their physiques seem particularly imposing when one looks at the All-Philippines Baseball Team. Based on this alone, they would seem to have the power to overwhelm the Japanese baseball world.”15

The All-Philippines Baseball Team had come to Japan on May 10, and had planned to stay until June 1 and play a total of 10 games with Waseda, Keio, Meiji University, and Yokohama Commercial School.16 Some of the games were canceled due to rain, and the Philippines team ended up playing eight games, of which it won only one, against Waseda, losing the other seven.17

The All-Philippines Baseball Team was said to have “selected the very best of Philippine baseball,” with a total of 16 members, of which 13 were players, and one was a substitute. The players were generally of medium build and height, and while three had excellent physiques, another three were of smaller stature.18 While the results of the games are not necessarily always decided on the basis of physique, when one considers that the Philippines team had won only one out of the eight games, it is perhaps unsurprising that people thought that physique played a part in the team’s poor performance. The comment that “[t]heir physiques seem particularly imposing when one looks at the All-Philippines Baseball Team” can be taken not only as a comparison of the physiques of the All-Philippines players and the Stanford University players but also as an indication that there were high expectations for the latter based on the superiority of their physiques.

It should be noted that an article in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun reported that “the players bore no signs of fatigue and were very comfortable during their 17-day voyage, with each gaining about 750 g [about 1.5 pounds].”19 Compared with the Yomiuri Shimbun article, none of the players seems to have gained a large amount of weight. While it is difficult to judge which description is accurate, we can nevertheless deduce that the players did indeed gain weight during the voyage.

The Stanford team was evaluated favorably by the Japanese during their time in Japan, as illustrated by the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun: “They are all the very best of young gentlemen morally influenced by Dr. Jordan, who resembled a messenger of the god of peace, and they seem to be very pleasant and friendly upon first meeting in the American style.”20

“Dr. Jordan” was David Starr Jordan, who became the first president of Stanford University in 1891 and also became the first chancellor of the university in June 1913. Jordan visited Japan frequently from 1900 to investigate his academic specialty of ichthyology, the study of fish.21 Moreover, Jordan was a researcher, university administrator, anti-imperialist, and antiwar activist. Rather than his role as an ichthyologist and educator, the assessment of Jordan in Japan related to his opposition to the anti-Japanese-immigration movement in the United States, which was the most significant concern between the two countries at the time; he was on the side of the Japanese, arguing that “no parliament should pass the Japanese Exclusion Act.”22 In addition, he was described as “a great player for peace” who “loved peace and was convinced that peace was a global truth.”23

Thus, the baseball players were depicted as gentlemen inspired by Jordan precisely because they were at Stanford University. In addition, the more distinctive players in the group were thus described:

Pigeon-toed and with a liking for beans, Cass is the odd man out in the group—so pigeon-toed in fact that his fellows tease him every which way. He made everyone laugh by saying that he was going to advertise himself in the papers as a pigeon-toed rickshaw man when he arrived in Tokyo. Argabrite’s family runs a bean shop, and he also has a great liking for beans, hence the nickname “Bean.” Workman is extremely timid and never left his lifeboat during the voyage.24

While matters such as physique and family business have nothing to do with baseball itself, these topics were a good source of information to better know the players. The fact that such articles seeking to convey the personalities of the players were published, even if they were primarily intended to amuse the readers and satisfy their curiosity, demonstrates that people had a high level of interest in the Stanford University baseball team.

Having thus attracted people’s attention, how did the Stanford players adjust once they were in Japan? They started practicing at 1 P.M. on May 28 at Keio University’s Tsunamachi Grounds, with the practice lasting for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Second baseman Cass hit a succession of home runs to left field and left fielder Halm hit “a fire-breathing home run like a powerful cannon” with a long shot to right field.25 In defensive practice, the players threw the ball with machine-like accuracy, catching even difficult throws. Although they had not yet shown their full potential, the Stanford players were praised as “the epitome of the American national sport.”26

The players’ track records were good as well, and as a team they were the strongest since the Stanford University baseball team was founded. They were said to be among the best teams on the West Coast, having won four times and lost once against Santa Clara University, which had previously defeated the Waseda University baseball club, 10-2. The cleanup hitter was Louis Cass, and the ace pitcher was Ray Maple, a side- arm thrower. Maple, first baseman Tom Workman, and shortstop Zeb Terry had such a high level of skill that they had been invited to join professional clubs. Maple turned down an offer to join the Philadelphia Athletics, Walkman received an offer from the Boston Red Sox, and Terry was invited to join the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League and later had a seven-year major league career.27

Given this context, it was thought that Keio, Meiji, and the Tomon Club, which consisted of graduates of the Waseda University baseball club, would not be able to compete with the Stanford team.28 In fact, the Stanford team did not perform as well as its track record would have suggested.

The Americans played eight games in Tokyo: a five-game series against Keio, two games against Meiji University, and a game against Tomon. Then Stanford and Keio traveled together and played in Nagoya and Osaka. They did not play against Waseda because their schedules were incompatible.

The series with Keio began at the university’s Tsunamachi Grounds in the Mita section of Tokyo on May 29. Maple took the mound for Stanford but Keio elected to start Shinryo Ishikawa, their second-string pitcher, to measure the visitors’ ability. The Cardinals jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning, but Ishikawa remained steadfast and shut out the Americans for the remainder of the afternoon. Meanwhile, Maple limited Keio to just three hits and a single run as Stanford held a 2-1 lead going into the ninth inning.

Maples began the ninth by walking first baseman Shoji Goto, who was lifted for pinch-runner Daisuke Miyake. After a strikeout, Shigeru Takahama singled to right field, where Heinie Beeger bobbled the ball, allowing the runners to advance to second and third. With the tying and winning runs in scoring position, Shungo Abe strode to the plate. On the next pitch, Miyake broke toward the plate as Abe swung and missed. Caught in a rundown between third and home, Miyake scampered back to third, beating the throw, but his momentum carried him over the base. With Miyake’s feet off the bag, McCloskey applied the tag and then threw to shortstop Terry and he tagged out Takahama, who had strayed off second. Sure of the inning-ending double play, Terry dropped the ball near the mound and the Cardinals walked off the field. Seconds later, Miyake trotted home and stepped on the plate. After a brief conference, the umpire ruled that Miyake had been safe at third and his run counted. Without a loud protest, the Stanford players returned to their positions and recorded the final out. The 2-2 deadlock continued until the top of the 12th inning when a hit batsman, a force out, a stolen base, and a single gave Keio a run and the 3-2 victory.29

After the game, reporters and fans condemned both the umpires and the Keio players for taking advantage of the obvious missed call.30 The Stanford team’s attitude was praised thusly, “It is a mark of their generosity that, by the grace of the American gentlemanly temperament, Miyake was allowed to carry on without their contesting the decision.”31

On the last day of May Stanford sent A1 Gragg to the mound against Shunichi Nakamura and his Meiji University teammates. The two pitchers were nearly untouchable: Gragg surrendered just three hits and a walk while Nakamura held the Cardinals to a single hit and a base on balls. The score was 0-0 when Argabrite led off the top of the ninth with a bunt single. As Argabrite broke for second, Workman laid down a bunt between first base and the mound. Nakamura fielded it but his throw glanced off Workman, and as first baseman Takase retrieved the ball, Argabrite raced around the bases to score the winning run.32

After opening game, Keio pounded Stanford in their second meeting. “The American nine was so completely smashed,” wrote the Japan Times, “that it was a painful task to find and gather up the fragments that lay scattered round … [the diamond].” Keio batters managed only four walks and six hits off Maple, but four of the hits were doubles and the porous Stanford defense committed seven errors as the Japanese scored eight runs. Kazuma Sugase, the tall, bespectacled Keio captain, “shone brighter than the aurora borealis on the mound and with the ash” as he held the Cardinals to three runs on five hits and went 2 for 3 with two doubles and two runs scored at the plate.33 The magazine Yakyukai praised the outcome as “a superb victory for the Mita army.”34

The rout continued in the second game against Meiji. “Meiji Slaughters Stanford,” the Japan Times headlined its report. A hard rain left the diamond in poor condition and the “muddy and slippery ground made it difficult for the infielders, and incidental fun was provided more than once. When a runner slid into a base, he generally got up with a thick coating [of] mud.”35 Gragg took the mound for Stanford but Meiji found him “an easy proposition and got to him fast and furious,” as it cruised to a 5-2 victory.36

After consecutive blowouts, the reporter for the Japan Times wrote, “With his heart down in his boots and with a trembling hand, the scribe pens his obituary on the passing of the Cardinals.”37 But the writer had dismissed the visiting Americans too quickly. On June 8 they stormed back in the third game against Keio. Perhaps overconfident, Keio put Ishikawa instead of Sugase on the mound and “like a wounded and frenzied tiger, the Cardinals turned on the Keio gladiators with a snarl and deadly ferocity, and chewed them up.”38 As Maple was no-hitting Keio through the first eight innings, Stanford scored single runs in the third and fifth before breaking the game open with six runs in the seventh. In the bottom of the ninth, Miyake and then Goto singled to foil Maple’s no-hit game, but neither scored as Stanford won 8-0.

Keio’s boisterous fans took their frustrations out on the umpire, Lieutenant Burnett of the American Embassy. According to the Japan Times:

Many of his decisions on balls and strikes were strongly protested from the bleachers and grandstand. In addition, he made a few close decisions on bases and at the plate. … The howls of protest from the bleachers developed into a united uproarious denunciation of the arbiter. Jeering cheers and ovations were given him every now and again. Immediately after the game, the Keio players went and shook hands with Lieutenant Burnett one by one. …

While Lieutenant Burnett was shaking hands, a large crowd of unthankful and enraged fans rushed about him from all directions to mob him. A policeman, Keio professors, and Keio and Stanford players with baseball bats straightaway stood guard round Mr. Burnett. The threatening mob rapidly gained in size every second. The mob was highly worked up and would have struck at nothing. “Kill him!—Eat him up!” Hysterical outbursts of indignation were uttered repeatedly to stir the mob. Nothing could have stopped the excited mob, but for the appeasing, even appealing, efforts of Keio professors and students.39

As expected, Stanford had little trouble with the Waseda alumni team, the Tomon Club, on June 12.40 The Tomon Club’s lineup included future Japanese Hall of Famers Shin Hashido, Kiyoshi Oshikawa, and Chujun Tobita as well as Goro Mikami, who a few months later left for the United States to play for Knox College in Illinois and later for the professional All Nations barnstorming team. But with the exception of Mikami, these great players were past their prime. The former stars played a sloppy game, committing 11 errors and walking six batters, as Stanford won 6-1.41

On June 14 Maple once again took the mound for the Cardinals, but this time Keio countered with its ace, Sugase. According to the Japan Times, the two “fought for all they were worth. … Where Maple had speed, Sugase had curves; where one had mystifying floaters; the other had nasty underhand smokers; where one had the name of the best pitcher Stanford ever had, the other was cracked up to be the most clever and heady slabster that ever honored the Japanese diamond.”42 For seven innings the aces matched each other. Maple allowed just one hit, Sugase just two. Neither walked a batter nor allowed a run. But in the top of the eighth, Sugase hit Arthur Halm with an inside curve. Weak-hitting Pete McCloskey then slashed a single between third and short, moving Halm to third. A fly ball by Maple scored Halm and won the game, 1-0. The Stanford victory evened the series at two wins apiece and set up a game 5 showdown on the following afternoon.

Despite pitching a complete game the day before, Sugase took the mound again for Keio in the final matchup. Stanford rested Maple and countered with Gragg. Once again, the Japanese hit Gragg hard. Keio began the game with back-to-back doubles by Kenichi Kakeyama and Miyake, followed by an RBI single by Goto and another double by Akira Kusaka. Goto and Kusaka were left on base but Keio added two more runs in the fourth and another in the fifth to build a 5-0 lead. Meanwhile, Sugase “stood on the mound as firmly as Fuji-yama and showed himself as formidable and impregnable as a Dreadnought. His delivery was the goods of smoky, fast breaking, and hypnotic brand.”43 The Cardinals scored a lone run in the ninth as Sugase cruised to a 5-1 victory to capture the series.

The two teams next traveled west for a three-game series with a match in Nagoya and two in Osaka. Away from Tokyo, Stanford dominated Keio, winning 4-0 on June 17 in Nagoya, romping, 10-0, on June 21 in Osaka, and finishing the sweep with a 5-4 victory the following day as 25,000 watched in Osaka. On June 28 the Stanford Cardinals boarded the ocean liner Nippon and after a rousing sendoff by the Keio ballplayers, headed for Hawaii.44 Stanford stayed in Honolulu for about three weeks, winning six of the nine games against the U.S. All-Service team, the Punahou School, alumni from the St. Louis School and the Portuguese Athletic Club.45

Although the Cardinals ended their tour of Japan with a 6-4 record, their losses disappointed their hosts. We may ask why the Stanford team did not live up to expectations in Japan. As we have already seen, one of the major reasons may have been poor management of the team’s physical condition during their long voyage to Japan. Other reasons may have included poor field conditions and being insufficiently prepared for the environment—games were postponed by rain, indicating that the ground was still muddy when the games were played. Their performance may have been impacted by the fact that Maple, their ace pitcher, did not pitch as well as expected by someone who was being invited into the world of professional baseball.46 Furthermore, their second pitcher, Gragg, was not effective, losing twice.

Overall Stanford outhit and outscored Keio. Stanford recorded 58 hits and 34 runs in eight games against Keio, 24 more hits and 14 more runs than Keio (Table 1). Stanford won five games; Keio won three. Therefore, although Stanford had the upper hand over Keio in terms of batting power, they appear to have been close in terms of overall strength including pitching and defensive ability.

 

 

Although the Stanford team drew significant attention upon its arrival in Japan, the newspaper coverage dwindled as the team moved through the games with each university, with articles reporting their return to the United States appearing only in the bottom comer of the paper.47

The situation was the same back at Stanford University. Certainly, the Stanford Daily printed a group photo of the Stanford and Keio players with the caption “In the Land of the Chrysanthemum,” and an explanation that the team had gone to a place 6,000 miles away from their homeland, played baseball with Japanese universities, and enjoyed Japanese culture including visiting the ancient city of Kyoto. However, compared with the detail provided when the team set off on its trip, there was little coverage after it returned from a tour in which it was victorious but not overwhelmingly so.48

In Japan, the Stanford team was criticized. “At first we had high expectations for them and were greatly disappointed,” alluding to the Japanese proverb, “When I actually see Mt. Fuji, it is lower than I had heard.” Stanford’s points to be commended were only two: Terry’s defense, baserunning, and captaincy, and Maple’s control of the slow ball.49 The evaluations—“they were not too bad” and “the Stanford team had better hitting, so Keio, which had a better battery but inferior hitting, was defeated finally”—also suggest the disappointment in Japan with the large difference between the visitors’ prior reputation and the actual results of the games.50

Does this mean that Stanford University’s trip to Japan in 1913 was a fruitless endeavor? If we focus solely on games won and lost, the Stanford team failed to achieve its intended purpose in the sense that it did not win a resounding victory against the developing Japanese student baseball teams. However, from the perspective of promoting friendship and goodwill between Japan and the United States through baseball, the trip was of great value. Zeb Terry, who began his seven-year major-league career with the Chicago White Sox in 1916 and is considered “one of the greatest baseball players in Stanford history,” considered the trip to Japan a “treasured” memory.51 Terry and the Stanford players were overwhelmed by the VIP treatment by the Japanese.52

The Stanford team visited various places around Tokyo between games. On June 5 they saw a performance of Kanadehon Chushingura at the Kabuki-za Theater and paid a courtesy visit to the legendary kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro VI, who was known to be a baseball enthusiast. In addition, on June 6, at the invitation of the Imperial Theater, the team accompanied the Keio players to performances of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, Puccini’s opera Tosca, as well as a performance of the kabuki play Terutora Haizen by Chikamatsu Monzaemon starring Matsumoto Koshiro VII. On the day of the performance, Sada Yacco, who had starred in Tosca, presented handheld fans as souvenirs to the players of both universities, and the Stanford team presented her with a bouquet in return. These events can be seen as a sign of goodwill between Japan and the United States outside the stadium.53

Thereafter, at a reception held at the Kojunsha Club on June 2 for the Stanford and Keio players, manager Wilcox said on behalf of the American team: “We are delighted that our visit to Japan on this occasion has given us the opportunity to truly learn about Japanese customs and culture, and we hope that gathering together players from both universities will contribute to the friendship between Japan and the United States both today and in the future.”54 These words indicate that, from the perspective of US-Japan relations, the Stanford team’s visit to Japan went beyond baseball games, also serving as a platform for exchange for the young representatives of both Japan and the United States.

DR. YUSUKE SUZUMURA, bom in 1976, received a doctoral degree from Hosei University (Tokyo) in 2008, and is an associate professor of Meijo University (Nagoya), a visiting researcher of both the Hosei University Research Center for International Japanese Studies and the Hosei University Research Center for Edo-Tokyo Studies. He published the newest book Relationship between Religion of Philosophy and Society in Kiyozawa Manshi from Hosei University Press in February 2022. His majors are comparative philosophy, history of politics, and cross-cultural studies, and in recent years he has appeared on TV, radio, and internet media as a commentator. He is also a specialist in baseball history and has published three books since 2005. He serves as the president of the Forum for Researchers of Baseball Culture, co-executive director and an Editorial Board Member of the Japan Society for Intercultural Studies, and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research.

 

 

NOTES

1 Gantetsu Hashido, “A Team Which Has a Close Relationship with Japan,” Yakyukai, 3(8), 1913: 2-3.

2 Sheng-Lung Lin, Samurai Baseball Culture in Taiwan During the Period of Japan’s Colonization, Waseda University, Doctoral Dissertation, 2012, 102-103.

3 Hashido.

4 “Keio University Invites Stanford University,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, April 1, 1913: 5.

5 Hashido.

6 Masao Shimakura, “A Study of the Pacific Line as the Stage of Ship’s Band: A History of the Development from Meiji to Early Showa Eras,” Abstracts of the 2017 Annual Meeting, The Human Geographical Society of Japan, 108-10; “Stanford Has Come,” Yomiuri , May 27, 1913: 3.

7 “Cardinal Ball Players Sail for Land of Mikado,” Stanford Daily, May 19, 1913: 16.

8 “Cardinal Ball Players Sail for Land of Mikado.”

9 Yuichi Yoshino, “How Much Is Old ‘One Yen’ Today?” Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Cooperation, October 7, 2020, https://magazine.tr.mufg.jp/90326 (accessed on February 6, 2022).

10 “Eleven Men Sail for Japan Saturday Noon,” Stanford , May 7, 1913: 4.

11 “Declaration of Victory,” Yomiuri Shimbun, May 28, 1913: 3.

12 “Stanford Sends a Hummer,” Japan Times, May 28, 1913: 1.

13 “The Arrival of the Players of Stanford University,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, May 28, 1913: 5.

14 “Declaration of Victory.”

15 “Declaration of Victory.”

16 “The Schedule of Games Against the All Philippines Baseball Team,” Yomiuri Shimbun, May 5, 1913: 3.

17 “Final Score: Yokohama Commercial School 6, All Philippines Baseball Team 4,” Tokyo Asahi Shim, June 1, 1913: 5.

18 “The Arrival of the Players of the All Philippines Baseball Team,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, May 12, 1913: 5.

19 “The Arrival of the Players of the All Philippines Baseball Team.”

20 “The Arrival of the Players of Stanford University.”

21 Koichi Shibukawa, “The Fishes of Shizuoka: A History of Fish-Fauna Research and Some Future Perspectives,” in Yoshinori Yasuda and Mark J. Hudson, eds., Multidisciplinary Studies of the Environment and Civilization: Japanese Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2017), 17-18.

22 “Dr. Jordan’s View Against the Issue Concerning with Japanese People,” Yomiuri Shimbun, February 8, 1907: 2.

23 “The Great Ambassador of the Peace Has Come,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, August 27, 1911: 5.

24 “Declaration of Victory.”

25 “How Did the Players of Stanford University Practice?” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, May 29, 1913: 5.

26 “How Did the Players of Stanford University Practice?”

27 “Declaration of Victory,” “Stanford Sends a Hummer.”

28 Hashido.

29 “Keio Beats Stanford Boys,” Japan Times, May 30, 1913: 1.

30 “The First Game Against Keio University,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 28-29.

31 “The Baseball Games between Japan and the USA (The First Day),” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, May 30, 1913: 5.

32 “Stanford Wins Close Game,” Japan Times, June 1, 1913: 1.

33 “Keio Klouts Kalifornia,” Japan Times, June 3, 1913: 1.

34 “The Second Game Against Keio University,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 35-36.

35 “Meiji Slaughters Stanford,” Japan Times, June 5, 1913: 1.

36 “Meiji Slaughters Stanford.”

37 “Meiji Slaughters Stanford.”

38 “Stanford Defeats Keio,” Japan Times, June 10, 1913: 1.

39 “Stanford Defeats Keio.”

40 “The Game Against the Tomon Club,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 45.

41 “California Beats Tomon,” Japan , June 13, 1913: 1.

42 “Stanford Defeats Keio,” Japan Times, June 15, 1913: 1.

43 “‘Assimilate’ B.B. All Right,” Japan Times, June 17, 1913: 1.

44 “Stanford B.B. Boys Happy,” Japan Times, June 29, 1913: 8.

45 “On the Trip,” Stanford Daily, September 2, 1913: 9.

46 “Review of the Games against Stanford University,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 88-89.

47 “The Last Win of the Stanford University Team,” Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, June 28, 1913: 5.

48 “Stanford Ball Team Wins Majority of Games in Orient,” Stanford Daily, September 1, 1913: 1.

49 Taguchi Oson, “We Overestimated Them a Little,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 8.

50 Koyama Mango, “They Were Not Too Bad,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 7-8.

51 Don Liebendorfer, The Color of Life Is Red: A History of Stanford Athletics, 1892-1972 (Palo Alto: National Press, 1972), 230; Niall Adler, “Zeb Terry,” Society for American Baseball Research, BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/zeb-terry/ (accessed on April 10, 2022).

52 Adler.

53 “Visit to the Imperial Theater,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8 (1913): 95.

54 “The Stanford University Baseball Team’s Movements,” Yakyukai 3, no. 8(1913): 93-94.

Keio University with the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox on December 7, 1913. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)

 

INTRODUCTION

On January 27, 1913, John McGraw of the National League champion New York Giants and Charles Comiskey, owner of the American League Chicago White Sox, announced their plans for a world tour to be held after the 1913 World Series.1 The tour would be modeled after the 1888-1889 “Great Baseball Trip Around the World” when A.G. Spalding’s Chicago National League Club, led by captain Adrian “Cap” Anson, and a team selected from the National League and American Association by John M. Ward traveled the globe playing in New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, (Egypt, and Europe.2 When Comiskey heard of the Spalding world trip he supposedly stated, “Someday I will take a team of my own around the world.”3

The tour would begin in Cincinnati and the teams would barnstorm across the country until they reached Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 19. From there, they would sail to Japan, China, the Philippines, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, before returning to New York on March 6, 1914. Comiskey’s close friend Ted Sullivan, a former manager and minor league executive, was named the advance scout to organize the tour, and sailed from San Francisco to Honolulu, Japan, and Australia. While Spalding’s tour had supposedly broken even, Sullivan felt that this one would make money. A few months later, Comiskey’s advance agent, Dick Bunnell, sailed for Europe to complete the arrangements on that continent.4

In June 1913, after White Sox manager James Callahan “called on President Woodrow Wilson to explain the proposed world tour … Wilson expressed his approval not only because he said he considered himself a base ball fan, but because he thought the movement might result in the creation of an international league.”5 Wilson also thought the tour might help advance international peace and amity.6

Many New York players were not enthusiastic about the proposed tour. The original plan required each person to personally put up $1,500 for expenses and for all to share equally in the profits. The players thought it would be a great trip but too expensive.7 The sponsors understood the players’ reluctance to make the financial commitment. McGraw initially refused to discuss the trip until the Giants were sure of winning the pennant and thus a share of the World Series money, until on July 29 he held a team meeting and for the first time officially informed his players of the world tour. He showed them the financial arrangements and received a large number of positive commitments, from Christy Mathewson and Chief Meyers among others. Meanwhile, Comiskey and Callahan began contacting players from other American League teams in case their players refused to go under the proposed conditions.8

On September 24 Charles Comiskey announced that 75 people would go on the World Tour. Each player would be required to post $300 to guarantee his appearance on the ship but once on board, the money would be refunded. For such an unprecedented tour with so many passengers, great logistic and fiscal planning was needed, and both Comiskey and McGraw were prepared to write checks of $100,000 to defray additional expenses.9

On October 7 Harry M. Grabiner, Comiskey’s personal representative, announced that he was finalizing the plans for the massive around-the-world trip. He said he expected the tour to be the largest sporting event ever. Preliminary reports from foreign countries suggested that baseball would be a worldwide topic before the players returned home. Grabiner said he had multiple requests for exhibition games from American Western cities. The tour was advertised like a circus with long billboard posters. Arrangements were made to film the games in foreign cities, as well as life on the ship and receptions with foreign monarchs and ambassadors.10

The tour left Chicago on the night of October 19 on a special train of five all-steel cars including an observation car and a combination baggage and buffet car. This traveling hotel was the party’s home as they barnstormed across the Midwest and West Coast, playing 31 games in 27 cities, before sailing for Japan from Vancouver a month later.11

By the time the teams reached Vancouver, their rosters had shrunk. Christy Mathewson and Chief Meyers decided not to accompany the teams across the Pacific. To even the squads, the White Sox loaned Urban “Red” Faber to the Giants.12 The final Giants roster consisted of pitchers Bunny Hearn (Giants), George Wiltse (Giants), and Faber (White Sox); catcher Ivey Wingo (Cardinals); first baseman Fred Merkle (Giants); second baseman Larry Doyle (Giants); third baseman Hans Lobert (Phillies); shortstop Mickey Doolin (Phillies); and outfielders Lee Magee (Cardinals), Jim Thorpe (Giants), and Mike Donlin (Giants).13

Of the 11 “New York” players, there were only three pitchers. There were no backup infielders, outfielders, or catchers. Counting Mike Donlin, who did not play in the major leagues in 1913 (he did return to the Giants in 1914), there were only six actual members of the New York Giants, and of those six, only Merkle and Doyle were regulars. Hearn had been in only two games (1-1 record) and Wiltse had not won a single game.

In the end, few of the White Sox players were willing to go. Of the 13 players on the roster, only six were White Sox and one was manager Callahan, who had played in only six games all season. There were three pitchers but no backup infielders. The official “White Sox” roster consisted of pitchers Jim Scott (White Sox), Joe Benz (White Sox), and Walter Leverenz (St. Louis Browns); catchers Andy Slight (Des Moines, Western League) and Jack Bliss (Cardinals); first baseman Tom Daly (White Sox); second baseman Germany Schaefer (Washington Senators); shortstop Buck Weaver (White Sox); third baseman Dick Egan (Brooklyn Robins); and outfielders Tris Speaker (Red Sox), Sam Crawford (Tigers), and Steve Evans (Cardinals). Jack Bliss had previously been to Japan as a member of the 1908 Reach All-Americans.

Besides the 24 players, the party included McGraw; Comiskey; umpires Bill Klem and Jack Sheridan; Chicago secretary N.L. O’Neil; A.P. Anderson (manager of the tour); Dick Bunnell (manager and director of the tour); Ted Sullivan (author and lecturer); and Chicago newspaper writers Gus Axelson (Record-Herald) and Joseph Farrell (Tribune). There were also wives, McGraw’s personal physician, Dr. Frank Finley, several children, and other friends.14

On November 19, 1913, the tourists boarded the RMS Empress of Japan in Vancouver and began their journey across the Pacific. For 17 days, the passengers endured tossing seas, driving rains, and even a typhoon. Most of the players suffered from seasickness and some, like Tris Speaker and Red Faber, could barely eat.15 On December 6 they finally arrived in Yokohama, three days behind schedule. Prior to their arrival, only three American college squads and one professional team had traveled to Japan. The lone professional team, the Reach All-Americans, consisted mostly of minor-league players with a smattering of undistinguished major leaguers. McGraw and Comiskey’s clubs would showcase major-league stars to the Japanese fans for the first time.

THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN¹⁶

BY JAMES E. ELFERS

Nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared the tourists for the reception they received in Japan. More like a homecoming than greetings from a foreign nation, the docks were a riot of color, teeming with droves of fans and sportswriters. Japan was every bit as mad about baseball as was the United States. Under gray, raw skies, amid the crowd of rabid baseball fans, US consul general Thomas Sammons ferried out in a tug to be the first to greet the tourists. Accompanying Sammons were several Japanese officials and sportswriters who served as the welcoming committee. While the Japanese needed interpreters to converse with the players, many of them knew at least one American phrase, greeting the players with a big “Howdy!”17

The ballplayers found the local press corps every bit as savvy as their US counterparts. In an impromptu press conference, they asked penetrating questions and made pithy observations. “The great manager McGraw’s pin made of diamond on his necktie was shining with the rising sun,” wrote a reporter for Jiji Shimpo, a Tokyo daily.18 A reporter for the Keihin Press asked about game strategy: “What strategy would the managers employ against each other and against Keio University?”19

The Americans were more candid with the Japanese press corps than they had been with their own. When disappointed reporters asked why Mathewson had not come, the tourists replied, “He was a bad sailor and also he didn’t like the ship. We tried to bring him but he declined.”20

The Japanese press was also disappointed not to find Jeff Tesreau and Fred Snodgrass among the players disembarking from the Empress of Japan. Nonetheless, they dutifully listed the names of every player and other tourists in the party. The Japanese media were particularly taken with Comiskey. Witness this quote from the Keihin Press: “Callahan, the manager of the Chicago team, and Comiskey were in high spirits. He is a dauntless looking man who also looked the gentleman.”21

After making their way through the crush of well-wishers and reporters, some of whom had even boarded the ship to get interviews, the party made its way to customs and examinations by doctors. Some members of the party, especially the women, were a bit apprehensive at what to expect, but everyone sailed through. The processing completed; the tourists boarded rickshas to take them to the consul general’s residence. Germany Schaefer immediately dubbed them “gin rickeys” (a pun based on the then-current pronunciation of the word for the vehicles, “jinrickshas”).22

Comiskey, Callahan, and McGraw chose a different mode of transport. Accompanied by their families, they rode in automobiles to the consulate. Just as in the United States, every luxury materialized for the tourists’ use. The only tourist not enjoying himself was Red Faber, still languishing on board the Empress. The ship’s surgeons would not allow the former Iowa farm boy out of the sickbay until he was strong enough to rejoin his teammates.

After a brief meeting with consul general Sammons at his residence, it was back into rickshas and cars for the trip to the Grand Hotel. Throngs of Japanese tagged along behind the cars and rickshas to the consul’s residence. This same throng shadowed the tourists to the Grand Hotel. Rest was not on the agenda, however. About all the players had time for was to check in and change; a game was scheduled for that afternoon at the baseball grounds at Keio University. The players were forced to play even before they had lost their sea legs.23

Owing to the lateness of the arrival of the Empress, the tourists’ schedule in Japan had to be trimmed by two games. Cut were the games scheduled for Kobe and Osaka. Three contests remained, all of them in Tokyo.

For the players, just being in Japan was an accomplishment in itself. Joe Farrell noted, “The fans can now understand why base ball world tours are 25 years apart. It takes that long to forget the initiation on the Pacific.”24

Arrival at the Grand Hotel precipitated a flurry of activity. Joe Farrell sets the scene: “Arriving at the Grand, the lobby bore a resemblance to a Chicago department store in a bargain rush. The main floor was thronged with vendors of kimonos and mandarin coats. All the ladies were busy bargainers at once. The male members rushed to the nearest silk shirt stores to select material and get measured for the lightest kind of stuff, for it is only a week before the party will be sweltering near the equator.”25

After a very hasty lunch, the tourists dashed back to the rickshas and were delivered to the train station. Arriving a little after noon, the tourists were once again ferried by the human-powered craft to the ballpark at Keio University. Along the way, a wheel came off the ricksha carrying the Thorpes, tumbling the newlyweds into a Tokyo street, but uninjured. After dusting themselves off, the adventurous Iva and Jim climbed into another ricksha and continued their trek.26

Keio University was the most prestigious collegiate baseball power in Japan. In 1911 Keio sent its team to barnstorm against college teams in the United States. Now, two years later, they got a chance to play host. Keio was at first embarrassed about the condition of its field. Thinking that it did not compare to the fields they had seen in the States, either in size or amenities, T. Kimishima of the Keio Base Ball Association offered these words, “I hereby wish to make an apology to you, the greatest of all exponents of the game. It is in an embarrassed state of mind that the Association invites teams to have the use of this midget field, but at all events your welcome is not belittled.”27

After reassuring Kimishima that the field was better than 30 percent of the fields in the United States, the game began. The proceedings were so rushed that the ballplayers didn’t even get to work out beforehand. McGraw did treat the crowd to a game of shadow ball, which put the crowd into hysterics. This was the very first game of shadow ball the Japanese had ever seen, and it was the perfect icebreaker. The tourists found one element of conforming to local custom most amusing. The Japanese tradition of removing one’s shoes when entering a house meant that before and after the game, each player had to doff his spikes before entering the clubhouse. Wooden cloglike slippers were provided for navigating the clubhouse.28

The game was intensely covered by the Japanese media. Every Tokyo paper had at least one reporter there, and some papers sent as many as five. To everyone’s delight, the sun chose this moment to break through the clouds. The early December day became almost springlike and far more tolerable for both fans and players. After lots of picture-taking by the assembled news outlets, umpires Klem and Sheridan were introduced, and the ceremonial first pitch was thrown from the mound by President Eikichi Kamata of Keio University to consul general Sammons half crouching at home plate.

Five thousand citizens wedged themselves into Keio’s baseball grounds and cheered themselves hoarse. Space was at such a premium that many of the fans sat on bamboo mats crammed into any open plot of land. To the Americans, it was all very heady and overpowering. The intensity of the Japanese fans and their knowledge of the game impressed the Americans. Veteran sportswriter Gus Axelson claimed that they were every bit as loud as any group of Giants fans under Coogan’s Bluff.29

The Giants and White Sox played fair baseball considering how seasick everyone had been for so long, with the White Sox winning 9-4. The seasick Texan Tris Speaker had a great game, two home runs, and a couple of hard liners. The very short right- and left- field fences and the exotic atmosphere probably made everyone play much better than they felt.

Just as he had done in the States, Bill Klem, in his most windows-rattling bass voice, elaborately introduced each player as he strode up to the batter’s box. Klem’s mammoth vocal power, elaborate style, and pugnacious attitude were unlike anything the Japanese had encountered before in an umpire. Klem quickly became a favorite of both the crowd and the sports reporters. Just how much of an impact he made could be seen in the next day’s Jiji Shimpo. The paper had sent a caricaturist to the game to capture the day’s activities. Klem’s caricature was rendered larger than anyone else’s.

For Japanese fandom, the tour was nirvana. Although their nation had adopted baseball as its national pastime, no games of major-league caliber had ever been played there. A.G. Spalding had completely bypassed Japan 25 years earlier during his tour. Preferring to journey to nations under British or American rule, Spalding made his trail considerably more southern. From Hawaii, Spalding’s All-Stars sailed to New Zealand and Australia before dodging north to Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France, and Great Britain. Only in Italy and France had Spalding been out of the British sphere of influence.

In 1908 Japan had been visited by the Reach All- Americans, but the tourists consisted of only one team, none of whom could even remotely be considered star players. They specialized in steamrolling local nines. The Reach All-Americans drubbed their Japanese opponents, sweeping all 17 games. The only positive aspect of the 1908 tour as far as the Japanese were concerned was that the humiliation fueled their desire to excel at the sport and to one day beat the Americans at their own game.

The tour by Comiskey and McGraw promised to bode far more goodwill for everyone. In the intervening years, players who had visited Japan on their own had smoothed over some of the hard feelings remaining from the Reach All-Americans. During the winter of 1910, Giants Arthur “Tillie” Shafer, a utility outfielder and second baseman, and Tommy Thompson, a pitcher, visited Japan and dispensed a great deal of good coaching on the finer points of the game to this very same Keio University. (Curiously, although Shafer was still on the Giants roster in 1913, he expressed no interest in going on the tour.)

The abilities of the American major leaguers, even after enduring the strength-sapping Pacific Ocean, were far above what everyone in Japan was familiar with. It was like knowing a few dance steps and then having Vernon and Irene Castle show up to give you a tutorial. They watched each play carefully, studying and learning. Of the various baseball skills, the art of pitching was the area where the Japanese lagged furthest behind the Americans. To the American sportswriters present, it seemed as if the Giants and White Sox had left their arms on the Empress, yet their pitchers still packed more heat than the locals had ever seen. The Japanese were also impressed with the prodigious home-run power of the tourists. Though the year 1913 is considered a part of the Deadball Era in the United States, it was a far livelier version of the game than the one in Japan.

After this game the tourists returned to the Grand Hotel for some hurried sightseeing and a feast that they could finally keep down. The banquet entertainment included geishas. Iva Thorpe was awed by their grace. Like all the banquets of the tour, this one included speeches and toasts and lasted until late in the evening.30

The next morning, Sunday, December 7, 1913, was the date for what was perhaps the most eagerly anticipated baseball game in Japan’s history. A team composed of White Sox and Giants was scheduled to challenge the Keio University team. For this event, 7,000 people crammed into Keio’s ball ground. This was to be the first game of a doubleheader. The White Sox and Giants were to play each other again in the afternoon, the last contest in Japan. The morning game marked the first time that the teams would challenge a local nine on their global sojourn. For the first time the two teams would play as one. The starting lineup of American big-leaguers that day consisted of Lee Magee, Larry Doyle, Fred Merkle, Hans Lobert, Mickey Doolan, and Ivey Wingo of the Giants, Tris Speaker, and Sam Crawford, of the White Sox. Death Valley Jim Scott of the White Sox pitched, and the Giants’ Mike Donlin replaced Crawford in right field after six innings. The early-morning hour of play meant that right field would be bathed in glare, leading Sam Crawford to remark, “And to think I came 7,000 miles to play the sun field.”31 Klem and Sheridan umpired the game, as they had all the others. Klem crouched behind the squatting catchers while Sheridan worked the bases. Klem’s booming voice and mannerisms were soon being imitated by the crowd.

Keio University’s baseball team was the best collegiate team and therefore the best team in all of Japan. There was no question that much Japanese pride rested on this contest. Keio batted first and played full bore. Shigeki Mori, Keio’s center fielder, tripled and a play later scored on Daisuke Miyake’s single. The crowd exploded with joy. By good fortune, Frank McGlynn and Victor Miller had the movie camera rolling. As Mori crossed the plate, Miller used the panoramic lens to get a wide shot of the 7,000 screaming fans in full ecstasy.

Moments later the Japanese were retired without further scoring. The Americans now got a chance to silence the crowd. Lee Magee, playing left field, matched Shigeki Mori by leading off with a triple. He scored immediately on Larry Doyle’s single. After the Americans were shut down in the second inning, the floodgates opened. The White Sox-Giants plated 16 runs, scoring in every inning. Keio scored only two more runs, for a final score ofl6-3.32

The game was not such a blowout as the score might indicate. The Americans found the Japanese to be very good ballplayers. Gus Axelson said of their playing that it was a “revelation to the major leaguers.”33 While their fielding, work on the bases, and ability to think on their feet were nearly as adept as the pros, the Japanese had one glaring weakness: pitching. Keio could not hit much American pitching, and their pitcher could not serve up much that the Americans could not hit.

The Japanese pitcher, Kazuma Sugase, also served as team captain. Nearly as tall as Jim Scott, he looked quite professorial in his owlish glasses. His arm, while mastering Japanese players, was no match for the White Sox and Giants. Every member of the team except Doolin and the still sea-woozy Weaver touched home at least once. Sugase did go the distance, however, and did not surrender any home runs. He walked fewer than did Scott, and he recorded three strikeouts. On the negative side, Magee tripled twice, Merkle was hit by a pitch, and Sugase had to endure three passed balls by his stone-gloved catcher, Tokuichi Takahama. The defensive highlight of the game for the Japanese had to be turning an exotic (third to first to third) double play that sent an awed Tris Speaker back to the bench.

Jim Scott started poorly but kept getting better as the game progressed. After he shook off the cobwebs of idleness and seasickness, his pitching completely mastered the university students. Scott surrendered single runs in the first, third, and fifth innings, then shut Keio down. In the ninth inning Scott was humming along so well that he struck out the side, ending the game with an awesome flourish. The game took a brisk 1 hour and 48 minutes from start to finish. What had started as a sporting event became a delightful encounter between cultures. Politeness ruled the day. The Americans were applauded by their hosts every time they made a good play. McGraw and the American pros were sincerely impressed with the Japanese’s abilities. Had a major-league-quality pitcher been on the mound for the Japanese, the results of the game could easily have been very different.

Great shouts of appreciation from the 7.000 fans erupted at the conclusion of the game, with lengthy ovations that poured over the Americans like a wall of sound. After the game there was just enough time for a quick lunch while the field was prepared for the afternoon contest. For the second time, the tourists played a morning-afternoon doubleheader. The first one had been on November 16 in Oakland and San Francisco, when everyone, even after a month of nonstop touring, had been in better shape.

The afternoon show, the last game played by the tourists in Japan, saw 6,000 fans retain their seats from the first game. The Japanese continued to revel in the tourists’ skillful ballplaying. The Giants and White Sox used their regular lineups against each other, with most of those who had played in the morning back in action in the afternoon. The White Sox swept the “series” in Japan, winning the second game, 12-9.

This game ended with one of the most thrilling plays of the entire tour. Tris Speaker threw Mike Donlin out at the plate from the deepest part of center with an absolutely perfect throw to Ivey Wingo. An amazed John McGraw called it one of the greatest plays he had ever seen. The awed Japanese fans cheered the play in a riotous cacophony of sound. No dramatist could have come up with a more appropriate ending to the game or the series in Japan.34

The women of the party were not in attendance for either of the day’s games. Rather than sit through more baseball, all of the wives were on the Empress, sailing ahead of their mates to Osaka. The men joined them many hours later; after the second game the athletes caught the first train out of Tokyo for Osaka.

The Japanese press ran out of superlatives and hyperbole in describing what they had witnessed. The Yokohama Gazette stated: “The games played have been a revelation to those who had not witnessed anything of the sort before.”35 The Japan Advertiser of Tokyo said: “The teams seem to move like clockwork. Each signal is exactly followed and the umpire’s decision is obeyed silently. It is this system of arbitration that the ball player of this country must note and develop so that further friction in international base ball games may be averted. The speed and alacrity of the base stealing, too, was a revelation to the Japanese.”36 The Tokyo Times reported:

Like a cyclone the big men of America came and went, creating a whirlwind of sensation. What did they do? Well ask the fans; they know it. And also ask those people living down in the Mita Road, and they will give complete statistics of windows smashed, houses damaged, and dogs in the street hit by flying balls. They worked more wonders and showed more true ball playing than the Japanese fans could see. The cyclonic visit of the American stars has left its memory in the sporting history of Japan—besides those mementos on some houses in the neighborhood of the Keio grounds. And fortunate was the Keio team, which was able to get practical suggestions and advice from such base ball brains as John McGraw and Jim Callahan.37

After the game some of the party returned to the Grand Hotel. Most of the players, however, checked into the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which was much closer to the ballpark. Everyone tried to squeeze in some sightseeing and banqueting before reporting to the train station for a journey by rail to Osaka.38

Upon boarding the 7:00 P.M. train at the station for the nearly 13-hour train ride, the players had one more culture shock. The size of the train’s berths was a most depressing discovery. Built for the smaller stature of the Japanese, the berths measured only five feet eight inches long and two feet wide. Ivey Wingo in particular was especially perturbed. Wingo caught both ends of the doubleheader and wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest his aching bones. That was, however, impossible for the 5-foot-10-inch, 160-pound catcher to do comfortably. Wingo whined that he would probably be crippled for life if he got into his berth. Sleep is a powerful force, though, and before long all of the men, including 6-foot Tris Speaker, were crammed into their berths speeding through the night-shrouded Japanese landscape, the only sound, snores mixed with the steady hum of steel upon steel.39

The ballplayers’ train pulled into the Osaka terminal at 7:30 A.M. on December 9. Awaiting the train was the city’s large, loud, and enthusiastic welcoming committee. Cheers went up, along with calls for McGraw, Callahan, and Doyle. All of the players emerged stiff-limbed and bleary- eyed to a thunderous ovation. McGraw and Callahan were presented with two elaborate floral wreaths, each carried by young Japanese girls. Elsewhere, men hoisted banners with welcoming messages in English high above the milling crowd.

The committee and the citizens of Osaka were greatly disappointed that the game scheduled for their city had been canceled. The chairman of the welcoming committee, an English-speaking editor of the Osaka Daily News, while understanding the reason for the cancellation, could not hide his sadness. Callahan and McGraw made brief speeches. Then it was on to Kobe to the thunderous shouts and cheers of the Japanese.

The players arrived in Kobe at 9:00 A.M. The wives had already spent a most enjoyable day in Kobe shopping, sightseeing, and socializing. For the next three hours the men went on a buying spree. Kimonos, silk, summer clothing, souve- nirs,jewelry, gifts for spouses and girlfriends—in short, everything that could be bought. At 12:30 in the afternoon everyone returned to the Empress. At 2:00 P.M. the ship sailed out of the harbor, making for Nagasaki at full speed. Nagasaki was like no other city in Japan. The fastest coaling station on the planet, the city moved at a quicker pace than the rest of the country. Unlike elsewhere in Japan, where women played a subservient role, in Nagasaki they were an essential part of the coaling operations, the city’s prime source of revenue.

Women dressed in white performed most of the work. As soon as a ship dropped anchor in the harbor, coal barges surrounded it, and coaling operations commenced. Men threw ropes woven out of rice plants over the side of the vessel. These were then lashed to the deck, a process that took only a matter of seconds. Once the ladders were in place, an army of women, each standing above the other on the rungs of the rice ladder, passed a 28-pound basket of coal up from the barge to the ship’s bunkers. Once emptied, the basket was tossed back to the coaling barge to be refilled for another journey up the ladder. There were about 25 crews working on each side of the Empress from noon until 10:30 P.M. The women toiled like ants moving earth. When they were finished, 1,500 tons of coal had been transported into the ship’s cavernous bunkers. For their labors, the women received the equivalent of 20 US cents.40

Witnessing this toil was too much for some tourists. As Frank McGlynn put it, “[T]he liberal hearted members of the world touring party threw coins to the patient laborers, and no doubt a great majority of them were happier at their day’s pay than on many a similar occasion.”41

Unlike Kobe and Osaka, no game had been planned for Nagasaki; December 9 had been a scheduled treat for the players, an open date. To the players’ delight, Nagasaki offered more diversions and attractions than did even Tokyo. For the first time since they had sailed out of Seattle, the players got a chance to relax and enjoy themselves.

The Thorpes did some Christmas shopping, toured around town in rickshas, then, like most visitors to Nagasaki, ascended the thousands of steps to the top of the temple. Here as well they got to see how the ordinary Japanese citizen lived. Iva took note of the local custom of attaching a piece of rice paper to the door to ward off evil spirits. Away from the more urban and industrial centers of Kobe and Tokyo, the tourists encountered a Japan more ancient, mysterious, and delightful than they imagined.42

But like just about everywhere the tourists appeared, trouble followed. Fred Merkle, Mike Donlin, Germany Schaefer, and a few other of the tour’s bachelors went out for drinks with the officers from an American liner whom they had befriended. In some dive near the waterfront, the sailors and the ballplayers stumbled across a pool table. Like delighted children encountering a favorite toy or delinquents finding their favorite vice, the group proceeded to play round after round.

Billiard balls and alcohol shots chased each other for hours. Finally, close to 10:30 P.M., the players realized that the launch for the Empress would soon be leaving and that if they didn’t catch it, there was a chance all of them might get left in Nagasaki. If nothing else, they had to get back on time to avoid a tongue-lashing from McGraw. One of the hard-partying athletes chose to take one last shot for the road and, in his drunken state, sent the cue ball careening off the table and onto the floor before it disappeared under a couch. Too drunk to bend over, the players left the ball where it was and beat a hasty return to the Empress43

The players’ actions, however, did not escape the notice of the harbor police. Unable to find his valuable cue ball, which, after all, was made out of solid ivory, the owner of the bar reported it stolen and named the American ballplayers as the prime suspects. To the athletes’ chagrin and the steamship line’s supreme displeasure, Nagasaki’s harbor police boarded the Empress, demanding the missing cue ball and an explanation from the plastered Americans.

Germany Schaefer approached the police, turned on the charm, and confessed to his misadventure. While Schaefer was trying to charm his way out of arrest, word came to the police that the location of the “missing” cue ball had been discovered, and the Empress was now free to sail.

Immediately inflated by the American press, the cue-ball story became fodder for US tabloids and scandal sheets. Axelson and Farrell, the writers on the tour, protected the athletes they covered; they did their best to sweep the story under the rug. After all, it just would not do to have reports of drunken ballplayers in the newspaper.

Under the cold light of a waning moon, hours past the scheduled departure time of midnight, the Empress slipped out of Nagasaki for Shanghai.

STEPHEN D. BOREN, MD, attended the University of Illinois for two years and then received his MD degree four years later from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. After an internship at the University of Illinois Hospital, he was drafted into the US Army and was stationed in the north part of south Korea where the real M*A*S*H had been. He subsequently did his emergency medicine residency at Milwaukee County Hospital. He later earned his MBA from Northwestern University. He has published articles in numerous SABR publications. He believes that he is the only person to be published in the Wall Street Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Baseball Digest all in the same year. His mother wrote her Master of Arts dissertation at the University of Chicago in 1936 entitled “Athletics as a Factor In Japanese International and Domestic Relations.” He has been board-certified in emergency medicine five times. He and his wife, Louise, as well as his well- known golden retriever Charlie, now reside in Aiken, South Carolina.

JAMES E. ELFERS is the author of the Larry Ritter Award-winning book The Tour to End All Tours: The Story of Major League Baseball’s 1913-1914 World Tour (University of Nebraska Press, 2003), a chapter of which was excerpted for this volume. This book was also a Seymour Award nominee and runner-up for the Casey Award for best baseball book of the year. Elfers is retired from the University of Delaware, where he spent 35 years at the Morris Library, mostly as a cataloger. A lifelong Phillies fan, he has seen lots of bad baseball with occasional flashes of brilliance. He currently resides in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley with Patti, the love of his life and a fellow writer. A Brit, she reminds him regularly that baseball is basically rounders. Elfers keeps his library skills up to snuff by working part time in his local community library. He can be reached at jeelfers@netscape.net.

 

 

NOTES

1 “A Joint Tour,” Sporting Life, February 1, 1913: 1.

2 Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 (Chicago and New York: A.G. Spalding & Bros, 1889), 83-99.

3 Harvey T. Woodruff, “The Tour of the World,” Sporting Life, October 11, 1913: 5.

4 “Latest News by Telegraph Briefly Told,” Sporting Life, May 17, 1913: 7.

5 “Wilson Will Help,” Sporting Life, June 21, 1913: 6.

6 “Fine Plans for the World Tour,” Sporting Life, June 28, 1913: 2.

7 Joseph Vila, “World Tour Cost Deters,” Sporting Life, July 19, 1913: 8.

8 “The World Tour Assured,” Sporting Life, August 2, 1913: 2; Joseph Vila, “World Tour Cost Deters,” Sporting Life, July 19, 1913: 8.

9 “Cost of World Tour,” Sporting Life, September 27, 1913: 1.

10 Woodruff.

11 “Start of World Tour,” Sporting Life, October 25, 1913: 1; James E. Elfers, The Tour to End All Tours (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2003), 94.

12 “The Tour of the World,” Sporting Life, November 22, 1913: 4.

13 “The Tour of the World,” Sporting Life, November 29, 1913: 5, 9.

14 “The Tour of the World,” Sporting Life, November 29, 1913: 9; Anon., World Tour 1913-1914 (Chicago: S. Blake Willsden, 1914).

15 Elfers, 98-107.

16 Adapted from The Tour to End All Tours: The Story of Major League Baseball’s 1913-1914 World Tour by James E. Elfers by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2003 by the University of Nebraska Press.

17 Gus Axelson, “Sox Take First in Orient Play: Romp at Tokio,” Chicago Sunday Record Herald, December 7, 1913: Sports section, 1.

18 Jiji Shimpo, December 7, 1913.

19 Jiji Shimpo, December 7, 1913.

20 Jiji Shimpo, December 7, 1913.

21 Jiji Shimpo, December 7, 1913.

22 Joe Farrell, “World Tourists’ Rough Voyage Across Pacific Ocean,” The Sporting News, January 1, 1914: 5.

23 Frank McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World: Part I,” Base Ball Magazine September 1914: 67.

24 Farrell.

25 Farrell.

26 Iva Thorpe, Personal Diary. Private Collection.

27 Farrell.

28 Farrell; Frank McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World: Part II,” Base Ball Magazine, October 1914: 69.

29 Axelson.

30 Thorpe; Farrell.

31 Gus W. Axelson, “Japanese Quick to Adopt Big League Ways,” Chicago Record-Herald, December 28, 1913.

32 McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World Part I”: 68.

33 Axelson, “Japanese Quick to Adopt Big League Ways.”

34 Gus W. Axelson, Commy: The Life Story of Charles A. Comiskey (Chicago: Riley & Lea, 1919), 251.

35 “How Press of Japan Viewed Invasion of World Tourists,” The Sporting News, January 8, 1914: 3.

36 “How Press of Japan Viewed Invasion of World Tourists.”

37 “How Press of Japan Viewed Invasion of World Tourists.”

38 McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World Part II”: 69.

39 McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World Part II”: 70.

40 McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World Part II”: 71.

41 McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World Part I”: 71.

42 Thorpe.

43 McGlynn, “Striking Scenes from Around the World Part II”: 71-72.

Seattle Nippon and Keio University in 1914. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

INTRODUCTION

Between 1890 and 1910, over 100,000 Japanese immigrated to the West Coast of the United States. Many settled in the urban centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Within a few years, each of these immigrant communities had thriving baseball clubs. The first known Japanese American team was the Fuji Athletic Club, founded in San Francisco around 1903. A second Bay Area team, the Kanagawa Doshi Club, was created the following year. That same year, newsmen at the Rafu Shimpo organized Los Angeles’s first Issei (Japanese immigrant) team. Other clubs followed in the wake of Waseda University’s 1905 baseball tour of the West Coast. Many players learned the game while still in Japan at their high schools or colleges. Others picked up the sport in the United States. The first Japanese professional club was created the following year by Guy Green of Lincoln, Nebraska. His Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team, consisting of Japanese immigrants from Los Angeles, barnstormed throughout the Midwest in the spring and summer of 1906.

Seattle’s first Japanese American club, called the Nippon, was also organized in 1906. Shigeru Ozawa, one of the founding players, recalled that the team was not very good at first and was able to play only the second-tier White amateur nines. By 1907 the team had a large local following. In its first appearance in the city’s mainstream newspapers, the Seattle Star noted that “before one of the largest crowds seen at Woodlands park the D.S. Johnstons defeated the Nippons, the fast local Jap team, by a score of 11 to 5.”1 In May 1908, before a game against the crew of the USS Milwaukee, the Seattle Daily Times reported that the Nippon “have picked up the fine points of the great national game rapidly from playing the amateur teams around here every Sunday.”2

Two months later, the Daily Times featured the team when it took on the all-female Merry Widows. Mistakenly referring to the Nippons as “the only Japanese baseball club in America,” the newspaper reported, “when these sons of Nippon went up against the daughters of Columbia, viz., the Merry Widow Baseball Club, it is a safe assumption that the game played at Athletic Park yesterday afternoon was the most unique affair in the annals of the national game.”3 Over a thousand fans, including many Japanese, watched the Nippons win, 14-8.

Soon after the game with the Merry Widows, second baseman Tokichi “Frank” Fukuda and several other players left the Nippon and created a team called the Mikado. The Mikado soon rivaled the Nippons as the city’s top Japanese team, with the Seattle Star calling them “one of the fastest amateur teams in the city.”4 In both 1910 and 1911, the Mikado topped the Nippon and Tacoma’s Columbians to win the Northwest Coast’s Nippon Baseball Championship.5

As Fukuda’s love for baseball grew, he realized the game’s importance for Seattle’s Japanese. The games brought the immigrants together physically and provided a shared interest to help strengthen community ties. It also acted as a bridge between the city’s Japanese and non-Japanese population, showing a common bond that he hoped would undermine the anti-Japanese bigotry in the city.

In 1909 Fukuda created a youth baseball team called the Cherry—the West Coast’s first Nisei (Japanese born outside of Japan) squad. Under Fukuda’s guidance, the club was more than just a baseball team. Katsuji Nakamura, one of the early members, explained in 1918, “The purpose of this club was to contact American people and understand each other through various activities. We think it is indispensable for us. Because there are still a lot of Japanese people who cannot understand English in spite of the fact that they live in an English-speaking country. That often causes various troubles between Japanese and Americans because of simple misunderstandings. To solve that issue, it has become necessary that we, American-born Japanese who were educated in English, have to lead Japanese people in the right direction in the future. We have been working the last ten years, according to this doctrine.”6

As the boys matured, the team became stronger on the diamond and in 1912 the top players joined with Fukuda and his Mikado teammates Katsuji Nakamura, Shuji “John” Ikeda, and Yoshiaki Marumo to form a new team known as the Asahi. Like the Cherry, the Asahi was also a social club designed to create the future leaders of Seattle’s Japanese community, and forge ties with non-Japanese through various activities, including baseball.7 Once again the new club soon rivaled the Nippon as Seattle’s top Japanese American team.

THE NIPPON TOUR

During the winter of 1913-14, Mitomi “Frank” Miyasaka, the captain of the Nippon, announced that he was going to take his team to Japan, thereby becoming the first Japanese American ballclub to tour their homeland. To build the best possible squad, Miyasaka recruited some of the West Coast’s top Issei players. From San Francisco, he recruited second baseman Masashi “Taki” Takimoto. From Los Angeles, Miyasaka brought over 30-year-old Kiichi “Onitei” Suzuki. Suzuki had played for Waseda University’s reserve team before immigrating to California in 1906. A year later, he joined Los Angeles’s Japanese American team, the Nanka. He also founded the Hollywood Sakura in 1908. In 1911 Suzuki joined the professional Japanese Base Ball Association and spent the season barnstorming across the Midwest. Miyasaka’s big coup, however, was Suzuki’s barnstorming teammate Ken Kitsuse. Recognized as the best Issei ballplayer on the West Coast, in 1906 Kitsuse had played shortstop for Guy Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team, the first professional Japanese club on either side of the Pacific. He was the star of the Nanka before playing shortstop for the Japanese Base Ball Association barnstorming team in 1911. Throughout his career, Kitsuse drew accolades for his slick fielding, blinding speed, and heady play.

To train the Nippons in the finer points of the game, Miyasaka hired 38-year-old George Engel (a.k.a. Engle) as a manager-coach. Although Engel had never made the majors, he had spent 14 seasons in the minor leagues, mostly in the Western and Northwest Leagues, as a pitcher and utility player. Miyasaka also created a challenging schedule to ready his team for the tour. They began their season with games against the area’s two professional teams from the Northwest League. On Sunday, March 22, they lost, 5-1, to the Tacoma Tigers, led by player-manager and future Hall of Famer Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity. The following Sunday the Seattle Giants, which boasted seven past or future major leaguers on the roster, beat them 5-1. Despite the one-sided loss, the Seattle Daily Times noted, “the Nippons … walked off Dugdale Field yesterday afternoon feeling well satisfied with themselves for they had tackled a professional team and had made a run.”8

In April 1914, Keio University returned for its second tour of North America. After dropping two games in Vancouver, British Columbia and a third to the University of Washington, Keio met the Nippons on April 9 at Dugdale Park in what the Seattle Daily Times called “the world’s series for the baseball championship of Japan.”9 On the mound for Keio was the great Kazuma Sugase, the half-German “Christy Mathewson of Japan,” who had starred during the school’s 1911 tour. The team also included future Japanese Hall of Famers Daisuke Miyake, who would manage the All-Nippon team against Babe Ruth’s All-Americans in 1934, and Hisashi Koshimoto, a Hawaiian-born Nisei who would later manage Keio.

Nippons manager George Engel was in a quandary. His usual ace Sadaye Takano was not available and as Keio would host his team during its coming tour of Japan, he needed the Nippons to prove they could challenge the top Japanese college squad. Engel reached out to William “Chief’ Cadreau, a Native American who had pitched for Spokane and Vancouver in the Northwestern League, one game for the 1910 Chicago White Sox, and would later pitch a season for the African American Chicago Union Giants.10 Pretending that he was a Japanese named Kato, Cadreau started the game. According to the Seattle Star, “Engel was very careful to let the Keio boys know that Kato, his pitcher, was deaf and dumb. But later in the game Kato became enthused, as ball players will, and the jig was up when he began to root in good English.”11 Nonetheless, Cadreau handled Keio relatively easily, striking out 13 en route to a 6-3 victory.12

Throughout the spring and summer, the Nippons continued to face the area’s top teams, including the African American Keystone Giants, to prepare for the trip to Japan. Yet in their minds, the most important matchup was the three-game series against the Asahi for the Japanese championship. The Nippons took the first game, 4-2, on July 12 at Dugdale Park but there is no evidence that they finished the series.13 Not to be outdone by their rivals, the Asahi also announced that they would tour Japan later that year. Sponsored by the Nichi-nichi and Mainichi newspapers, the Asahi would begin their trip about a month after the Nippons left for Japan.

The Nippon left Seattle aboard the Shidzuoka Maru on August 25.14 Their departure went unreported by the city’s newspapers as international news took precedence. Germany had invaded Belgium on August 4, opening the Western Front theater of World War I. Throughout the month, Belgian, French, and British troops battled the advancing Germans. Just days before the ballclub left for Japan, the armies clashed at Charleroi, Mons, and Namur with tens of thousands of casualties. On August 23, Japan declared war on Germany and two days later declared war on Austria.

After two weeks at sea, the Nippon arrived at Yokohama on September 10.15 The squad contained 11 players: George Engel, Frank Miyasaka, Yukichi Annoki, Kyuye Kamijyo, Masataro Kimura, Ken Kitsuse, Mitsugi Koyama, Yohizo Shimada, Kiichi Suzuki, Sadaye Takano, and Masashi Takimoto. Accompanying the ballplayers was the team’s cheering group, consisting of 21 members and led by Yasukazu Kato. The group planned to attend the games to cheer on the Nippon and spend the rest of their time sightseeing.

As the Shidzuoka Maru docked, a group of reporters, Ryozo Hiranuma of Keio University, Tajima of Meiji University, and a few university players came on board to welcome the visiting team. The group then took a train to Shinbashi Station in Tokyo, where they were met by the Keio University ballplayers at 2:33 P.M. The Nippon checked in at the Kasuga Ryokan in Kayabacho while the large cheering group, which needed two inns to accommodate them, settled down at the Taisei-ya and Sanuki-ya.16

Only two hours later, the Nippon arrived at Hibiya Park for practice. Not surprisingly, after the voyage they were not in top form. The Tokyo Asahi noted, “Even though the Seattle team is composed of Japanese, their ball-handling skills are as good as American players, and … their agile movements are very encouraging. … They hit the ball with a very free form, but yesterday, they did not place their hits very accurately, most likely due to fatigue. … The Seattle team did not have a full-fledged defensive practice with each player in position, so we did not know how skilled they were in defensive coordination, but we heard that the individual skills of each player were as good as those of Waseda and Keio. In short, the Seattle team has beaten Keio University before, so even though they are Japanese, they should not be underestimated. On top of that, they have good pitching, so games against Waseda University and Keio University are expected to arouse more than a few people’s interest, just like the games against foreign teams in the past.”17

The Nippon would stay in Japan for almost four months, but the baseball tour itself consisted of just eight games—all played during September against Waseda and Keio Universities. The players spent the rest of the time traveling through their homeland and visiting family and friends.

 

Seattle Asahi and Keio University in 1914. (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

The Nippon opened their tour on September 12 against Waseda at the university’s Totsuka Grounds. “It was a clear, crisp autumn day and a perfect day for baseball, and the crowd was very happy to see them. At 1:30 P.M. the Waseda University team entered, and at the same time the Seattle team entered in their vertical striped uniforms. [Tokyo] mayor [Yoshiro] Sakatani appeared in a dashing suit with a smile on his face, climbed up to the mound and threw the first pitch.”18

Engel decided not to let Sadaye Takano, his usual starting pitcher, face the Japanese colleges. Instead, Engel took the mound himself, although he had not pitched professionally for two years. In his final season with Vancouver of the Northwestern League, he went 7-4 in 87 innings. Now, at 39 years old, he faced a tough Waseda lineup.

The enthusiastic crowd was treated to a tight game of small ball. In the top of the first, Seattle’s “Taki” Takimoto eked out a two-out walk but was thrown out trying to steal second. In the bottom half of the inning, leadoff batter Kichibei Kato walked. Engel bore down and struck out Kazuyoshi Yokoyama. As the umpire called strike three, catcher Yohizo Shimada fired the ball to first, trying to catch a napping Kato off the bag. But the throw got away, and Kato circled the bases for the first run as the Nippon players chased down the rolling ball.

Over the next three innings, both Engel and Waseda starter Tamizo Kawashima no-hit their opponents. In the bottom of the fifth, Waseda scored twice on a walk, a single, an error, and a squeeze play to lead, 3-0. Seattle struck back in the sixth as Miyasaka tripled and scored on a single by Yukichi Annoki. In the seventh, Seattle scored three more to take a 4-3 lead. Waseda seemed “stunned and helpless” as the Nippon “desperately tried to control the remaining two innings.”19 But they could not. In the bottom of the eighth, Kawashima reached base on an error, stole second, and scored on consecutive hits by Kato and Yokoyama to knot the score.

Ken Kitsuse led off the ninth inning with a walk, moved to second on a sacrifice, and streaked to third on a fly out to center field. With two outs and the go- ahead run at third, Kawashima battled with Nippon center fielder Annoki. Kawashima prevailed, striking out Annoki, but Waseda catcher Tadao Ichioka dropped the third strike and threw wildly to first as Kitsuse scampered home. Engel pitched a scoreless ninth to preserve the 5-4 victory.

The three-game series against Keio University began on September 15 at the Mita grounds. Engel started on the mound for Seattle against their ace, Kazuma Sugase. After their loss to the Nippon in Seattle, the collegians were looking for revenge and they played aggressive ball from the first pitch.20 Keio center fielder Jinkichi Kaji began the game with a bunt hit down the third-base line. Shigeki Mori then singled, and Daisuke Miyake beat out a bunt to load the bases with no outs. Engel then got cleanup hitter Akira Kusaka to hit a weak grounder back to the mound. Engel threw home for the first out but the catcher’s throw to first base was dropped and Mori scored. The next batter, Shigeru Takahama, also grounded back to the pitcher. Engel threw to second for the out, and Takimoto threw to first to complete the double play, but first baseman Frank Miyasaka once again dropped the ball as Miyake scored. A single by Shungo Abe knocked in another to give Keio a 3-0 lead. “It looked like the game was already decided.”21 Keio went on to score four more times as Sugase shut out the Nippon on just four hits and did not allow a runner to get to second base in the 7-0 win. An observer noted, “The Seattle team looked really listless, completely lackluster, as if they had been debilitated by the bad plays in the first and second innings.”22

Four days later, on September 19, Nippon had a chance to redeem themselves in the second game against Keio. Engel pitched again for Seattle but Keio started Hisao Numata. This time Seattle jumped out to an early lead, scoring once in the second and three in the fourth as they knocked out Numata. Engel, meanwhile, pitched brilliantly, allowing just three hits through seven innings.

In the eighth inning, however, Seattle’s defense nearly betrayed them again. With one out, Unosuke Hirai hit a routine fly ball to left field. Kiichi Suzuki, playing shallow, misjudged it and it flew over his head for a double. Sugase (who came in to relieve Numata) then tripled to score Hirai. After Kaji grounded out to the pitcher, Mori hit a fly ball to left that should have ended the inning, but the ball popped out of Suzuki’s glove and Sugase scored. The Nippon immediately appealed, arguing that Suzuki had successfully made the catch before the ball came loose. The umpire, however, disagreed and allowed the run to count. In disgust, Takimoto marched off the field. Unused to such poor sportsmanship, the fans were “very critical” of Takimoto’s behavior.23 A subsequent error by shortstop Kimura allowed Mori to score and reduce Seattle’s lead to one run, before Engel struck out Takahama to end Keio’s last threat of the game.24 After the 4-3 Nippon victory, the press praised Engel. The “39-year-old veteran pitcher showed off his strong arm again and fought hard for the Seattle team, his energy was unmatched by any of the younger players on the Seattle team. Keio’s hitters were tormented.”25

On September 20 at 2:30 P.M. the Nippon faced Waseda for the second time. Having pitched a complete game the day before, Engle decided to start Sadaye Takano. It did not go well. Waseda tagged Takano for three runs in the second inning. Engel quickly pulled Takano and brought in second baseman Takimoto to pitch. He did worse—surrendering another three before getting the third out and then giving up seven runs in the third inning. By the end of the game, Waseda had pounded out 23 runs on 16 hits with 10 walks against four pitchers as the porous Seattle defense committed 10 errors. Meanwhile, Waseda starter Tamizo Kawashima stifled the Nippon by allowing just four hits and two runs.26

Two days later Seattle took on the Waseda alumni Tomon Club. An article in the annual Yakyu-Nenpoh noted that “the Tomon players, although aging, are all fierce fighters who once enjoyed fame.” The starting lineup included future Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame members Shin Hashido, Kiyoshi Oshikawa, and Chujun Tobita. Engel, once again, took the day off and started Yohizo Shimada on the mound. The game began ominously for Seattle. After a leadoff walk to Kimura, followed by an infield hit by Koyama, third batter Takimoto hit the ball back to the pitcher. The pitcher caught the ball on the fly, and immediately threw to first to catch Koyama straying off first. Then the first baseman quickly threw to second to nab Kimura before he could return to the base: triple play. The “stunned” Nippon’s concentration and defense fell apart.27 Seattle made seven errors, nearly all at key moments, as Tomon coasted to an easy 15-3 victory.

Engel returned to the mound for the third and deciding game against Waseda on September 26. The Nippon started well as two-out hits by Kimura, Miyasaka, and Shimada loaded the bases with Takimoto up. With two balls on Takimoto, Waseda pitcher Kawashima threw ball three. Kimura, having lost count of the balls and thinking Takimoto had walked, ambled home, only to be tagged out to end the inning. The rest of the game was tight. Waseda moved ahead with a run in the first and two in the third, only to see its lead evaporate with a three-run Seattle fourth. The collegians retaliated with two runs in the bottom of the fifth to lead 5-3. In the seventh the Nippon tied the game again, with two runs on a triple, a groundout, and a single, followed by two Waseda errors. But once again, the visitors’ comeback was short-lived. In the bottom of the seventh, Waseda scored three on two triples, a hit batsman, and a squeeze bunt. Kawashima pitched no-hit ball in the final two innings to preserve the Waseda 8-5 victory.28

The deciding game against Keio on September 27 was the highlight of the tour. To the delight of the fans at Mita Tsunamachi Field, both teams battled in a “fierce game.”29 Despite having pitched a complete game the previous day against Waseda, Engel took the mound. Once again, their ace Kazuma Sugase started for Keio. Umpiring the game were two future Hall of Famers Nenosuke Fukuda and Chujun Tobita. Both men later changed U.S.-Japan baseball relations by playing important roles in the two greatest upsets during the pre-World War II tours.

Engel and Sugase both pitched brilliantly. At the end of nine innings, each pitcher had surrendered just two hits and held the opposition scoreless. The pitchers’ duel and shutouts continued into the 12th inning as the teams “battled desperately.”30 In the bottom half of the inning, Sugase reached first with one out on a fielder’s choice. Akira Kusaka then slashed a grounder that “slipped passed [sic] [second baseman] Takimoto’s right hand, allowing Sugase to advance to third and Kusaka to second.” The next batter, Yoichi Togashi, hit a hard line drive at right fielder Frank Miyasaka. Miyasaka, who usually played first base, “panicked” and fumbled the ball, allowing Sugase to score the winning run.31

After losing both of the three-game series against Waseda and Keio, Nippon finished out their tour on September 28 with a game against the Mita Club—Keio’s alumni team. Having pitched 21 innings in the past two days, Engel allowed Takano to start the game. For five innings Takano pitched well, shutting out Mita on just two hits as his teammates scored six runs off Mita starter Nenosuke Fukuda (the umpire from the previous day’s game). In the sixth inning, the game fell apart for Seattle. With four hits and a Nippon error, Mita scored four times, knocking out Takano. Annoki took over the mound, quelled Mita’s rally, and shut down the opposition for two more innings. But in the bottom of the ninth, Mita scored twice to tie the game and send it into extra innings. Neither team scored in the 10th as a haze settled over the ballpark, darkening the sky. After the inning, the teams agreed that it was too difficult to see, and the game ended in a 6-6 tie.32

Engel left for Seattle soon after the Mita game but most of his teammates stayed in Japan until February. For Ken Kitsuse the trip was highly productive. He left Japan with a bride, marrying 16-year-old Suye Hoshiyama on November 30 in Tokyo.33

Back home, Engel explained away the Nippon’s disappointing 2-5-1 record. “George has many tales to tell about the ‘Land of the Rising Sun,’ some of which are on the hard luck order,” reported the Seattle Daily Times, noting that “some of their losses were by small scores.” Nevertheless, Engel praised his Japanese hosts. He “speaks very highly of the treatment received by the local lads in Japan. The Keio and Waseda baseball nines, both of which visited the United States last year, have shown marked improvement in their play. … Engle [sic] has in his possession a whole truckload of autographed bats and balls and the usual amount of Oriental souvenirs. The best story told by George on his return, however, is that his trusty right wing, which used to mow down the Northwestern League batters in order, has once more its former strength, and he proudly announces that more will be heard from the rejuvenated wing in the future. George’s ‘comeback’ stock is accompanied by the announcement that he will personally conduct a tour of the Orient with the Northwestern League champions next year, if arrangements can possibly be made.”34 This tour, however, never materialized.

 

THE ASAHI TOUR

As the Seattle Nippon were finishing up their games, Frank Fukuda and his Asahi team arrived in Yokohama on the afternoon of September 24, 1914. Led by Fukuda and manager Katsuji Nakamura, the team consisted of nine additional players between 17 and 29 years old: Junji Aisawa, Shinji “John” Ikeda, Hidekichi Kobayashi, Sukehiko “James” Kondo, Shirajiro Kouchi, Yoshiaki Marumo, Tako Osawa, Fukuo Sano, and Masao Yasuda.35 Fukuda played second base for the squad.

For Frank Fukuda, the trip to the home country was about more than baseball. He “thought that seeing and understanding their old country was indispensable for his Nisei players to become better citizens and to establish a better Japanese community in Seattle.”36 Following the concept of kekehashi (literally “bridge” but in this case a bridge of understanding), Fukuda felt that an understanding of both Japanese and American values could prepare his players to become civic leaders capable of bridging the cultural gaps between Issei and Nisei as well as Japanese Americans and greater American society. Ideally this cultural bridge would reduce misunderstandings and bigotry, ultimately allowing Japanese to assimilate into American society while still maintaining their distinctive traditions.37 Speaking at Keio University several years later, manager Nakamura explained:

“All members here have really wanted to visit Japan. We have dreamed of meeting the people who have the same blood as ours. Now our dreams came true. It is impossible to express how delighted we are. One of the reasons for our tour is to observe Japanese society and economy, but the most important objective is to learn Yamato damashii [Japanese spirit] in order to become a Japanized American—bom Japanese, rather than become an Americanized Japanese. And if we do something in American style with the Japanese way of thinking, we believe we can produce a superior combination of those two cultures.”38

The day before the Asahi arrived, the Yokohama Boeki Shimpo ran an article entitled, “Welcome Asahi Players!” noting that “they are called the Seattle Asahi Study Group” and “they came for sightseeing, discovering their mother country, and to study.” “Because they were bom in the United States,” the article continued, “they have heard about Japan and imagined it, but this is the first time they will take steps on the mother country. We should imagine their excitement and joy [and] we should welcome them with courtesy.”39

A welcoming committee led by Ryozo Hiranuma and the staff of the Yokohama Boeki Shimpo met the players at the dock. The next day as the players acclimated to their new surroundings, the Yokohama Elementary School welcomed them to Japan with a speech in English.40

The baseball tour opened against Yokohama Commercial High School at Yokohama Park Field on September 26. The high school had one of the top teams in the Tokyo area, routinely playing against Waseda and Keio Universities as well as visiting American teams. After Yokohama Commercial’s principal, Susumu Misawa, threw the first ball at 3:30, James Kondo took the mound for Asahi. The game was a thrilling but ugly affair, marred by 12 errors and 10 walks. Both pitchers wormed out of trouble several times as the clubs entered the eighth inning tied, 2-2. By then dusk had fallen. The players struggled through the inning before declaring the game a tie in the top of the ninth due to darkness.

The teams met again the next day. It was another tight game as the Asahi surged ahead in the first inning with two runs, but Yokohama tied the score with runs in the third and fourth before going ahead, 3-2, in the seventh without a hit as a muffed grounder followed by a wild pickoff attempt brought in a run. In the bottom of the eighth, Asahi evened the score to set up an exciting final inning. Yokohama thrilled its fans by erupting for three runs in the top of the inning before holding off a bottom-of-the-ninth Asahi rally to win, 6-4.

Immediately after the game, the Asahi players left for Osaka, where they would play the Kansai champion, Osaka Shogyo, the following day.41 Once again, a close game was ended early due to darkness. Asahi led 7-5 in the eighth inning when the teams agreed to end play. The following afternoon, September 29, Asahi took on Kobe High School (home to future alumnus, writer Haruki Murakami). In another hard-fought game, Asahi lost, 6-5. The travelers next went to the neighboring city of Nishinomiya, where they played Kwansei Gakuin, a private nondenominational Christian university founded in 1889 by the American missionary Walter Russell Lambuth. The collegians had little trouble with the visiting amateurs, holding the Asahi to just two hits as they won comfortably, 5-3.

The Asahi then traveled northeast to the ancient capital of Kyoto, where they spent several days touring cultural sites. They visited the famed Golden Pavilion and Kiyomizu Temple as photographers for Yakyukai magazine clicked away.42 On the morning of October 4, Asahi overwhelmed Kyoto Dai-ni Chugaku (Kyoto Second High School) in a sloppy display of small-ball tactics. Kyoto held Seattle to just one hit, but the Asahi took advantage of six walks and four errors to steal 10 bases and score seven runs. Asahi’s defense was also porous; they committed six errors and surrendered four walks. But nonetheless, they held the high schoolers to just two runs to gain the victory. The following summer, the Kyoto high schoolers went on to win the inaugural national high-school championship tournament at Koshien.

Later that afternoon, the Asahi played their final game in Kyoto, against the Third Higher High School, commonly known as Sanko. Usually a strong team, Sanko had just finalized its roster for the coming season and many local fans came to the ball grounds to see the new players in action. The spectators were treated to a tight pitchers’ duel. Asahi starter Kondo held his opponents to just three hits and a single unearned run, but Sanko’s starter Yokochi did even better, striking out nine and not allowing a hit for the first seven innings. The high schoolers entered the eighth inning with a 1-0 lead when Asahi outfielder Junji Aisawa reached second on an error and then scored on Seattle’s first and only hit of the afternoon. The game ended as a 1-1 draw.

Fukuda and his team were probably pleased with the results so far. They had played well against five top high schools and one college, winning two, losing three, and tying two. As they returned to Tokyo, they stopped in Nagoya and lost two games to Aichi Prefectural High School (Aichi Dai-Ichi Chugaku), 7-3 and 9-4, but their greatest challenge loomed ahead—Waseda and Keio Universities.43

At 3 P.M. on Saturday, October 10, a beautiful warm fall afternoon with clear blue skies and the temperature just shy of 71 degrees, James Kondo took the mound against the Waseda nine.44 Although the university always fielded a top squad, the 1914 club was not one of Waseda’s strongest. The team contained two future members of the Japanese Hall of Fame, Tadao Ichioka and Tatsuo Saeki. Both were good players, but both were inducted for their later off-field accomplishments—Ichioka became the general manager of the 1934 All-Nippon team and the Yomiuri Giants, while Saeki became an umpire and organizer of high-school baseball.

Kondo held Waseda scoreless until the fourth inning, when Shirin Cho smacked a triple and Yoshio Asanuma, who later also became a general manager for the Yomiuri Giants, drove him in with a single. The collegians tacked on another three runs in the fifth as Cho singled in Kichibei Kato and then came home on a triple by Asanuma, who subsequently scored on a balk. In the eighth, Waseda scored two more runs on a bases-loaded infield hit by Kazuyoshi Yokohama to push their lead to 6-0. Meanwhile, Waseda hurler Tamizo Kawashima dominated the Asahi batters, striking out five and surrendering a lone hit to Yoshiaki Marumo. Asahi had a chance in the eighth when third baseman John Ikeda drove the ball to deep center field, over Cho’s head. Cho, however, sprinted back and to the fans’ delight made a diving catch to preserve the 6-0 shutout.

The next afternoon, the Asahi ended their tour against Keio University at the Mita grounds. For the second consecutive day, Kondo took the mound for Asahi. Keio hit him hard in the first inning, jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead. Most observers felt that this was the start of a one-sided rout, but Kondo regained control and shut down the Keio batters for the next seven innings. To nearly everybody’s surprise, Asahi scored one in the third and then surged ahead in the seventh on three-run homer by Ikeda. “Hugely confused,” Keio went to the bench in the eighth inning and brought in Kazuma Sugase and Akira Kusaka as pinch-hitters.45 The tactic worked as Keio rallied for four runs to win, 7-4.

With their fourth consecutive loss, the Asahi ended the baseball tour with a 2-7-2 record. They had lost all three contests against the collegians but had played evenly with some of Japan’s top high-school teams. Yet, as a cultural exchange the Asahis’ trip was a resounding success. The players learned about their parents’ homeland, attended receptions, and created ties with Japanese ballplayers. Frank Fukuda and the Asahi returned to Japan twice more—in 1918 and 1921—each time strengthening cultural and economic bridges between Japan and Seattle.

Other Japanese American teams followed the Nippon’s and Asahi’s lead. Between 1915 and 1940, 14 North American and six Hawaiian Nisei clubs visited Japan. Some went just to play baseball but many followed the philosophy of kekehashi and went to learn about their parents’ land and build bridges between the two cultures.

ROBERT K. FITTS is the author of numerous articles and seven books on Japanese baseball and Japanese baseball cards. Fitts is the founder of SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee and a recipient of the society’s 2013 Seymour Medal for Best Baseball Book of 2012; the 2019 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award; the 2012 Doug Pappas Award for best oral research presentation at the annual convention; and the 2006 and 2021 SABR Research Awards. He has twice been a finalist for the Casey Award and has received two silver medals at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. While living in Tokyo in 1993-94, Fitts began collecting Japanese baseball cards and now runs Robs Japanese Cards LLC. Information on Rob’s work is available at RobFitts.com.

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Yoichi Nagata for providing me with Japanese-language newspaper accounts of the games and helping me with Japanese names; Tomohiko Oda for translating the chapter covering the Nippon’s tour in Yakyu-Nenpoh and the newspaper article welcoming the Nippon in Tokyo Asahi; Emi Kikuchi for translating the “Welcome Asahi Players!” article in Yokohama Boeki Shimpo, and Carla Grace for translating the chapter covering the Asahi’s tour in Yakyu-Nenpoh.

 

NOTES

1 “Johnstons Win Again,” Seattle Star, July 22, 1907: 2.

2 “Gossip About the Players,” Seattle Daily Times, May 24, 1908: 16.

3 “Unique Ball Game Played Here,” Seattle Daily Times, July 10, 1908: 16.

4 “Fast Mikado Baseball Team,” Seattle Star, July 9, 1910: 2.

5 “Jap Teams Get into the Game,” Tacoma Times, May 6, 1910: 2; Mikado baseball team with Northwest Japanese Baseball Tournament trophy, Seattle, 1911, Frank Fukuda Photograph and Ephemera Collection, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.

6 Ryoichi Shibazaki, Seattle and the Japanese-United States Baseball Connection, 1905-1926 (Seattle: University of Washington Master’s Thesis, 1981), 87-88.

7 “Amateur Baseball,” Seattle Daily Times, July 6, 1912: 11; Shibazaki, 79.

8 “Tigers Beat Nippons,” Seattle Daily Times, March 23, 1914: 12; “Seattle Takes Game from Jap Team,” Seattle Star, March 30, 1914: 7; “Nippons Lose Well-Played Game,” Seattle Daily Times, March 30, 1914: 14.

9 “Nippons Defeat Fast Keio Team,” Seattle Daily Times, April 10, 1914: 21.

10 Cadreau is often called Bill Chouneau in baseball records.

11 “Redskin Is a Good Jap; Wins a Game,” Seattle Star, April 10, 1914: 13.

12 “Nippons Defeat Fast Keio Team.”

13 “Nippons Beat Asahis in Close Game,” Seattle Daily Times, July 13, 1914: 10.

14 “An Advance of 25 to 100 Per Cent on Grain and Flour Rates to Points in Orient,” Lewiston Fergus County Democrat, August 27, 1914: 9.

15 “Shipping and Mail Notices,” Japan Times, September 11, 1914: 6.

16 “Seattle Baseball Team Arrives,” Tokyo Asahi, September 11, 1914: 5.

17 “Seattle Baseball Team Arrives.”

18 Takuo Ito, ed., Yakyu-Nenpoh (Tokyo: Mimatsu Shouten, 1915), 25.

19 Ito, 26.

20 Ito, 28.

21 Ito, 28.

22 Ito, 29.

23 Ito, 32.

24 Ito, 30-32; “Seattlevs. Keio,” Tokyo Nichi Nichi, September 20, 1914: 7; “Keio Defeated,” Tokyo Asah, September 20, 1914: 5.

25 Ito, 32.

26 Ito, 34-35.

27 Ito, 37.

28 Ito, 39-41.

29 Ito, 41.

30 Ito, 42.

31 Ito, 42.

32 Ito, 44-46; “Seattle and Mita Tie,” ‘Tokyo Asahi, September 29, 1914: 5.

33 Robert K. Fitts, Issei Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020), 215.

34 “George Engle Back from Japan,” Seattle Daily Times, October 23, 1914: 21.

35 As Japanese sources rarely list players’ full names, the first names have been gleaned from various newspaper articles, census reports, and ships’ passenger lists. Japanese names are often misspelled in English documents so their actual names may differ from those listed in the chapter. The identification of Kondo as Sukehiko (born July 14, 1892, in Hawaii) is not definite but fits all available facts.

36 Shibazaki, 80.

37 Shibazaki, 80; see also Samuel O. Regalado, “Baseball’s A Bridge of Understanding and the Nikkei Experience,” in Mark Dyreson, J.A. Mangam, and Roberta J. Park, eds., Mapping an Empire of American Sport: Expansion, Assimilation, Adaptation and Resistance (New York: Routledge, 2013), 60-75.

38 “Watashitachi no Kokorogake—Bokuku no Tameni,” Mita Shimbun, September 19, 1918; translated and quoted in Shibazaki, 87.

39 “Welcome Asahi Players!” Yokohama Boeki Shimpo, September 23, 1914: 1.

40 “Welcome Asahi Players!”

41 The Kansai area is the second most populated region of Japan, consisting of Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Wakayama, Hyogo, and Shiga Prefectures.

42 “Kansai ni okeru Shiatoru Asahi Yakyudan,” Yakyukai, Vol 4, No 12, inside cover, 8.

43 Nagoya Shimbun, October 7, 1914: 5; October 8, 1914: 5.

44 “Weather Report,” Japan Times, October 11, 1914: 4.

45 Ito, 57.