Asian Baseball History and Culture is Our Passion
Posts
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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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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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Lend-Lease Athletes: John Britton & Jimmie Newberry
This post is a summary of a talk, titled “Lend-Lease Athletes: John Britton & Jimmie Newberry, Post-Integration Negro Leagues, and Japanese Pro Baseball at the end of the US Occupation” to be given at the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, July 26th, 11AM, during the weekend that Ichiro Suzuki will become the…
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Check out the new video The Story of Nomomania!
The Los Angeles Dodgers have just released a fantastic video on Youtube called The Story of Nomomania. With great game footage and exclusive interviews with Hideo Nomo, Peter O’Malley, Mike Piazza, and Don Nomura, I think fans will truly enjoy watching.
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Tony Barnette & Aaron Fischman Zoom Event
On July 10, 2025 SABR’s Asian Baseball Research Committee hosted its first Zoom event. Our guests were former Yakult Swallows closer and Texas Ranger Tony Barnette and author Aaron Fischman. This fascinating event can now be view in its entirety on SABR’s YouTube channel.
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Newly Identified Newspaper Article Pushes Earliest Date of Japanese Baseball Back to July 1869
A newly discovered newspaper article shows that baseball was played as early as July 1869 in Kobe.
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Firsts in Japanese Baseball
Bows are seen everywhere on Japanese baseball grounds. Probably the most well-known ground bow is seen during the annual spring and summer Koshien high school tournaments. Players from each team line up on the both sides of home plate and bow facing each other before and after the game. It is a ritual in Japanese…
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MID-DECADE MILESTONES IN U.S.–JAPAN BASEBALL RELATIONS (1875–2025)
I thought it would be fun to use Ichiro’s 2025 achievement as a springboard to explore key mid-decade milestones (years ending in five) in the U.S.–Japan baseball journey. Let’s look at how the sport evolved from a foreign curiosity into a shared national passion—and ultimately, a bridge between two nations.
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Solving the Mystery of Togo Hamamoto
In mid-January 1911, an intriguing article ran on the sports pages across the United States. On January 17th, New York Giants manager John McGraw announced that Togo S. Hamamoto of Tokyo would be joining the team at Marlin Springs, Texas, to observe American “scientific baseball.” Who was this man?
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The First Japanese Professional Game Took Place in …. Kansas?
The first Japanese professional baseball game took place not in Tokyo, not in Osaka, or even in Japan, but in a tiny town in Northeastern Kansas.
SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog 