Professional baseball in Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Professional baseball in Japan first started in the 1920s, but it wasn't until the Greater Japan Tokyo Baseball Club (大日本東京野球倶楽部 Dai-nippon Tōkyō Yakyū Kurabu?) was established in 1934 that the modern professional game had continued success.
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[edit] History
Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson, and its first formal team was established in 1878. For almost 30 years, until 1906, a game could be viewed freely, as it was considered shameful to take money for doing something the players liked.
[edit] Early Attempts
In 1907, the first game was held that had a fee to watch. From 1908, several U.S. professional teams toured Japan and played against amateur teams made up mostly of university students. Realizing that a professional league was necessary to improve, two professional teams were established in 1920. In the same year, teams held exhibition tours in Korea and Manchuria to spread baseball. This first professional league disintegrated in 1923 for financial reasons, and after repeated attempts to revive a professional league, it formally disbanded in 1929.
[edit] Japanese Baseball League
In 1934, Greater Japan Tokyo Baseball Club (大日本東京野球倶楽部 Dai-nippon Tōkyō Yakyū Kurabu?) was established, reviving professional baseball. A second team, Osaka Baseball Club (大阪野球倶楽部 Ōsaka Yakyū Club?) was established in the following year. The former became the Yomiuri Giants and the latter became the Hanshin Tigers. In 1936, five other teams also formed, and the Japanese Baseball League was started. Briefly forced to stop playing for a year beginning in 1944, it restarted on November 6, 1945, and a full season was played the next year.
Jimmy Bonna, Kiyomi Hirakawa, Jimmy Horio, Kazuyoshi Matsuura, Harrison McGalliard, Herbert North, Yoshio Takahashi, and Tadashi Wakabayashi became the first Americans to play professionally in Japan in 1936.
The four-team Kokumin League (国民リーグ Kokumin Riigu?) played a 30 game summer season in 1947. The monopolistic practices of the dominant Nippon Professional Baseball Leagues helped bring an end to the new rival league.[citation needed] The Kokumin League disbanded after a few games into the 1947 fall season.
[edit] Nippon Professional Baseball
In 1950, the league split into the Central and Pacific Leagues, which are together known as Nippon Professional Baseball.
In 1961, NPB started two minor leagues, the Eastern and Western Leagues
[edit] International Play
Since 1986, a team of MLB All-Stars has made a biennial end-of-the-season tour of Japan, playing exhibitions games against a mix of NPB teams and all-star teams; the MLB squad has won each of these series.
Starting in 1992 and continuing intermittently, several Major League Baseball teams have played exhibition games against Japanese teams. American teams popular in Japan include the Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Dodgers, and New York Yankees, at least in part due to Japanese players on those teams. Although the Minnesota Twins lack any Japanese players on their squad, they are quite popular in Japan, seen as playing baseball more like a Japanese team than the stereotypical home run hitting American clubs.[citation needed]
2005 marked the first Asia Series, pitting the best teams from the Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese leagues.
[edit] Samurai Baseball?
The American writer Robert Whiting wrote in his 1977 book The Chrysanthemum and the Bat that "The Japanese view of life, stressing group identity, cooperation, hard work, respect for age, seniority and “face” has permeated almost every aspect of the sport. Americans who come to play in Japan quickly realize that Baseball Samurai Style is different." While others have objected to characterizing the sport in these terms, many Japanese players and managers describe themselves this way.
The 1990 film, Mr Baseball, stars Tom Selleck as an aging hitter who goes to Japan and finds a different approach to baseball and to life.
[edit] References
Robert Whiting, The Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1977).
Robert Whiting, You Gotta Have Wa (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
Robert Whiting, The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime (Warner Books, 2004; retitled for the 2005 paperback to The Samurai Way of Baseball)
Richard C. Crepeau, “Pearl Harbor: A Failure of Baseball?” The Journal of Popular Culture 15.4 (1982): 67-74
Donald Roden, “Baseball and the Quest for National Dignity in Meiji Japan,” The American Historical Review 85.3 (1980)
Michael Lewis, William Londo ed., “Baseball and Besuboru In Japan and The U.S.” Studies in Asia Series III 3.2 (Fall 2006) [1]
