Baseball has been played in Japan for more than a century, and many Japanese regard the sport as a part of
their culture. Over 4,000 Japanese high school teams
compete for the national championship each year. Only
about 50 teams can advance to the two major national
championship tournaments, held in spring and summer at Koshien Stadium, the Mecca of high school
baseball. The stadium, with a capacity of over 50,000, is
packed with students, parents, and alumni who come
from all over the country by chartered bus.
Professional baseball is popular in Japan, too. The
annual total attendance for the two professional leagues
is estimated at over 20 million. During the season,
games are telecast live almost every night.Tabloid newspapers featuring scores and players’ gossip sell millions
of copies every day. Baseball players are national and local heroes for many Japanese. A 1996 survey showed being a baseball player the most popular career choice
for elementary school boys.
Since its introduction into Japan in the second half
of the 19th century, the sport developed a unique character to fit the Japanese social and cultural climate. Indeed, Japanese baseball is a completely different type of
sport from the game North Americans are familiar with,
although the rules and regulations are almost identical.
History
Baseball was brought to the Japanese in the early 1870s
by Americans teaching English and Western culture at
colleges in Tokyo. The game instantly became a popular extracurricular activity among college students and
clubs were formed by students at prestigious colleges.
By the early 20th century, intercollegiate games had
become a major spectator phenomena, with colleges
recruiting high school stars, and the Keio-Waseda
three-game series became one of the country’s biggest
baseball events. The rivalry was so heated that, lest
their supporters fight each other and possibly cause riots, Keio and Waseda authorities decided to cancel the
series in 1906. It was not resumed until 1925.
The first 30 years of the century were the golden age
of amateur baseball. The Tokyo Six Universities
League, whose members are Keio,Waseda, Meiji, Hosei,
Rikyo, and Tokyo Universities, was organized in 1925.
Thousands of spectators packed the stadium and millions of people all over Japan listened to the games on
radio. Major college clubs toured the continental
United States and brought the latest knowledge and
equipment back to Japan. College and semiprofessional
teams from the United States visited Japan. Major
League All-Stars and All-American teams, including
such legendary players as Babe Ruth, Jimmy Foxx, and
Lou Gehrig, played exhibition games in Japan.
Semiprofessional teams were founded and sponsored by private corporations, as well as by public-sector organizations such as the Japan National Railways.
Their national championship tournament started in
1927.
Social and Cultural Climate
Some effort has been made to explain why baseball became so popular in such a relatively short period in a
country with no tradition of Western sports. Controlled
by the feudal Tokugawa dynasty, Japan had closed its
doors to the West until the 1850s. As information on
advanced technologies, Western science, and culture
flowed in after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, a sense of
crisis deepened among the nation’s leaders and spread
to ordinary people. Adopting the goal of catching up
with and getting ahead of the West, Japanese eagerly
and industriously adopted Western civilization—including Western sports. Besides baseball, rowing,
rugby football, soccer (association football), and tennis
were introduced into Japan.
Although the Japanese were good pupils, their understanding of Western culture tended to be superficial. It was impossible, or at least difficult, for them to
fully appreciate the internal meaning of the culture.
Baseball was no exception, and the Japanese adapted
the psychology of baseball to their own cultural norms:
“The Japanese found the one-on-one battle between
pitcher and batter similar in psychology to sumo and
the martial arts. It involved split-second timing and a
special harmony of mental and physical strength”
(Whiting 1989, 28).
Ichiko College played a significant role in the early
age of Japanese baseball. Most of the graduates of the
school enrolled in the prestigious Imperial University of
Tokyo and were expected to become national leaders,
and their values, such as samurai spirit and Zen meditation, were strongly reflected in the game. The organization and structure of Ichiko’s baseball club were remarkably different from those of Western sports clubs.
It was called Bu, which is closer to a military squad than
a club. Bu was based on a rigid vertical hierarchy among
students, and its members were required to be thoroughly loyal to the Bu. This version of baseball was
spread widely, as Ichiko’s graduates became instructors
and coaches at other colleges and high schools.
Baseball’s popularity was further increased by business interests and technological advancements. Major
newspapers were competing for sponsorship of tournaments to increase their circulation when radio stations started live broadcasting in 1927. Meanwhile, private railroad companies built stadiums along their
train lines.
The Baseball Control Act, designed to promote the
healthy development of baseball after problems occurred, led to the establishment of Japan’s first professional team. Since the act prohibited amateurs from
playing with professionals, the Yomiuri Shinbun, a major national newspaper, which was planning to invite
the Major League All-Stars in 1934, had to organize the
All-Japan team, whose players were naturally regarded
as professionals. The first professional team, established
in 1934, was named the Tokyo Giants the next year. Even
though the Japan Professional Baseball Association was
formed in 1936 by seven clubs, professional baseball
gained support slowly in its early days. World War II
interrupted baseball’s development. Nationalists and
militarists insisted that baseball should be banned because it came from the enemy, the United States.
Baseball and the Media
The Japanese returned to baseball quite quickly after
World War II. The professional baseball league and the
Tokyo Six Universities League resumed their activities
in 1946. The National High School Baseball Summer
Tournament was revived in the same year. In the 1950s
professional baseball firmly established its status as
the most popular spectator sport in Japan.
One of the unique characteristics of Japanese professional baseball is that every club, with the exception
of Hiroshima Carp, has been financed by large corporations for promotional purposes. In the early age of
professional baseball, most clubs were owned either by
railroad companies or by multimedia conglomerates.
For instance, the Yomiuri Giants, formerly the Tokyo
Giants, are a subsidiary of the Yomiuri Shinbun Group,
whose members include a major nationwide newspaper and a major television network. Other clubs, such
as the Hanshin Tigers and Kintetsu Buffaloes, are
owned by private railroad companies.
The 1960s and 1970s constituted the era of the
Yomiuri Giants. With superstars like Sadaharu Oh
(1940–) and Shigeo Nagashima (1936–), they won nine
Japan Championships in a row from 1965 to 1973. The
club drew the largest crowds in both leagues, and its
annual home game attendance consistently exceeded 3
million. The Giants remain the most popular team, but
no longer dominate baseball.
The Globalization of Japanese Baseball
Japanese baseball is now entering a new era of globalization. In the past, despite international exchanges in
baseball, they were essentially one-way relations.
Japanese baseball imported most of its knowledge and
technology from the United States in the early days. International games, frequently held in the early 20th
century, dwindled after World War II. In professional
baseball, exchange activities with U.S. major leagues
were limited to importing players and hosting exhibition games. Japanese baseball was virtually isolated for
quite a long period.
All this has changed since the mid-1980s. At the
amateur level, international exchanges have been as active as ever, particularly since baseball was admitted to
the Olympic Games in 1984. All-Japan national teams
have participated in many international tournaments.
At the professional level, satellite television channels,
which started service in the mid-1980s, have been televising major league games from the United States, and
cable television stations have a channel exclusively for
U.S. sports. These changes in the mass media have
made many Japanese feel closer than ever to major
league baseball in the United States. This tendency was
further intensified when Hideo Nomo (1968–), ace
pitcher of the Kintetsu Buffaloes, began playing with
the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995.
Baseball in Japan has a long history at both the amateur and professional levels. The social and cultural
conditions surrounding Japanese baseball have helped
to make it quite a different game from its counterpart
in the United States. But as the globalization of the
sport continues, baseball in Japan is likely to be reconstructed again in a worldwide framework.
—HAJIME HIRAI
Bibliography: Cromartie, Warren. (1991) Slugging It Out in
Japan: An American Major Leaguer in the Tokyo Outfield.
New York: Kodansha International. Oh, Sadaharu. (1984)
Sadaharu Oh: A Zen Way of Baseball. New York: Times
Books. Whiting, Robert. (1989) You Gotta Have Wa. New
York: Macmillan.