Gwangju Jeil High School, known as Gwangju Ilgo, is located in Gwangju Metropolitan City in the southwestern region of Korea and is the school that has produced the greatest number of Major League Baseball players in the country. In the early 2000s, Jae Weong[c1] Seo of the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, Byung-hyun Kim of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox, and Hee-seop Choi of the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers reached the MLB stage one after another. Although the three played for different teams, they shared the distinction of being Gwangju Ilgo alumni, and they were called the Gwangju Ilgo Trio as they demonstrated the international competitiveness of Korean baseball. In the mid-2010s, Jung-ho Kang of the Pittsburgh Pirates became the first KBO hitter to move directly to MLB, opening a new path. In 2025, Kim Sung Joon signed with the Texas Rangers as the next emerging player. A total of five Gwangju Ilgo alumni have signed with MLB organizations, the most among Korean high schools. The school also ranks among the highest domestically for producing KBO league players, with 119 Gwangju Ilgo graduates appearing in first division games as of 2024.
1924, The Spark of Anti-Japanese Spirit That Began on a Baseball Field
Baseball at Gwangju Ilgo was not simply a sport from the beginning but a symbol of resistance and pride. The baseball team, founded in 1923, is one of the oldest in Korean high school baseball. In June of the following year, the baseball team of what was then Gwangju Higher Common School defeated a Japanese select team called Star by a score of 1 to 0 in an exhibition match. In colonial Korea, the victory of Korean students over a Japanese team was a rare moment of national joy. The field filled with cheers as players and spectators celebrated together, shouting manse. The atmosphere changed abruptly when Star’s manager, Ando Susumu, stormed onto the field in protest, causing chaos as spectators and players clashed, and the Japanese cheering section also joined. Japanese police intervened, and Ando claimed that he had been struck in the forehead by a spike, identifying nine Gwangju players as the attackers. They were immediately detained. Outraged students launched a schoolwide strike that lasted three months. This incident marked the first organized student protest against colonial rule and served as a catalyst for the 1929 Gwangju Student Independence Movement. A monument to the movement still stands on the school grounds. Before national tournaments, Gwangju Ilgo players bow their heads before the monument, renewing their resolve never to give up. This tradition grew into the team’s philosophy, and their strong fundamentals and concentration reflect this spirit.
Gwangju Ilgo students reenacting the starting point of the Gwangju Student Independence Movement
1980, The Silent Time That Baseball in Gwangju Protected
If Gwangju Ilgo in the 1920s contained an anti-Japanese consciousness, then its baseball in the 1980s walked alongside the era of democratization. In the spring of 1980, citizen protests for democracy against the military regime took place in Gwangju. This event, which is called the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, became a major turning point in modern Korean history. At the time, some Haitai Tigers players were still students, and that generation experienced up close the confusion and sacrifice that engulfed the entire city. The atmosphere of that time, when soldiers fired guns at citizens, left a deep impression on the team’s attitude. The more their home city, Gwangju, fell into turmoil, the more the Haitai Tigers players banded together and comforted the hearts of citizens with strong teamwork and hustle play. Former Haitai Tigers player Chae-geun Jang was in Gwangju on May 18. He remembers it as follows. “There were helicopters, soldiers, and the sound of gunfire. At night, we turned off the lights and stayed quiet. I even remember seeing bodies on the street.” Jang said that when May came, fans and players naturally spoke about those memories. For several years afterward, due to political instability, home games were not held in Gwangju around May 18. The government, concerned about large crowds in the Gwangju area around the May 18 memorial, requested that the Korea Baseball Organization adjust its schedule. As a result, throughout the 1980s, the Haitai Tigers had to play games in other regions around May 18. Only in 2000, the twentieth anniversary of the democratization movement, was a home game in Gwangju finally held again on May 18.
In 1986, the military regime instructed the KBO to move the May 18 game in Gwangju to another region
Even so, Haitai did not waver. Beginning with their first Korean Series championship in 1983, they went on to win four consecutive titles from 1986 to 1989, five championships in the 1980s, and four more in the 1990s, establishing what came to be called the Haitai dynasty. At the center of this dynasty were core players from Gwangju Ilgo such as Dong-yeol Sun, Lee[c1] Kang-chul Lee, and Jong-beom Lee. With solid fundamentals and concentration as their weapons, they led the team and helped raise the overall standard of Korean professional baseball. In this way, baseball in Gwangju took root as a source of regional pride.
The Characteristics and Development Environment of the Gwangju Region
The intense baseball passion in Gwangju began during the golden age of the Haitai Tigers in the 1980s and 1990s. Haitai’s repeated championships became a source of pride for the region, and baseball took firm root as Gwangju’s representative sport. From this period on, parents increasingly tried to raise their children as baseball players, and Gwangju came to be recognized as a city where one could succeed through baseball. Gwangju is a mid-sized city with a population of around 1.4 million. In general, in a city of this size in Korea, maintaining elementary, middle, and high school baseball teams in a stable way is difficult, but Gwangju is an exception. Baseball teams at schools across the region operate on a steady basis, and youth baseball teams are also active. This environment has led to a youth baseball culture in which many players set Gwangju Ilgo as their target school. In addition to Gwangju Ilgo, there are other prestigious baseball schools in the city,such as Jinheung High School and Dongseong High School, the former Gwangju Commercial High School. These schools also have experience winning national tournaments, but in terms of the concentration of player resources and students who hope to advance, Gwangju Ilgo stands at the top. Former KBO technical committee chair In-sik Kim evaluated the situation by saying that while Busan divides its talent between Kyungnam High and Busan High, in Gwangju, the player pool is concentrated at Gwangju Ilgo. Gwangju Ilgo recruits players not only from Gwangju but from all across South Jeolla Province, and promising prospects from middle schools in the area, such as Mudeung Middle School and Chungjang Middle School, as well as nearby cities including Naju and Suncheon, also join the program. As a result, internal competition becomes very intense, and players who pass through that competition show a high level of fundamentals, physical conditioning, and game focus.
Founding members of the Haitai Tigers
Industrialization and economic growth in Korea have taken place mainly in the capital region, meaning Seoul and Gyeonggi, and in the Gyeongsang region, including Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, and the surrounding provinces. In contrast, the Honam region has had a relatively weaker economic base. Because of this, baseball has been seen as a realistic career path through which one can raise social status by effort and performance. In such an environment, when parents made decisions about their children’s future, they often favored sports, especially baseball. This culture has continued across generations up to the present. Gwangju Ilgo still supports the roots of Korean baseball today. Even as generations change, the philosophy of valuing fundamentals and mental strength has not changed. From its founding in 1923 to MLB advancement in 2025, Gwangju Ilgo has been both the place that has created the present of Korean baseball over a century and the site where its future is being prepared.
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. This week Dennis Snelling tells us about the 1931 Major League tour of Japan.
It was a tour initially framed by the dreams of retired fringe major-league outfielder Herb Hunter, the continuing quest of a Japanese newspaper publisher to bring Babe Ruth to Japan before he retired as a player, and the metastasizing of Japanese militarism.
The tour ended with the best baseball team to visit Japan up to that time—including seven future Hall of Famers—winning all 17 games they played in the country, Japan’s political landscape in violent disarray, Babe Ruth still not having visited the country, and the beginning of the end of Herb Hunter’s global baseball aspirations.
By 1931, Hunter was considered “Baseball’s Ambassador to Japan.” He had first crossed the Pacific Ocean 11 years earlier with a group of minor-league and marginal major-league players. During that trip, Hunter partnered with pitcher Charlie Robertson to earn money on the side, coaching the Waseda University baseball team.
Hunter developed an affinity for the country— and the potential it offered him to make his mark on the baseball world—returning in 1921 to coach the baseball teams of both Waseda and Keio universities, wearing a chrysanthemum in his lapel each day. The San Francisco Chronicle reacted to this news by derisively challenging its readers to visualize the ex-San Francisco Seals outfielder coaching baseball to anyone, since Hunter’s reputation was that of the proverbial million-dollar athlete with a ten-cent head. He was physically gifted, but legendary for his onfield blunders.
He once executed an outstanding running catch with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth, only to absent-mindedly exit for the clubhouse, oblivious to the fact that the ball was still in play. On another occasion, with two out and the bases loaded, he decided to showboat on an easy fly, making a one-handed swipe at the ball, which he dropped. Three runs scored.
It was said that Hunter had once nearly spiked himself dodging a line drive. “He played that ball like a camel,” the account went. “He was not hurt but he had a narrow escape. A lot of runs scored while Herbie was untangling himself.”
Even when Hunter’s efforts won a game, it sometimes resulted from a bonehead move. He stole home in a game against Portland on a 3-and-0 count and two runners on base. He was called safe, his run the eventual game-winner despite the fact that he never touched home plate, not to mention that during the play the shocked hitter had backed into the catcher, which should have been ruled interference. Al C. Joy of the hometown San Francisco Examiner wrote, “Just why he stole home at that particular moment nobody seems to know. And just why Umpire Casey did not call him out for several reasons nobody seems to know.”
Despite his shortcomings, Hunter’s connections to Japanese universities enabled him to organize a troupe of major leaguers to Japan in 1922, and make several subsequent visits, including in 1928, when he enlisted Ty Cobb, Bob Shawkey, and Fred Hofmann. Hunter was now ready to bring another team of major-league all-stars to the Orient in 1931.
But he was not to be wholly in charge of the effort. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, mindful of the international implications of such an event, and noting Hunter’s checkered success with past ventures—especially when it came to handling money—permitted the tour to proceed only under the supervision of veteran sportswriter Fred Lieb.
Hunter acquiesced—he had no choice—and once the tour was approved by major-league owners in mid-January, he prepared to finalize arrangements with Japan’s largest newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun.
Catching wind of Hunter’s intentions, Matsutaro Shoriki, publisher of the rival Yomiuri Shimbun, intercepted him, ultimately persuading the American to award his newspaper exclusive sponsorship of the tour’s Tokyo segment. When Mainichi Shimbun backed out of sponsoring games in other parts of the country, Shoriki stepped in despite the added, and significant, financial burden, gambling that the event would put his publication on the map.
Arrangements complete, Hunter returned to his home in Red Bank, New Jersey, where he managed a semipro team headquartered on his diamond, Hunter’s Field, while Fred Lieb pursued ballplayers for the trip.
A 14-man roster was ultimately secured, including four 1931 World Series participants: A1 Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove, and Frankie Frisch. To Shoriki’s disappointment there would be no Babe Ruth—who claimed barnstorming and movie commitments—but Ruth’s teammate and co-American League home run champion Lou Gehrig would be there. So would Willie Kamm, Rabbit Maranville, Muddy Ruel, George Kelly, Lefty O’Doul, Larry French, and Tom Oliver. Boston Braves pitcher Bruce Cunningham, a right-hander who had won only three of 15 decisions in 1931, and outfielder Ralph Shinners, who was just completing his career in the International League, rounded out the roster.
Fred Lieb had thought the All-Stars unbeatable— although they did not start out that way.
The team initially gathered in California in early October for a series of games in the Bay Area, and lost four of five against lineups composed almost entirely of Pacific Coast League players. The third game, against the San Francisco Seals, proved the most embarrassing. Lefty Grove, who arrived after the first two games along with the other World Series participants, took the mound and was battered for six runs in the first inning. The All-Stars began pointing fingers, with Grove loudly complaining about not having enough time to warm up. The left-hander settled down, shutting out San Francisco from the second inning through the fifth and striking out seven. But the All-Stars lost, 7-4, while collecting only four hits.
Stateside exhibitions complete, the All-Stars boarded the luxury liner Tatsuta Maru for Japan; ship captain Shunji Ito, a talented golfer, accommodated the Americans by converting his deck-side course into a batting cage. On the way, there was a quick stop in Honolulu to play another tune-up game against locals.
During the brief sojourn in Hawaii, the team slaughtered a group of local semipros, 10-0, before 12,000 fans—many of them arriving from other islands. The famously dour Grove displayed uncharacteristic enthusiasm afterward, declaring himself enamored with Hawaii and musing, “.. .wonder what my chances are of buying a small place here, I can use this old sunshine in January and February.”
While the All-Stars cavorted in paradise, events in Asia were unfolding at a dramatic and dangerous pace. A month before the players’ departure for Japan, a renegade faction of the military, seeking war with China, destroyed a section of the South Manchuria Railway and blamed it on the Chinese. This contrivance provided the pretext for Japan to invade Manchuria; the Japanese government was caught off-guard by its own armed forces, but did nothing of consequence to curtail the action, and was widely condemned in the court of world opinion. As a result, the country the American ballplayers entered was far more dangerous and unstable than they appreciated.
1931 tour program featuring Lou Gehrig
Thousands of enthusiastic Japanese baseball fans were on hand when the Tatsuta Maru docked following its two-week passage. After the mayors of Yokohama and Tokyo made brief presentations, the players boarded a special train bound for the capitol. There, the party was met by limousines waiting to convey them through the streets of downtown Tokyo.
Fred Lieb described the journey “a continual ovation.” Special flags combining the emblems of the American and Japanese national banners were provided to those lining the route. Fans jammed the streets, pressing in on the motorcade as shouts of “banzai” and “welcome” rained down from office windows. Some of the more enthusiastic jumped onto limousine running boards to shake the hand of Rabbit Maranville or Lefty Grove—repeatedly shouting “Thirty-One!” at the latter in recognition of his total wins for Philadelphia that year.
The Americans were flabbergasted. “I will remember this reception to my dying day,” remarked Lou Gehrig. “I do not know of anything in my entire career that has touched me as much as this welcome.” Frankie Frisch added, “It made me feel like a great military hero or a man who had flown across the Pacific.”
Other than George Kelly, who had been a member of Hunter’s 1922 All-Stars, none of the players had previously visited Japan. The world was more compartmentalized than today, and the visitors were surprised and astonished by the modernity of Tokyo, on course to becoming one of the world’s major cities. At the same time, there were obvious differences in food, language, and customs—it was both fascinating and disorienting.
Because Japan lacked professional baseball, the Americans would challenge college teams from the Tokyo Big Six University League—the highest level of baseball in the country—as well as all-star teams of alumni from those colleges and a few industry-sponsored squads.
Despite massive unemployment in Japan due to the collapse of the silk industry, 65,000 attended the opening contest; the ceremonial first pitch was thrown by Japanese Education Minister Tanaka, decked out in formal dress, including a top hat. The starting pitcher for Rikkyo University, Takeshi Tsuji, pitched well, allowing only four hits and four runs, all unearned, in six innings. Three of the unearned runs were due to missed fly balls by the Japanese right fielder, who did not wear sunglasses—according to Fred Lieb, it was considered cowardly to use them.
Al Simmons complimented Tsuji afterward for his deceptive sidearm delivery and impressive control, but the first game was an easy, 7-0, win for the All-Stars behind Bruce Cunningham, who allowed only two hits.
The second game nearly resulted in a shocking Japanese victory. Masao Date, pitching for Waseda University, impressed Lieb, who afterward said that the Americans felt he would be a major league prospect if he were in the States. Date calmly escaped a first-inning bases-loaded jam by fooling Frankie Frisch on a full-count curveball, taken for strike three.
The game was tied, 1-1, until the seventh, when Larry French surrendered a bases-loaded two-run double that gave Waseda a 3-1 lead. French, the possessor of an explosive temper, was removed from the game and furiously hurled his glove in disgust upon reaching the bench, cursing and screaming, “I’ve traveled nine thousand miles to be knocked out of the box by a bunch of Japanese college players!”
Things did not get better. With only three pitchers along for the tour, others were utilized as emergency hurlers, including Lou Gehrig, who relieved French and allowed two more runs to score on a wild pitch and an out, stretching Waseda’s lead to four runs.
Lieb, whom Landis had made responsible for the comportment of the players, watched in horror as French began hurling racial epithets from the bench. He attempted to shush the pitcher, pointing to Viscount Taketane Sohma, sitting at the end of the bench. Sohma, director of general offices at the Imperial Palace, had been educated in America and understood every word. To Lieb’s relief, he diplomatically chose not react to French’s tirade, which continued despite Lieb’s entreaties.
The Americans ultimately stormed back to win, 8-5, saving French the embarrassment of losing, as Masao Date tired while Lefty Grove, who replaced Gehrig, struck out six straight batters on 19 pitches to end the game. Lieb later revealed that the All-Stars were arguing among themselves on the bench until Date walked the bases loaded and Lefty O’Doul promptly cleared them with a double to key a seven-run eighth inning.
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
This 1982 documentary on Gary Carter’s visit to Japan is dated and at times cringy by today’s standards but is nevertheless interesting and contains some great footage of Japanese baseball from the 1982 season.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Birthed just three and a half years ago, Baseball United took a major step toward adulthood this November.
Formed to bring professional baseball to a region with little exposure to the game, Dubai-based Baseball United had staged a two-game showcase in November 2023 involving several former Major League Baseball (MLB) standouts; then the Arab Classic a year later that matched the national teams of nine countries; and an exhibition series in February 2025 between two of its teams.
But when Karan Patel of the Mumbai Cobras threw a fastball to Pavin Parks of the Karachi Monarchs at 8:21pm on November 14, it marked a significant milestone. It was the first pitch of the first game of the first regular season of the first professional baseball league representing the Middle East and South Asia. And it took place in the first and only pro baseball facility in the region – Baseball United Ballpark.
Parks, by the way, hit that first pitch over the left field fence for a home run, and he hit another in the ninth inning as part of a five-run rally that lifted Karachi to a 6-4 victory.
“We’ve visualized this for three years, and – as I stand before you now – it looks even better than in my dreams,” Baseball United co-founder and CEO Kash Shaikh told the crowd of approximately 3,000 prior to the opening game.
Former major-leaguer Mariano Duncan, who manages the Mumbai team and has been with the league from early on, said, “We’ve finally brought a baseball season to Dubai. There’s a lot more work to do, but I’m happy we’ve been able to take this big step.”
The November 14 contest began a one-month season in which each of the four teams will play nine games, followed by a best-of-three series for the championship. All the clubs – the Arabia Wolves and Mid East Falcons, along with the Cobras and Monarchs – play at Baseball United Ballpark with games broadcast in several countries and streamed live on YouTube.
The league is attempting the yeoman’s task of germinating the game in what might seem like infertile soil – creating something from scratch, as Shaikh has said. To do this, Baseball United has worked to develop the fan experience – something always important but especially so in this case since the game is unknown to a large portion of the potential fan base.
“It’s a long process to really grow the fan base,” Shaikh said. “We’re taking the game where most people don’t know it. This is the most under-developed region as far as baseball goes, so this is going to take some time. We have to do is make sure people enjoy the overall experience.”
John Miedrich, a co-owner and executive vice president of operations, concurred: “We’re talking about teaching the game, of course, but it’s just as important to teach the fan experience. Baseball is so new to the region that most people don’t have an understanding of the game, but if they have a good overall experience when they attend, there’s a chance they’ll come back.”
Similar to games in Japan and Korea, the games feature cheering sections on each side with people waving towels, as well as bands in the left field and right field stands. There is music throughout, a dance team that sometimes performs between innings, kids racing mascots around the bases between innings once per game, and a youngster enthusiastically announcing “Play Ball” to the crowd. And perhaps the most unique innovation is having each starting pitcher enter the game from the bullpen while riding a camel.
If a game is tied after nine innings, a home-run derby, or swing-off, will decide the winner. Each team’s nominated player gets 10 swings to hit as many home runs as possible. If the hitters tie, a sudden-death swing-off occurs.
Each team has a designated runner it can use once per inning, without the man he replaces being removed from the game.
As many as three times in a game, the team at bat can declare a “Money Ball”. A bright yellow ball replaces the regular white one, and if the player at bat hits a home run, it doubles the number of runs scored. If the batter is walked or hit by a pitch, the Money Ball rolls over to the next batter.
“Fireball” – If the team in the field calls a fireball and the current batter strikes out, the inning is over, regardless of how many outs there were at the time. Each team is allowed three fireballs per game.
“We started the fireball this year because people said we had rules to help the teams at bat but nothing to help the pitchers,” Shaikh said. “Some people like the rules, and others don’t, but we think this makes us stand out a little more.”
Antonio Barranca, an American and catcher for the Arabia Wolves who played two years in the Atlanta Braves organization, said, “It’s kind of crazy – but fun – to see some things like the new rules and pitchers riding on camels. It makes the league a little different and helps them get their brand out.”
At a media event the day before the opener, Shaikh pointed out left and right fields to the media members and had to make it clear that the second baseman doesn’t actually position himself on the base. He also explained the “charge” fanfare and the seventh-inning stretch during which fans sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. Then he invited them to play a game of catch with the likes of co-owner and former major league catcher Robinson Chirinos and others.
Likewise, the television commentators sometimes explained situations likely not understood by those new to the game. For example: why there is no need to tag a runner on a force play.
The population of Dubai is approximately 90 percent expatriate, and more than a few residents come from baseball-playing countries such as the U.S., Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and others. Baseball also has some similarities to cricket, which has a large, rabid following in countries like India and Pakistan.
“To spread the word, we’ve been talking a lot with people from the various embassies, the Philippine softball family; the cricket people from Australia, New Zealand, India, and Pakistan; and others,” Miedrich said.
The league has, in part, constructed the team rosters with an eye toward attracting fans of different nationalities. A check of the rosters, shows that, while many of the players are American, there are players born in 23 other countries – from Europe, North America, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and East Asia.
Seven players have MLB experience, the most prominent being outfielder Alejandro de Aza of the Mid East Falcons. More than 20 players have been in the minor league organizations of MLB teams; more than 40 have played in independent leagues; and at least seven have played in European leagues.
Shaikh pointed out that “Mumbai has two players from the Philippines [shortstop Lord De Vera and outfielder Ian Mercado], as well as six from India. Karachi has four Pakistanis – look out for Musharraf Khan, a 6-7 pitcher – and there are 14 Japanese players on the Mid East Falcons.”
The Japanese contingent includes former Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) stars Munenori Kawasaki, Hiroyuki Nakajima, and Shuhei Fukuda; others with NPB experience; and Manato Tanai, an 18-year-old shortstop who was the fifth pick in the 2024 NPB draft and is considered one of the Yokohama DeNA BayStars’ better prospects. Kawasaki is 44 years old, Nakajima 43, and Fukuda 36. Kawasaki spent five seasons in MLB with Seattle, Toronto, and the Chicago Cubs.
Hiroyuki Nakajima
“The Falcons are quickly becoming a fan favorite in Japan,” Shaikh said on a recent game broadcast,[i]“with 60 percent of the roster composed of Japanese. It’s a great mix of veterans and young prospects.”
Three other Japanese – outfielder Yo Kanahara and pitchers Yudai Mizushina and Shotaro Nakata – earned their spots by winning a reality show competition produced by Japan’s Tokyo Broadcast System (TBS) network, which also broadcasts the games.
“The show started with 300 players, and just the three were chosen,” according to Chiharu Yamamura, Baseball United’s senior director of Japan Operations. “I worked with TBS on the series, and they want to do it again next year – maybe even export the show format to other countries.”
Several of the Japanese played leading roles in Mid East’s first game November 19. Kazuki Yabuta and Shotaro Kasaharacombined with Mizushina and former major leaguer Severino Gonzalez to pitch the league’s first no-hitter in a 2-0 victoryover Karachi. Kawasaki had two hits, including a double that led to the Falcons’ first run, and Kanahara scored both runs as the designated runner.
Through December 2, Kawasaki and Nakajima were each averaging .353 and Fukuda .188. Tanai showed off a good arm, but had just two hits in his first 15 at bats before going 3-3 with two walks against Mumbai on December 2. Yabuta had an 0.63 earned-run mark after 14 1/3 innings along with 23 strikeouts and four walks, and Kasahara had pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings. Haru Yoshioka, a 19-year-old BayStars prospect, had a 2.45 ERA through 3 2/3 innings, and Shuto Sakurai, who has pitched in NPB for both Yokohama and Rakuten, was 1-0 and had struck out nine batters in six innings.
“Kawasaki has been incredible – such an ambassador for the game,” Shaikh said. “He’s 44 now but still in great shape, and I see him at the cricket fields [next to the ballpark] teaching the young kids.”
Munenori Kawasaki
Mid East manager Dennis Cook, a former MLB pitcher who also runs the Polish national team with Arabia manager John McLaren, said Kawasaki “is a little long in the tooth, but he can still play. He, Nakajima, and Fukuda are fundamentally sound, won’t strike out a lot, and will put the ball in play.”
Baseball United is betting that a long-term, grass-roots approach will eventually bear fruit, but getting to this point has been no easy task.
“This whole project was exciting because it was an empty canvas here, but it was daunting because it was an empty desert,” Shaikh said. “I had an idea of [the size of the task] beforehand but didn’t know the level it would take in training and so forth. And I didn’t realize how much government relations there was to do – with the federations, tourism councils, and government officials. That’s been a crazy part of the journey.
“I knew it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s been even harder.”
Duncan, the Mumbai manager, said he’s been associated with Baseball United since the early days and that he got Hall-of-Famer Barry Larkin involved. As a co-founder, Larkin is senior vice president and leads player development strategies and initiatives.
“I was asked to help find investors, and Barry was the first person I thought about,” Duncan said. “Knowing that he’d been involved internationally as coach of the Brazil WBC (World Baseball Classic) team, I thought he’d be the perfect guy.”
For his part, Larkin said he had been to India a number of years ago as part of a government program during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
“I worked a lot of baseball tryouts, camps, and clinics in New Delhi,” Larkin said. “I didn’t see many baseball-specific skills there, but I noticed that there was a lot of athleticism. I said to myself that if I ever got a chance to come back to this region and do something, I’d do it.”
Larkin said he went to Shaikh, whom he had known from some previous promotional projects, and Dubai was eventually chosen as a base of operations “because it’s more centrally located.”
As for progress, Shaikh points to accomplishments such as the events held in 2023, 2024, and early 2025; partnering with media outlets such as TBS in Japan, PTV, the national broadcaster in Pakistan, and Zee Entertainment Enterprises in India, both of which will broadcast all this season’s games live; signing up sponsors, including some from the U.S. and Japan; and getting the ballpark built.
The league said that three million viewers watched the international broadcast of the February 2025 series between the Wolves and Falcons and that 17 linear and digital broadcast partners carried the games, with viewership in more than 100 countries.
Appearing on the broadcast of a recent game, Shaikh said that the broadcasts of the opening game attracted approximately seven million viewers. “That’s an MLB All-Star Game-level [of viewership],” he said, “and it’s going to continue adding up.”
Another data point is views of the games streamed over YouTube. The 11 games through December 2 attracted approximately 163,000views, with per-game views ranging from a low of 7,200 to a high of 24,000.
The ballpark is a story in itself. The original plan had been to play on a modified cricket pitch, but scheduling became an issue, as other events sometimes had priority and bumped baseball to other dates.
“We were the red-headed stepchild,” Shaikh said wryly. “We realized that we couldn’t have a season without having our own stadium.”
So he and his team built Baseball United Ballpark next to a soccer/rugby stadium and a cricket ground – in just 38 days.
“A year ago, this was all dust and dirt,” Shaikh said proudly with a sweep of his arm. “Now, it’s our Field of Dreams here in the desert.”
Its dimensions are identical to those of Yankee Stadium, and it has top-quality lighting with seating for approximately 3,000 fans. If it becomes necessary, the current stands can be expanded higher, and there is room down the lines to add more sections. The stands, as well as the food and drink setups, can be stored when not in use.
Except for the mound, the field is covered with artificial turf, the same as used by the NPB’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Carlos Mirabal, Baseball United’s director of baseball operations, did much of the work on this, leveraging contacts he made in Japan during the six seasons he pitched for NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters.
“We have to wash the turf to keep the dust off, but we’ll use a lot less water than if we had natural grass,” Mirabal explained. “The area around the mound is a combination of mud from Pakistan and the U.S. Most of it is Pakistan mud, but the area around the rubber and where the pitchers land is American mud because it’s softer.”
Karim Ayubi, an outfielder and Curacao native who has played in the Boston Red Sox organization since 2021, said, “This is a very impressive setup. It surprised me. The turf is good because it’s soft enough and doesn’t get as hot during the days as some turfs do.”
So, going forward . . .
“We want to make sure everyone gets playing time and experiences this journey,” former major league shortstop Jay Bell, who manages the Karachi team, said. “Ultimately, we’re here to represent baseball and help it expand – that’s more important than anything.”
Larkin said, “We want to be a very competitive league; that’s the main thing. Regardless of whether the level of play is rookie league, Class A, AA or whatever. We want our players to get exposure and have chances to play at higher levels. Like the two kids from the Philippines. There is no pro ball there, so maybe playing here will give them a shot somewhere else. Or [Pavin] Parks – maybe he turns out to be a Kyle Schwarber type of guy.”
Jacob Teter, an outfielder/first baseman formerly in the Baltimore Orioles and Houston Astros organizations, looked at this as being an opportunity, as well. “It’s really great to see them bring baseball to a place that doesn’t have it and give guys like me a chance to play and show what we can do. I’ve never been to this part of the world, but I get to come here and play baseball. That’s pretty cool.”
Lou Helmig, a first baseman/outfielder and German national who spent time in the Philadelphia Phillies system and last year was in the U.S. independent leagues, said, “I love this. It’s a new opportunity to make things happen.”
As for next season, Shaikh said “the plan is to have two additional teams and for each team to play 15 games. If we can get another venue, we might lengthen the season to two or two-and-a-half months. The dream scenario is to play during most of the November – February time frame and in multiple locations, but there is a lot to figure out with logistics and politics.”
In March 2024, Baseball United announced a partnership with the Saudi Baseball and Softball Federation that gives the league an unlimited term to host games and tournaments in Saudi Arabia and includes rights to new Baseball United franchises that will represent Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. But there is much to work out before that happens.
“A limiting factor there is getting partners to help build ballparks,” Shaikh said. “The Saudi sports scene is experiencing massive transformation now in a lot of areas – the 2034 World Cup will be there – and pretty much all the venues are under construction or on lockdown, so we’ve been slower about moving into Saudi.”
For the moment, the primary goal is to put the existing operations on solid footing.
“We’ve come further in three years than anyone expected,” Shaikh said. “The challenge now is to build momentum over the course of this season. Our goal is sustainability, and these next two years are really important.”
NOTES: Miedrich said Baseball United has development programs in India and Pakistan and that the one in Pakistan is near the city of Peshawar, in territory heavily influenced by the Pakistani Taliban. Taliban members sometimes watch baseball training sessions while carrying weapons and wearing bandoliers. Because of tribal custom, the players must wear long pants during workouts, regardless of the temperature . . . With the ballpark’s field almost entirely covered with artificial turf, there is no dirt around the bases or in the batters’ boxes. It was amusing to see hitters automatically start to smooth out the dirt as they approached the plate – only to realize that there was none . . . A dance team performed between innings. While these are almost always comprised entirely of women, there were two men on this eight-person team, and a number of fans remarked on it . . . Of the four umpires, two were from the Czech Republic (Zdenek Zidek and Frantisek Pribyl) and two from Mexico (Jair Fernandez and Humberto Saiz). Zidek has experience umpiring in the U.S. affiliated minor leagues . . . There is no place at the ballpark to store a regular (metal) batting cage – colloquially called a “turtle” – so Baseball United uses an inflatable one.
END TEXT
Unless otherwise noted:
All quotes from Kash Shaikh are from a Zoom interview that took place September 9, 2025, and from in-person interviews September 14-16, 2025.
All quotes from Barry Larkin, John Miedrich, Mariano Duncan, Jay Bell, Dennis Cook, Chiharu Yanamura, Lou Helmig, and Karim Ayubi are from in-person interviews September 14-16, 2025.
Quotes from Antonio Barranca are from a telephone interview September 15, 2025.
Quotes from Jacob Teter are from a telephone interview September 16, 2025.
In addition, the author consulted baseballreference.com and baseballunited.com.
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. This week Tom Hawthorn tells us about Ty Cobb’s visit to Japan.
On an off-day on the road in Cleveland, Tyrus Raymond Cobb, hailed for much of his career as the greatest player the game had ever known, announced his impending retirement. It was September 17, 1928. He had last been a starter in late July when he batted second for the Philadelphia Athletics before trotting out to right field. He went 2-for-5 that day with a single and a double, scoring what would be the winning run in a 5-1 game on a passed ball. Since then, he had been used sparingly as a pinch-hitter, going 1-for-9.
The Georgia Peach was in his 24th season, a 41-year-old man who was now caught stealing more often than not. He appeared in only 95 games for Connie Mack’s team. While his .323 batting average was far from disgraceful, it was still his poorest performance in two decades.
Many of his younger teammates spent the rare offday at the racetrack. Cobb invited reporters to gather in his room at the glamorous Hollenden Hotel, where he handed each of them a typewritten statement in which he announced his retirement even “while there still may remain some base hits in my bat.” The player spoke informally with the writers for hours, examining his career (he called Carl Weilman the toughest pitcher he faced) and expressing a desire to do nothing but enjoy his family’s company for a year. The only item on his agenda was some winter hunting near his home in Augusta, Georgia.
“I am just baseball tired and want to quit,” Cobb said. “I will be leaving baseball with a lot of regrets and still with a light heart. It’s hard to pull away from a game to which one has given a quarter-century of his best manhood and which paved the road to lift me to a place of prominence and affluence.”
He had been for a time the highest-paid player in the game, earning nearly a half-million dollars in salary over the seasons, while investments in a car company later absorbed by General Motors, as well as in Coca-Cola from his home state, ensured that he faced few future privations.
The news of his pending retirement was greeted by newspapers as the passing of an era.
“He is worth more than a million dollars,” noted the Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, “and is not worrying about his future or the price of pork chops.”The newspaper predicted that he might become a minority owner of a franchise in the high minors.
Cobb recorded his 4,189th hit, a double, against the Washington Senators as a pinch-hitter on September 3. He played what would be his final game in the majors eight days later, popping out to Mark Koenig at shortstop to lead off the ninth in a 5-3 loss at Yankee Stadium. He would get his final two hits in an A’s uniform in Toronto in an exhibition game at Maple Leaf Stadium on September 14. Then it was on to Cleveland to sit on the bench.
For a player reputed to be ill-tempered, he was wistful about spending time with his family.
“Guess it’s time to get out of the game and play with my kids before they grow up and leave me,” he said in announcing his pending retirement. “And there’s that trip to Europe that I promised Mrs. Cobb this year.”
His wife, Charlotte Marion Lombard, known as Charlie, did not get to see Europe in 1928. Three weeks after the hotel room session to announce his retirement, Cobb was traveling through Virginia on his way home to Georgia when he told friends of plans to play baseball overseas. In Japan.
The news broke nationally on October 7 when the Associated Press carried on its wires a news item based on a Richmond Times-Dispatch story. The report said Cobb would spend seven weeks in Asia, accompanied by former pitcher Walter Johnson, the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League.
Three days later, George A. Putnam, secretary-owner of the San Francisco Seals and a friend of Cobb’s, offered further details. The player was going to give lectures on the game. He was also going to suit up and play with university teams. The tour was sponsored by the Osaka newspaper Mainichi Shimbun and four universities—Waseda, Meiji, Osaka, and Keio, whose own baseball team had toured the United States for six weeks earlier in the year.
The Pittsburgh Press had a scoop on the pending trip by several days. Sporting editor Ralph Davis, who was in New York to cover the first game of the World Series on October 4, slipped in a final paragraph at the end of his lengthy report on the Yankees’ 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. He noted that Cobb had popped into the press box at Yankee Stadium and mentioned that he was off to Japan later in the month with two players on a tour organized by Herb Hunter.
Hunter, whose own major-league career as a weak-hitting infielder-outfielder lasted 39 games with four different teams, first traveled to Japan with Doyle’s 1920 All-Americans and ended up coaching at several Japanese universities after the tour. In 1922, after what was his final season as a player, he led an all-star team of players, including Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, Casey Stengel, and George “High Pockets” Kelly, on a successful tour of Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, and Hawaii. Hunter would go on to become a baseball ambassador, making at least 10 goodwill trips to Japan between 1920 and 1937.
A month before Cobb made his announcement, Hunter got a cablegram from Japan inviting him to bring over another team of major leaguers. The assignment was going to be difficult, as active players were now banned from playing exhibition games after October 31. Hunter hoped whatever disappointment the hosts might feel would be assuaged by bringing the greatest all-around player the game had seen. According to Cobb biographer Charles C. Alexander, Hunter offered Cobb $15,000 for his services.
Also joining the tour were Bob Shawkey, a savvy right-hander who had gone 195-150 over 15 seasons as a starter in the majors, mostly with the Yankees. When they released him after the 1927 season, Shawkey held team records for wins, shutouts, strikeouts, and innings pitched. He was a pitching coach and starter with the Montreal Royals in 1928, going 9-9.
His catcher was former Yankees teammate Fred Hofmann, a 34-year-old journeyman who when once asked how he batted (right, left, or switch), responded, “Poor.” He was nicknamed “Bootnose” for an obvious facial feature. Hofmann hit .226 for the Boston Red Sox in 1928 in what proved to be his final major-league campaign, though he continued playing in the minors until age 43.
Joining the three players was Ernest Cosmos “Ernie” Quigley, a stocky umpire bom in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Quigley lettered at the University of Kansas as a football player and hurdler in track and field for the Jayhawks. A limited minor-league career gave way to coaching football and officiating in three sports. By the time he retired, he estimated he had worked 400 college football games, 1,400 college basketball games (as well as the 1936 US Olympic qualifying tournament), and more than 3,000 major-league games. He officiated three Rose Bowl games and six World Series, the most notable being the one remembered as the 1919 Black Sox series.
Tagging along were Seals owner Putnam and travel agent Frank Ploof of Tacoma, Washington, described as a sponsor of the trip. The latter, who stood nearly 6-feet tall though weighing just 150 pounds, posed for a photograph in a baseball uniform with the three players.
After traveling across the continent to Seattle, Cobb met with Japanese consul Suemasa Okamoto and his wife. He also led his tour mates, bolstered by local players, in defeating an amateur team from West Seattle by 12-5. Cobb went 4-for-6.
The baseball tourists boarded the steamship SS President Jefferson of the American-Oriental Mail Line in Seattle on October 20, the ship departing at 11 A.M. Cobb was accompanied by his wife and three youngest children, Herschel, Beverly, and James. Quigley and Hunter were also joined by their families. Although some newspapers were still reporting that Johnson was on the tour, the old pitcher had backed out after signing days earlier to manage the Washington Senators.
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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. This week Bill Staples Jr discusses the Philadelphia Royal Giants 1927 visit to Japan.
Kazuo Sayama, baseball historian, author, and member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame (enshrined in 2021), states with great passion and conviction that had it not been for the tours of the Negro Leagues’ all-star Philadelphia Royal Giants in 1927 and the early 1930s, a professional baseball league in Japan would not have started when it did, in 1936.
“There is no denying that the major leaguers’ visits were the far bigger incitement to the birth of our professional league. We yearned for better skill in the game,” said Sayama. “But if we had seen only the major leaguers, we might have been discouraged and disillusioned by our poor showing. What saved us was the tours of the Philadelphia Royal Giants, whose visits gave Japanese players confidence and hope.”
Sayama first learned about the Royal Giants as a member of the Society for American Baseball Research in the early 1980s. Like the fictional Ray Kinsella, who heard voices telling him to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield, Sayama was a man possessed during much of the early part of that decade, researching and documenting the history of the Royal Giants.
Also fueled by the desire to honor the Black US soldiers who coached him as a boy in Yokohama during the post-World War II occupation, Sayama hit the library stacks and microfiche in the archives and traveled the world interviewing anyone with a connection to the team.
In doing so he discovered that the Negro Leaguers had visited Japan just as many times as the famous All-American major leaguers during the 1920s and 1930s (three times each), yet historians on both sides of the Pacific had all but forgotten the Philadelphia Royal Giants.
“It is unfair that no words of gratitude have been spoken by the Japanese to this team,” lamented Sayama. He changed that by publishing his seminal work in Japan in 1985, Kuroki Yasashiki Jaiantsu, which details the events of their tours and the impact the team made while in Japan. Best of all, he captured firsthand accounts from many Japanese players who competed against the all-Black team, men who were so impressed and impacted by the touring players’ unique blend of baseball skill and human kindness that it inspired a term of endearment from Japanese players—with gratitude and fondness in their hearts, they referred to their guests as “Gentle Black Giants.”
The Philadelphia Royal Giants were indeed the first all-Black team to play in Japan, but their games did not mark the first time for Black and Japanese baseball teams to compete head-to-head on a diamond. The history of games between ballplayers of Japanese ancestry and Black teams dates to at least May 19, 1908, when the Issei (first-generation Japanese in America) Mikado’s Japanese Base Ball Team from Denver played the Lexington (Missouri) Tigers. But earlier undocumented games probably took place. After that contest, and long before the Royal Giants set sail for Japan in 1927, dozens of such games occurred. Of those matchups, the following are noteworthy for their ties to the Royal Giants:
December 4, 1915, Honolulu—Chinese Travelers vs. 25th Infantry Wreckers. Outfielder Andy Yamashiro, the first Japanese American to sign a contract in Organized Baseball (in 1917), honed his skills competing in Hawaii as a member of the mixed-Asian Chinese Travelers (comprising Chinese, Japanese and Hawaiian players) against top-Black talent like Wilbur “Bullet” Rogan, Robert Fagen, Dobie Moore, and Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, all members of a military team known as the 25th Infantry Wreckers. Fagen and Rogan later barnstormed across the Pacific as members of the Royal Giants.Yamashiro managed the Hawaii Asahi ballclub that competed against the Royal Giants in 1927.
June 2, 1924, Washington, DC—Meiji University vs. Howard University. This game marked the first time a visiting team from Japan defeated an all-Black team. The Meiji roster included Saburo Yokoza- wa, a second baseman who in 1927 would compete against the Royal Giants in Japan as a member of the Daimai club.
September 6, 1925, Los Angeles—Fresno Athletic Club vs. L.A. White Sox. Over 3,000 fans packed into White Sox Park to witness Kenichi Zenimura’s Japanese nine defeat Lon Goodwin’s ballclub, 5-4. This encounter led to a rematch a year later, setting the wheels in motion for Goodwin to take his ballclub to Japan in 1927.
Plans to take a Negro League team to Japan were proposed in the early 1920s but failed to materialize. On February 21, 1921, the Chicago Defenderwrote, “A syndicate of Japanese here representing authorities at Waseda, Tokio [sic], Yokohama and Kobe Universities in Japan, announced last week that they are eager to take an all-star baseball team made up of members of the Race to their fatherland next fall for a series of games. A large sum of money has been deposited in a local bank to defray all expenses, which guarantees the proposition is in good faith.”
The goals of the planned 1921 tour were ambitious. “The spokesman further stated that … the main idea is to put baseball on a firm foundation, and to have the interest manifested in the pastime [in Japan] as in this country [United States].” The stars never aligned for that Negro Leagues all-star tour of Japan to occur. That would take another five years.
As a follow-up to their thriller in 1925, Lon Goodwin and Zenimura scheduled a rematch for the L.A. White Sox and the Fresno Athletic Club (FAC), a doubleheader in Fresno over the Fourth of July weekend, 1926. Zenimura’s team, bolstered by a few non-Japanese players, called themselves the Fresno All-Stars. They defeated the L.A. White Sox in both games, 9-4 and 4-3.
Off the field, it was customary for Zeni to invite visiting teams to social outings the night before a game. Thus, the Fourth of July weekend created the opportunity for Zenimura and Goodwin to discuss the possibility of parallel tours of Japan in the future.
Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Zenimura had visited his motherland as a baseball ambassador a few times prior to 1926. In 1921-22 he traveled to Hiroshima, where he coached baseball at Koryo High School. In 1924 he returned with his FAC, completing a successful 46-day tour of Japan, playing 28 games and finishing with a 21-7 record.
By the summer of 1926, Zeni already had plans in place for another tour of Japan for the following spring. He had learned valuable lessons during the first tour and shared them with the Fresno press. “In Japan it doesn’t pay to win a game [by] a far margin. If we do then there won’t be any crowd coming to the next game … One day we played against the pro team of Osaka which is known as Diamonds and in our first game we defeated them by a score of 11-2. In this game quite a many fans [sic] came to see the outcome but on the following day with the same teams there was hardly any people in the stand[s]. For this reason, it is hard for the visiting team to play a game in Japan.”
Months later, Goodwin received a chance to put Zenimura’s advice into practice. On December 21, approximately five months after the series in Fresno, the Nippu Jiji reported that Goodwin’s L.A. White Sox—not the Philadelphia Royal Giants—had received an invitation to tour Japan from officials in Fukuoka City, one of the locations where the FAC competed during the 1924 tour.
To help plan his team’s tour, Goodwin turned to Joji “George” Irie, a Japanese native who was known in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo area as an active sports and entertainment manager. The Japanese Who’s Who in California described Irie as a man “with an impressive mien and stature of such dignity,” adding that professionally he was “agile and enthusiastic, quick to weigh the interests, and daring enough to take any means to achieve his ends; his inscrutable ability defies imagination for his swiftness and vehemence.”
Bom in 1885 in the Yamaguchi Prefecture of Japan, Irie arrived in the United States at age 20 and went east to study law at the University of Pennsylvania. He returned to California in the early 1920s and worked as a translator in sectors that served the legal needs of the Japanese immigrant community. He eventually caught the attention of Yoshiaki Yasuda, president of the Japan-US Film Exchange Company, who hired him to be the organization’s secretary. In that role, he helped Yasuda oversee the world of entertainment in LA’s Little Tokyo, including sumo, kembu (Japanese sword-fight theater), baseball, and gambling. In 1935, several years after Irie’s involvement in the Royal Giants ended, Yasuda was assassinated by the yakuza (Japanese mob). According to Professor Kyoko Yoshida, this murder, coupled with the photos of the Royal Giants posing with sumo and other figures of Japan’s underworld, suggest that Irie’s work might have placed himself, Goodwin, and the Royal Giants, in close proximity to the Japanese mob during the 1927 tour.
Before the team departed for Japan, Irie sent officials there an advance roster of the players slated to join the tour. The names reflected on the list included all of the members of the Philadelphia Royal Giants entry in the 1926-1927 California Winter League: O’Neal Pullen, C; Frank Duncan, 1B-C; Newt Allen, 2B; Newt Joseph, 3B; Willie Wells, SS; James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, SS, P, C; Carroll “Dink” Mothell, Utility; Norman “Turkey” Steames, OF; Herbert “Rap” Dixon, OF; Crush Holloway, OF; Andy Cooper, P; Bill Foster, P; George Harney, P; Wilbur “Bullet Joe” Rogan, P-OF.
Of those 14 players, Goodwin could persuade only five to take him up on his offer to tour Japan—Pullen, Duncan, Mackey, Dixon, and Cooper. Goodwin had fallen out of favor with organized Negro Leagues baseball in the East, and delivered a parting shot when the team sailed off for Japan. “The National Negro and the Eastern Leagues are cutting salaries to a place where a ballplayer is not fairly paid for services rendered,” Goodwin told the press.
To fill out the roster, Goodwin recruited players from his semipro team, the L.A. White Sox. Thus, when the ship pulled away from Los Angeles on March 9, 1927, the revamped Philadelphia Royal Giants roster comprised O’Neal Pullen, C; Frank Duncan, 1B-C; Robert Fagen, 2B; Jesse Walker, 3B; James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, SS, P, C; John Riddle, 3B-SS; Julius “Junior” Green, OF; Herbert “Rap” Dixon, OF; Joe Cade, OF; Andy Cooper, P; Ajay Johnson, P; Eugene Tucker, P; Alexander “Slowtime” Evans, P; Lonnie Goodwin, manager; and George Irie, promoter/ interpreter.
As a result of the roster change, the team chemistry changed too. For the five members of the Philadelphia Royal Giants of the California Winter League, baseball was their full-time profession. For the others, it was a passion and an extracurricular activity outside of their day jobs. For example, Ajay Johnson was a police officer who would later become one of the first Black lieutenants in LAPD history. John Riddle attended the University of Southern California, where he also played football and earned a degree in architecture. Joe Cade was a US Navy Veteran and firefighter, who became a favorite in Hawaii to fans with military ties. The captain of the team was Mackey, whose ability to play multiple positions combined with his laid-back demeanor and patience in teaching others made him the perfect fit as a team leader on a goodwill tour.
After a rocky 5,497-mile, 20-day journey crossing the Pacific Ocean, the Royal Giants arrived in Yokohama on March 29. The team spent two days working out their sea legs and preparing to do battle against the best college, amateur, and industrial leagues teams Japan had to offer. Their first game, against the Mita Club, was scheduled for April l.
Coverage by Yakyukai (Baseball World) magazine revealed that the Japanese media misunderstood the ethnicity of their dark-skinned guests. “The ‚ÄòPhiladelphia Royal Giants’ sounds like a magnificent name. This team of American Indians became very famous. …”
Setting aside the mix-up on players’ racial backgrounds, Yakyukai detailed the events of the first game: “The stadium was jam-packed because people had heard that the black players had the reputation of being a powerful team. While the Mita Club were practicing on the field, the Royal Giants entered with big smiles and were welcomed by loud applause from the crowd. They wore off-white jerseys just like the Sundai uniform. The Royal Giants started to entertain the fans. They began light warm-ups and batting practice. They hit very well for sure. All their hits looked like line drives. They were well-built and physically much stronger than Mita’s batters. During fielding practice, the shortstop, Mackey, showed off his strong arm. The speed of the ball was like a bullet. The first baseman (Duncan) also performed well with his slick glove work. Both Mackey and the first baseman shined among the infielders. However, some flaws in their fielding skills were noticeable. If the Japanese team were to stand a chance, they needed to take advantage of the Giants’ weak points. … There were two umpires, Ikeda and Oki. The game started with the Mita going to bat first. The pitchers were Takeo Nagai and Cooper.”
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Author Robert Fitts will talk about his new book In the Japanese Ballpark: Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball and highlight key differences between the American and Japanese games. A cocktail reception and book signing will follow.
Fitts is the author of 11 books on Japanese baseball and is the curatorial consultant to the Yakyu-Baseball exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Professional sports in Korea began in earnest in the 1980s. At the time, Korea had industrialized, and the economy was more stable than before, but the country was still under military rule. Before the voices for democracy and press freedom grew stronger, President Chun Doo-hwan’s government fostered the sports industry to divert public dissatisfaction (along with films and the sex industry, this was called the “3S Policy”).
The government encouraged major corporations, which played a large role in the Korean economy, to establish professional baseball teams. Responding to this, corporations formed teams. On December 11, 1981, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) was founded. Soon after, in March 1982, the Korean Professional Baseball League (KBO League) opened. From then on, Korea’s international baseball exchange began to center around the KBO League.
Sammi Superstars – based in Incheon/Gyeonggi-do/Gangwon-do/5 provinces of North Korea
Lotte Giants – based in Busan/Gyeongsangnam-do
Samsung Lions – based in Daegu/Gyeongsangbuk-do
Haitai Tigers (now KIA Tigers) – based in Gwangju/Jeolla
OB Bears (now Doosan Bears) – based in Daejeon/Chungcheong
In 1985, the OB Bears relocated to Seoul, and Binggrae Eagles (now Hanwha Eagles) filled the gap. In 1990, the Ssangbangwool Raiders (disbanded in 1999) joined, starting the true 8-team structure of the 1990s. However, during the 1997 financial crisis, ownership changes and team dissolutions created a turbulent history. Despite this, baseball’s popularity grew, leading to the creation of more teams. The current 10-team system was completed in 2015 with the founding of the Suwon-based kt wiz.
From its start in 1982 until the mid-1990s, the KBO League consisted only of Korean players. International exchange was minimal, and overseas Koreans or Koreans with Japanese pro experience filled the role of “foreign players.” Notable examples include pitcher Myeong-bu Jang (Japanese name: Hiroaki Fukushi) and player-manager In-chun Baek of MBC Blue Dragons.
At that time, the gap between Korean and Japanese baseball was far greater than today. In-chun Baek’s record of a .412 batting average in 1982 (still the KBO’s only .400 hitter) and Myeong-bu Jang’s 30-win season in 1983 both reflected that disparity.
In 1998, Korea finally introduced its foreign player system, about 15 years after the league’s founding. Since then, players from Japan, the United States, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Curaçao, among others, have joined. With superior physical ability, they brought powerful batting and dominant pitching.Korean players, competing with them, raised their skills to international levels. This led to global success: silver medals in the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic, and a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, proving Korea’s competitiveness in world baseball.
From the mid-1990s, more Korean student athletes also challenged foreign leagues. Some skipped the KBO and went directly abroad after graduation. In 1994, Chan Ho Park became the first to enter Major League Baseball. After him came pitchers Jin-ho Cho, Byung-hyun Kim, Jae-weong Seo, hitters Hee-seop Choi, Shin-soo Choo, Ji-man Choi, and others.
Meanwhile, many KBO players at that time went to Japan first instead of the U.S. Legends such as pitcher Dong-yeol Sun, shortstop Jong-beom Lee, pitcher Sang-hoon Lee, pitcher Dae-sung Koo, and slugger Seung-yeop Lee all advanced to Japanese baseball.
Direct movement of Korean pros to the U.S. began in the 2000s. Players like Hyun-jin Ryu, Jung-ho Kang, Byung-ho Park, Ha-seong Kim, and Jung Hoo Lee used the posting system to reach MLB. Student athletes also continue to pursue MLB directly after high school, examples include Hyun-il Choi, Jun-seok Shim, Ji-hwan Bae, Hyeong-chan Eom, and Won-bin Cho.
Recently, a unique trend has emerged: foreign players who played in the KBO return to MLB, a phenomenon called “reverse export” in Korea. Merrill Kelly, now a pitcher for the Texas Rangers, is a prime example. Others such as Chris Flexen, Erick Fedde, and Mike Tauchman also polished their skills in Korea before resuming MLB careers.
In the past, the KBO was just an option for players who failed to adjust in MLB. Now, it is positioned as a springboard for returning to MLB. Seeing these “reverse export” successes, many foreign players knock on the KBO’s door before directly attempting MLB.
Thus, the KBO has become not only a field of opportunity for Korean players but also for foreign players. Through this cross-border exchange, the league has become a stage where new baseball stories continue to unfold.
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. This week Kat Williams discusses the Philadelphia Bobbies 1925 doomed visit to Japan.
“Crack! The ball hits the bat. Smack! That ball hits Edith Houghton’s waiting glove at short who quickly throws to first to get the batter and all in a twinkling of an eye. These women play the game in a manner that would no doubt delight the heart of many a manager who ever saw them play.”
Leona Kearns of the 1925 Philadelphia Bobbies in Japan. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-38869)
Writing about a baseball game between the Passaic Girls and the Lansdale Chryslermen, this unnamed reporter was shocked to see women play baseball with talent and dedication. “It was surprising to watch the brand of ball that these girls can play,” he continued. “They take their baseball in a serious way and all the jeering of the “wise guys’ who stand on the sidelines and do the looking on cannot daunt them.” Even the crowd’s “jeers soon turn to cheers when they see the girls in real action.” The reporter’s shock at the women’s quality of play was not a new phenomenon. Rather, it echoed hundreds of other local news reports about female baseball players written in sports pages during the early 1920s. Why so shocked? Did they not read each other’s work?
Perhaps it was a lack of public interest in women’s baseball that kept reporters from recognizing a growing trend? But that wasn’t the case. Even reports of large crowds and fervent fans did not stick in the minds of sports reporters. Approximately 1,500 fans showed up to the Lansdale, Pennsylvania, game, roughly 20 percent of the town’s population. Meanwhile, in Maple Shade, New Jersey, the largest crowd of the season came to watch the “famous invading lassies,” the Philadelphia Bobbies, play the local baseball club. In that game, shortstop Edith Houghton had five hits, including two doubles and a home run. By this time, the late 1920s, Houghton had been widely written about. She was a standout on the Philadelphia Bobbies team that toured Japan in 1925 and was so well-known that fans in small towns clamored to see her play. There was public interest. Still, in story after story, sports reporters seemed shocked to see women playing baseball at a high level.
Were they skeptical of other reporters’ assessment of good baseball? Some of the language was kind of over the top. In a Philadelphia Inquirer article, “The Quaker City Maids of the Diamond,” Gordon Mackey hailed the play of Edith Houghton and Edith Ruth. “Both members liked to play baseball and they COULD play the game—make no mistake on that score.” In a baseball barnstorming tour their play was legendary but, “like Alexanders in skirts or Hannibals in bloomers, they longed for other worlds to conquer after they had cleaned up most of the alleged sterner sex in duels of the diamond in 1925.” Houghton “could play shortstop in a way that would make Joe Boley toss his glove in the air and yell, “bravo,’” and Ruth was “the holder of the initial sack and how she can go after those quick throws and hug that base is nobody’s business.” Team play was also lauded with the same exaggerated language. “What an infield. They work with the rhythm and snappiness that is characteristic of any big-league team.” That over-the-top language—Hannibals in Bloomers and shouts of bravo!—made the players appear aberrant. There is almost a freakshow quality to the enthusiastic description.
Reporters’ continued surprise at women’s good play was most certainly related to the more common descriptions of women’s baseball which emphasized the players’ femininity.” For decades reporters introduced female players as “neat,” “attractive in their uniforms,” and as “spectacles.” They simply skipped over a discussion of their play and instead focused on their appearance, their “dainty hands,” and how it must have been hard for them to hold the glove. They marveled at their “feminine strength” and how hard it must have been to play against “professional strength.” They were used to writing about women who were, in their eyes, not very talented and unwilling to get dirty or to take the game seriously. A report about the Hollywood Bloomer girl team began, “A bevy of beauties from Hollywood, California took time out from powdering their noses and gave a picked team of the Coca Cola Greys the battle of their lives. … The ladies put up a good game but couldn’t stand up under the strain.” Even when their play was good and the individual talent exceptional, reporters were still likely to describe games as “an unusual tussle,” played by nine “fair maidens.” Most women had been described in these terms for decades. Just because they donned a baseball uniform did not mean that would change.
To reporters and to many men who played, managed, or promoted baseball, there was a set of expectations, standards for play, and a distinct language used to discuss the game and its male players. There were no such expectations or standards for women. As a result, women’s play was judged against that of men, making it difficult for them to be seen as talented players. So they were not. Because it was unfathomable to even think of women in actual baseball terms—a slugger, a hurler, or aggressive on the basepaths—a whole other language emerged to describe women’s baseball. Reporters sprinkled some baseball terms in among talk of their physical appearance—”The longlegged beauty on the third base bag sure can play the hot corner.”And because women were used to being described this way they did not resist. They just kept playing.
Women’s insistence on playing and the dilemma of reporters tasked with reporting on their games ultimately combined to establish a separate set of standards and expectations for female baseball players. And over time, two separate baseball spheres, one for men and one for women. From our twenty-first-century perspective, we could claim that these gender-specific standards worked against women who sought legitimacy as baseball players. It could be argued that creating separate baseball spheres took agency or control away from women. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Existing in separate spheres was not new to women. They lived, worked, and studied under a different set of standards than men. So it was likely no surprise to them that the same would happen within the game of baseball. As they had always done, though, women never stopped pushing against the boundaries forced upon them. They learned the game, played it, and from within their baseball sphere, they defined for themselves what baseball meant. They set their own standards and, most significantly, they defined baseball success in their own terms. As it was for men, winning games, playing well, and making money were all part of women’s definition of success, but that was only the beginning. Baseball was an opportunity, a new experience, and a location where women could excel in an endeavor previously off-limits to them. Playing the game provided women with a chance to see the country and ultimately the world. It allowed them to make their own money and to realize a sense of independence. To many players, success was found in the opportunities baseball afforded them and not only in the box score.
There are many examples to illustrate the ways in which women embraced their separate baseball sphere and used it to their benefit, but none is more engaging than the story of the Philadelphia Bobbies and their 1925 barnstorming tour of Japan. The Bobbies’ tour provides an opportunity to show how women not only embraced their separate baseball sphere but used it to challenge traditional definitions of baseball success and to define for themselves how and where they fit into the narrative of baseball. The tour shows how one set of baseball standards were used to plan, guide, and then judge the tour, and how another set, the ones defined and accepted by the women themselves, provide a completely different interpretation. One side saw the tour as an unmitigated disaster, while the other saw it as a great success.
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MLB fans are familiar with the MLBPA. Strikes, negotiations, and collective action are deeply etched into the history of American sports. However, in Korean professional baseball (KBO), player rights were long treated as a taboo. Players were stars, yet at the same time they were almost like property of the club. If they spoke up, consequences awaited them. But the cries of a few players eventually began to change history.
Dong-won Choi: The First Voice for Player Rights
In the 1984 Korean Series, Lotte Giants ace Dong-won Choi led the team to victory in four out of five games. He was the hero of Busan and a symbol of Korean baseball. Yet at the peak of his career, he began another fight, this time about rights. At that time, Korean players were treated like the property of the club. Salaries were unilaterally dictated. If they raised objections, release or trade awaited them. Injuries were to be borne solely by the players, and there were no mechanisms to guarantee life after retirement. Dong-won Choi pointed out that “players’ lives are treated too lightly” and pushed to establish a players’ association.
Dong-won Choi, regarded as a symbol of athlete rights in Korean sports
His demands were simple: abolish the salary cap and floor, introduce a player pension, and allow an agent system. Looking back now, they were completely reasonable proposals. But the clubs resisted, and the media denounced him: “How can a player earning hundreds of millions talk about unions?” Public opinion was cold. Choi was not alone. He sought legal counsel through acquaintances and also turned to Jae-in Moon, who was working as a labor lawyer in Busan at the time. Though he would later become President of South Korea, back then he was a young lawyer defending workers’ rights. This scene shows how unfamiliar and even dangerous the idea of “players are workers too” was in Korean society at the time.
President Jae-in Moon encouraging Soo-won Choi, the younger brother of the late Dong-won Choi and a professional umpire (2017)
However, without institutional support, the attempt could not last long. The price was harsh. He was traded overnight, from the symbol of Busan to Samsung. Everyone knew it was retaliatory, but there was no official explanation. Later he said, “Players are workers too. But I was too far ahead of my time.” His challenge ended in frustration, but it was the first voice ever raised in Korean baseball. Just as Curt Flood fought a lonely battle against the reserve clause in MLB, Dong-won Choi planted the seed in Korea.
The Players’ Association: From Frustration and Turmoil to Recognition
The seed planted by Choi did not die out. In the 1990s, Dong-yeol Sun and Sang-hoon Lee attempted to reestablish a players’ association. But faced with the wall of the clubs and the absence of legal structures, they ultimately failed. Still, traces remained, the growing recognition that “rights can be discussed.” In the winter of 1999, stars including Jun-hyuk Yang took the lead. The movement to form a players’ association led to the inaugural general meeting in early 2000, but due to lack of preparation and internal conflict, it fell into chaos. The KBO declared it would release as many as 75 players to stop the movement. The secretary-general at the time even said in an interview, “The league will function without those players.” But such pressure only backfired. Player rights were no longer an internal issue but a matter of public debate.
The second attempt, made after the 2000 season, was different. They emphasized procedure and strengthened internal representation. The first president was Jin-woo Song, a veteran pitcher from Hanwha. He is the all-time wins leader in Korean professional baseball. The fact that such a legend stood at the forefront showed that the players’ association was no longer just a minority voice but an institution representing the entire league. With the support of civil society and public opinion, the players’ association was finally recognized by the KBO in January 2001.
January 22, 2000, Launch of the Professional Baseball Players Association
But recognition did not mean stability. Core players such as Jun-hyuk Yang, Hae-young Ma, Jung-soo Shim, and Ik-sung Choi had to endure retaliatory trades and disadvantages. The history of player rights in Korean baseball is one of institutional recognition accompanied by simultaneous suppression. In 2009, six players from Hyundai Unicorns were declared free agents for participating in players’ association activities. This time, even players who had not been involved in the association sent letters of protest to media outlets. “This is too much.” The issue of rights grew from the concern of a few to that of the entire community.
This scene overlaps with MLB history. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Marvin Miller led the MLBPA as its first full-time executive director, it was the same. His leadership earned the trust of the players, and through strikes and negotiations he secured collective bargaining rights. The moment Jin-woo Song became the face of the Korean players’ association resembles the moment in the United States when Miller brought the MLBPA into the institutional mainstream.
Player Protection: Voices Rise Again
Ik-sung Choi was one of the players who stood at the very front during the establishment of the players’ association. But the cost was severe. Due to a retaliatory trade, he had to leave his team overnight. Though he continued playing through frustration, he eventually retired. Many players, bearing similar wounds, chose silence, but he kept speaking. Even after retirement, he did not stop. He founded the Sports Athlete Protection Research Institute and in 2024 held Korea’s first-ever Player Protection Forum. Active players like Kyung-min Heo of Doosan and Young-pyo Ko of KT stood on stage alongside retired players such as Soo-chang Shim and Dae-eun Lee. It was also symbolic that the players’ association and the retired players’ association participated together. In the past, such a coalition would have been unthinkable.
The First Sports Player Protection Forum in Korea (2024)
At the forum, topics such as injury compensation, post-retirement life, and the power imbalance between clubs and players were openly discussed. These were once conversations reserved for barrooms, but now they were addressed in institutional language before the media and the fans. MLB fans would find this scene familiar as well. When Curt Flood fought against the reserve clause, he was completely isolated. But his sacrifice became the starting point for major league free agency, and Marvin Miller institutionalized it through the MLBPA. The way Ik-sung Choi expanded his personal wounds into intergenerational and collective solidarity through the forum after retirement mirrors that very process.
And he did not stop. Through the institute he established, he also joined hands with the Korean Professional Football Players Association, expanding solidarity beyond baseball to other sports.
The Message Left for Korean Baseball
The protection of player rights in Korean baseball started late and has followed a difficult path. The challenge of Dong-won Choi against club abuse of power, the collective strength that brought the players’ association into the institutional sphere, and the return of Ik-sung Choi who organized Korea’s first Player Protection Forum, all these steps have formed today’s movement.
Yet even now in Korea, players are often seen not as “workers” but as “independent contractors.” Criticism persists over whether well-paid stars have the right to speak of rights. But the essence of rights is not about income level. The right to be respected in the workplace and to safeguard one’s body and future safely is not determined by salary scale.
The message of Korean baseball is clear: players are workers and human beings deserving of respect. Rights do not emerge on their own. They take root only through sacrifice, solidarity, and the empathy of society. The journey for rights in Korean baseball continues to this day.
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. This week Ralph Pearce discusses the Japanese American San Jose Asahi’s 1925 tour of Japan and Korea.
The San Jose Asahi Baseball Club was one of a number of Japanese teams to organize in Northern California between 1903 and 1915. Other cities to organize early teams included San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda, and Florin. The name Asahi means Morning Sun in Japanese and was a popular team name. San Jose’s first Asahi team was made up of Issei (first-generation immigrants) players and lasted only a few years. In 1918 one of the former Issei players encouraged a young Nisei (second-generation) fellow, Jiggs Yamada, to reconstitute the team with Nisei players. Jiggs, a catcher, enlisted the assistance of 15-year-old pitcher Russell Hinaga, and the two soon put a team together.
Unlike the Issei players, these young Nisei players were bom in the United States and had attended English-language schools with a largely Caucasian enrollment. Because of this, both a generational and cultural gap existed between the Issei and Nisei. Through the shared love of baseball, Nisei teams like the San Jose Asahi helped bridge this divide. In the early 1920s, a sympathetic newspaper columnist in San Jose, Jack Graham, encouraged the Asahi to extend that bridge by participating in games outside the Japanese leagues. This participation drew the larger San Jose community to the Asahi Diamond in Japantown, and there Caucasians began to mingle with Japanese Americans, helping to establish familiarity and friendship.
Another bridge in the making was the growing baseball friendship between the United States and Japan. Japan’s enthusiasm for the game had been spreading since its introduction in the 1870s. The tradition of international baseball exchanges began with Waseda University’s 1905 tour of the American West Coast and continues to this day. This friendship through the two nations’ shared love of baseball helped foster cultural appreciation and understanding.
San Jose’s opportunity to visit Japan came in 1925 at the invitation of Meiji University, whose baseball club had toured the United States the year before. The timing couldn’t have been better for the Asahi; several of the players—Jiggs Yamada, Morio “Duke” Sera, Fred Koba, and Earl Tanbara—were anticipating retirement from the team. It was agreed that they would stay with the Asahi until their return from Japan.
It is believed that Meiji University provided some funds for tour expenses, though much of the burden was on the team and its Issei supporters. The first obstacle was the cost of transporting 17 passengers to and from Japan. Jiggs Yamada explained how this was accomplished:
Well first, we had to get some way to go to Japan. A boat was the only thing we could get. We happened to have a boy, Earl Tanbara. … Tanbara’s folks, mother and father, worked for the Dollar Steamship Company family in Piedmont. So when he graduated high school, we had his father talk to Mr. Dollar and ask him if he could do us a favor. He said, “Sure, as soon as Earl [goes] to Cal [Berkeley] and graduated, he’s got to work for me at the steamship company.” They were going to open up an agent in India. So he said, “Sure, if he promises to do that, I can have him going on our boat to Japan.” .. .So that’s how we got to go to Japan on a boat. People figured it was funny how we got to go to Japan . because at that time the steamship boat was expensive.
A few days before departure, Asahi supporter Seijiro Horio gave $800 to Nobukichi Ishikawa, the team’s treasurer. This appears to have been the primary funding source for the team’s trip.
Jack Graham publicized the coming tour to Japan in a number of articles. On March 18, 1925, the day before the team departed, he wrote: “There will be a big delegation of fans in attendance and a bumper crowd of Japanese fans will be on hand to see their favorite sons in their final game in this city. The Asahi team will sail on Saturday for Japan, where they will play a series of games in the flowery kingdom. On their return, they will stop in the Hawaiian Islands, where they will play seven or more games. It will be the latter part of June before they return. The Asahi team has made many friends in this city by their gentlemanly manner in playing the national game, and whenever they stage a game here there is always sure to be a big turn-out.”
The next day, Graham ran a column praising the Asahi and encouraging local pride in the team as representatives of San Jose. A large photograph of the team ran at the top of the sports section, remarkable in that images of local teams rarely appeared in either American or Japanese American papers at the time. The caption read in part: “The Japanese Asahi baseball team will leave San Jose on the first leg of its joumey to the land of cherry blossoms this morning, when it takes the train to San Francisco where it will stay until Saturday, when it will embark on the President Cleveland for Japan.”
The team members making the trip to Japan were pitchers Jimmy Araki and Russell Hinaga; catchers Ed Higashi and Jiggs Yamada; first baseman Harry Hashimoto; second baseman Tom Sakamoto; third baseman Morio “Duke” Sera; shortstop Fred Koba; third baseman-outfielder Sai “Cy” Towata; outfielders Frank Takeshita, Frank Ito, and Earl Tanbara; and utility players Jitney Nishida and Jimmie Yoshida. While the team was in Japan, the strong Asahi “B” team continued to play in San Jose against teams of its caliber. Asahi Diamond was also made available for use by other local teams and management of the diamond was temporarily turned over to locals Happy Luke Williams and Chet Maher.
The Asahi, along with the trip’s manager, Kichitaro Okagaki, and its treasurer, Nobukichi Ishikawa, left San Francisco on March 21, 1925, and a little over two weeks later they arrived in Japan, giving them about a week to recover before their first game. When the team arrived in Japan, Earl Tanbara purchased two Mizuno baseball scorebooks. Earl kept meticulous track of each game, including dates, locations, and the names of all the players.
The Asahi played their first game on Thursday, April 9, against their hosts Meiji University. They lost 8-2 with Araki going the distance on the Meiji grounds. The Asahi played their second game on Saturday, April 11, against Waseda University. They were playing better now, though they lost in a 12-9 slugfest. Russ Hinaga and Jimmy Araki shared the pitching chores, Frank Ito got a double, Harry Hashimoto had a triple, and Cy Towata and Earl Tanbara hit home runs. Each side recorded only one error.
The Asahi played their third game two days later with a rematch against their hosts, Meiji University. Jimmy Araki again pitched the entire game with Ed Higashi doing the catching. Araki was knocked around for a 9-4 loss, despite a batch of errors by Meiji. Next up—the very next day—was Keio University, another tough team. If the Asahi were ready for a win, it would have to wait for another day. Araki and Hinaga pitched the team to a 20-4 shellacking, the Asahi racking up seven errors along the way.
Two days later, on April 16, the Asahi faced Tokyo Imperial University. Once again Araki and Hinaga teamed up. The team was sharper that day, making only one error. Harry Hashimoto hit two doubles, chalking up a run. That was the Asahi’s only run, though, to six for Tokyo and their fifth loss in five games. The Asahi played for the love of the game, but they were serious competitors and this situation was not acceptable. Jiggs Yamada explained the problem and the remedy:
We didn’t play so good because our legs were shaking and all that and the ball was different. It was a regular size American ball, but the cowhide, it slips. The pitcher couldn’t play, pitch curves or anything and the players themselves couldn’t throw the bases, so we couldn’t play good. So finally we told the manager [Okagaki] of our team “Get us some American balls.” So they sent us a one dozen box of American balls, then we started to play different. Then we started to play our regular play.
Teammate Duke Sera confirmed the situation, saying that after leaving Tokyo, the manager saw to it that future Japanese teams could use their own baseballs when they were in the field, and that the Asahi players would use American balls when they were in the field.
On April 18, the Asahi played yet another strong university nine. This time it was against Hosei. Jimmy Araki took to the mound for the Asahi and despite several errors, the team finally got its first win. The Asahi won 7-4 and scored all their runs in the first three innings, thanks in part to a home run by Araki himself. The team followed up a week later with a 25-5 victory over Sendai, with Hinaga pitching and Araki sharing left field with Tanbara. The Asahi suffered another loss on May 1, against Takarazuka before beginning a 13-game winning streak.
The Asahi had played their first six games in Tokyo against strong university teams before venturing north to Sendai. From Sendai, they headed south about 500 miles to Osaka. They played three games in the Osaka area and one game in nearby Kyoto. In the game against Kyoto Imperial University, Tom Sakamoto hit a dramatic “Sayonara Home Run” or walk-off home run in the 10th inning to win 3-2.
From Osaka, the team headed south to Hiroshima for two games. As they traveled the country by train, they continued to accumulate wins and, more importantly, became acquainted with the land of their parents.
One of the players, Duke Sera, had been bom in Hawaii, and then raised by his uncle in Hiroshima. His uncle had sent him to Stanford University to complete his education. When the team visited Hiroshima, Duke’s uncle held a reception for the team. According to Yamada, when the uncle met Duke and the team he quipped, “What the hell are you doing with this bunch here? You’re supposed to be studying!”
After the final game in Hiroshima on May 12, the Asahi traveled 400 miles back to Tokyo. It was the team’s original intention to return to the United States sometime in June. Whatever plans they may have had, however, were altered upon their return to Tokyo (except for Duke Sera, who had to return to his studies at Stanford). Jiggs shared the change of plans:
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SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee is excited to host former Korean Women’s National Baseball Team pitcher Hyeonjeong Shim for a Zoom chat on November 21, 2025, at 9pm EST. The program will begin with a short presentation and a live interview hosted by Zac Petrillo, followed by a Q&A session with viewers. You must sign up below to attend.
Hyeonjeong Shim is a former pitcher for the Korea Women’s National Baseball Team (2022) and has appeared on YouTube’s Pro Neighborhood Baseball (PDB) as well as in multiple media interviews. She is currently a Public Relations Intern at the Korea Anti-Doping Agency and a student at Kyung Hee University, majoring in Physical Education and Cultural Entertainment. She was also a member of the winning team at the 2023 KSPO Olympic Academy.
Hyeonjeong Shim will talk about her journey/experience in women’s baseball in Korea, some background/history of women in baseball, her experiences on the national team, how she interfaces with the KBO, and what she is working on today/plans to do in the future.
Asian Baseball Committee Meeting
When: Nov 21, 2025 09:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog 