Asian Baseball History and Culture is Our Passion
Posts
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Let’s Talk Korean Baseball with Jee-ho Yoo. Zoom Event Monday June 22, at 8pm EST
SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee will host a virtual Zoom meeting at 8:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, June 22, 2026. Our special guest will be Jee-ho Yoo. All baseball fans are welcome to attend.
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How to Follow Asian Professional Baseball
So how can English speakers follow Asian baseball? There are now numerous ways to track professional baseball in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan even if you don’t read the native languages. Let’s look at each country in turn.
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Returning Home: The 1914 Seattle Nippon and Asahi Japanese American Tours
by Robert Fitts Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. In this article Robert Fitts discusses the first Japanese American teams to visit Japan. INTRODUCTION Between 1890 and 1910, over 100,000…
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NPB’s Season in China
Do you know that the NPB’s first ever overseas games were held in China? It was in 1940, from July 31 to August 23, the official regular season games were played in Manchuria (present-day Northeast China), which Japan controlled at the time.
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Preserving the History of Korean Baseball:
Korea’s first baseball stadium also, unfortunately, no longer exists. Where one now finds Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), one of Seoul’s most famous tourist attractions, once stood Dongdaemun Stadium, the birthplace of Korean baseball. The history of Dongdaemun Stadium parallels Korea’s own painful modern history.
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The 1913-1914 Chicago White Sox-New York Giants World Tour
by Stephen D. Boren and James Elfers Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. Today Stephen D. Boren and James Elfers discuss the Chicago White Sox and New York Giants stop…
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Tokyo Giant: The Legend of Victor Starffin Film Review
Victor Starffin was more than a great pitcher. He wasn’t just a Giant on the field, but also a giant off the field. The first 300 game winner in Japan amazed baseball fans all throughout his career. The documentary Tokyo Giant: The Legend of Victor Starffin is about more than just Starffin himself. It is…
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Declaration of Victory: The Meaning and Achievements of the Stanford University Baseball Team’s 1913 Japan Tour
by Yusuke Suzumura Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. Here Yusuke Suzumura discusses Stanford University’s 1913 tour of Japan. The Stanford University Baseball Team is closely connected to the…
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Illusions of a National Game: The Myths That Built (and Broke) Taiwanese Baseball
by Jerry Chen On April 11, 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and while the rest of the world put professional sports on hold, the CTBC Brothers played the Uni-President Lions at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium to start the world’s first professional baseball game of the year. Taiwan, long neglected—or isolated—by the international community,…
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Restart of Legend: The Waseda-Chicago Rivalry 1910-2008
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. In this article Christopher Frey focuses on the long history of the University of Chicago and Waseda University’s ties through baseball.
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‘Tibucil’ is the barometer of Korean baseball’s popularity
by Taein Chun The SPC–KBO Collaboration: The Birth of KBO Bread To gauge the popularity of professional baseball in Korea, you don’t have to rely only on stadium attendance or TV ratings. Just look at the little stickers hidden inside convenience-store bread packs, known as “띠부씰 (Tibucil).” Short for “떼었다 붙이는 스티커 (tear-and-stick stickers),” the term has long been…
SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog 