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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From Monsters to Fighters: The Turf War in Korean Baseball Entertainment
By Hunhee Cho The KBO League has ten professional teams, but every fan recognizes an unofficial 11th team: the Strongest Monsters (now the Blazing Fighters). The Monsters first appeared on JTBC’s variety show Strongest Baseball (known to Americans as A Clean Sweep, and currently airing on Netflix). The premise was simple: retired players who had once excelled in…
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The 1908 University of Washington Tour of Japan
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 Carter Cromwell discusses the first US university baseball team to tour Japan.
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Baseball’s Bridge Across the Pacific Returns to MLB’s All-Star Village
by Bill Staples, Jr. The Baseball’s Bridge Across the Pacific exhibit made a powerful return at the 2025 MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta, drawing thousands of fans to Truist Park from July 12–15. Presented by the Nisei Baseball Research Project with Major League Baseball, the Japanese American Citizens League, and MLB’s Diverse Business Partners program,…
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Korea’s Journey into Organized Baseball Before the Founding of the KBO by Jongho Kim
The KBO League was founded in 1982. But long before its launch, baseball was already part of Korean life. From the first known instance of baseball on the Korean Peninsula in 1894 to 1981, how did Korean baseball connect with the wider world?
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Nichibei Yakyu: 1907 St. Louis Baseball Team From Hawaii Tours Japan
by Yoichi Nagata 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. We will begin with the first foreign baseball club to visit Japan: the St. Louis team from Hawaii which arrived…
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1950s Nichibei Yakyu (MLB Tour) Footage
This YouTube video contains a hodgepodge of colorized footage from various 1950s MLB tours. This 13 minutes, 30 second video has scenes from the 1949 San Fransisco Seals tour, the 1953 New York Giants tour, the 1955 New York Yankees tour, and the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers tour, as well as some Tokyo Big Six University…
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September 4, 2025 Zoom Presentation: Baseball is Hot in Korea!
Hunhee Cho and Eunwoo Jung will present How GenZ’ers in Korea Sparked a New Era of 10 Million Baseball Fans Join us on September 4, 2025 at 8 pm EST for SABR’s Asian Baseball Research Committee Monthly Zoom Presentation. Baseball is hot in Korea!With nearly 11 million fans annually, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) is…
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Masanori “Mashi” Murakami Spins Tales of MLB Legends
After throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium prior to the game on July 29, 2025, Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese to play in the Major Leagues, held a press conference at the stadium. Now 81 years old, Murakami recalled his days with the San Francisco Giants in 1964 and 1965 and recounted his…
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Diary Reference Pushes Earliest Date of Baseball in Korea to 1894.
As many sources still list 1896 as the earliest known baseball game in Korea, the SABR Asian Baseball Committee has decided to call attention to this 2016 article by baseball historian Patrick Bourogo that provides evidence that the game was played in Korea as early as 1894.
SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog 