Many Korean baseball players have challenged overseas leagues from the past to the present. Public attention has mostly focused on those who entered American or Japanese baseball. However, some players have taken on challenges in lesser-known leagues. The topic of this article is the “third baseball leagues” outside the U.S. and Japan, specifically the Mexican League and Latin American winter leagues, as experienced by Korean players.
Korean Players in the Mexican League
The summer league commonly known as the “Mexican League” has a history of 100 years, but in Korea, it has little recognition or popularity. Even so, as many as seven Korean players have played in Mexico. The first “Mexican leaguer,” and the Korean player who spent the longest time there, was Won Kuk Lee.
Born in Seoul in 1948, Lee was a right-handed pitcher with a blazing fastball. In high school, he threw pitches close to 150 km/h (about 93 mph), drawing attention from Japanese scouts.
He moved to Japan in 1965 and joined the Tokyo Orions (now Chiba Lotte Marines) in 1966. However, he pitched in only one game in Japan. In 1968, the Orions sent him to the U.S. for training. He joined the Single-A Fresno Giants under the San Francisco Giants, later moving through the Detroit Tigers and Milwaukee Brewers farm systems, but was released in 1970.
Through a friend’s recommendation, he learned about the Mexican League and flew to Mexico in 1972. That year, with Piratas de Sabinas, he posted an 11–11 record and a 3.27 ERA. In 1973, he went 16–13 with a 2.30 ERA, showing his full potential. In 1974, he became a founding member of Mineros de Coahuila (now Acereros de Monclova) and remained a rotation starter until 1980. He wrapped up his Mexican career with Petroleros de Poza Rica in 1982 and returned to Korea in 1983 at the age of 35.
Over 10 years, he recorded 336 games, 149 wins, 128 losses, a 2.81 ERA, and 1,126 strikeouts, numbers still remembered in Mexico. In 1983, he briefly joined the KBO’s MBC Blue Dragons (now LG Twins), going 1–1 with a 4.42 ERA before retiring.
Seventeen years later, Kyung Hwan Choi (now a baseball commentator) became the first Korean hitter in the Mexican League. A left-handed outfielder, he signed with the California Angels (now Los Angeles Angels) in 1995 and played in the minors before joining Sultanes de Monterrey in 1999. He later played for Algodoneros de Unión Laguna before moving to the KBO in 2000.
At the same time in 1999, three other Koreans entered the Mexican League: Wonseong Ma (RHP, Rieleros de Aguascalientes), Sangyeong So (RHH OF, Langosteros de Cancun), and Gilnam Hong (RHP, Guerreros de Oaxaca). All were former OB Bears (now Doosan Bears) second-team players who continued short careers in Mexico after being released.
The last KBO player to challenge the Mexican League was Jinwoo Kim, a pitcher with the Kia Tigers, who appeared for Sultanes de Monterrey in 2019. In 2025, Gyeongju Kim, a Korean pitcher from an American independent team, joined Piratas de Campeche.
Latin American winter leagues are held from October to January in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. These short leagues are often filled with free agents hoping to reach MLB or Asian leagues, or current players seeking to maintain game sharpness during the offseason.
Korean teams generally dislike sending players abroad in winter due to concerns about injuries or fatigue. As a result, Koreans in these leagues are usually MLB or minor league players.
Only two KBO players have played in winter leagues: Youngsik Kang (LHP) and Junhyeok Heo (RHP) of the Lotte Giants, who briefly joined Leones del Escogido in the Dominican League during the 2007–08 season.
Korean player Ji-man Choi in the Dominican Winter League
Other examples include:
In 2009, Hyangnam Choi (RHP), then with the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes (LA Dodgers affiliate), pitched for Algodoneros de Guasave in the Mexican Winter League.
Ji-man Choi (C/1B, LHB), before reaching MLB, played in two winter leagues: Tigres de Aragua in Venezuela (2014–15) and Estrellas Orientales in the Dominican Republic (2015–16).
In 2017, two Korean MLB veterans joined Dominican teams: Jung-ho Kang (INF, Pittsburgh Pirates) with Águilas Cibaeñas, and Byung-hyun Kim (RHP, ex-MLB) with Gigantes del Cibao.
These stints were short-lived, but they represented turning points in their baseball careers abroad. They also left behind a lesson for younger players: “In baseball, there are always countless paths.”
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. In this article Robert Fitts discusses the first Japanese American teams to visit Japan.
INTRODUCTION
Between 1890 and 1910, over 100,000 Japanese immigrated to the West Coast of the United States. Many settled in the urban centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Within a few years, each of these immigrant communities had thriving baseball clubs. The first known Japanese American team was the Fuji Athletic Club, founded in San Francisco around 1903. A second Bay Area team, the Kanagawa Doshi Club, was created the following year. That same year, newsmen at the Rafu Shimpo organized Los Angeles’s first Issei (Japanese immigrant) team. Other clubs followed in the wake of Waseda University’s 1905 baseball tour of the West Coast. Many players learned the game while still in Japan at their high schools or colleges. Others picked up the sport in the United States. The first Japanese professional club was created the following year by Guy Green of Lincoln, Nebraska. His Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team, consisting of Japanese immigrants from Los Angeles, barnstormed throughout the Midwest in the spring and summer of 1906.
Seattle’s first Japanese American club, called the Nippon, was also organized in 1906. Shigeru Ozawa, one of the founding players, recalled that the team was not very good at first and was able to play only the second-tier White amateur nines. By 1907 the team had a large local following. In its first appearance in the city’s mainstream newspapers, the Seattle Star noted that “before one of the largest crowds seen at Woodlands park the D.S. Johnstons defeated the Nippons, the fast local Jap team, by a score of 11 to 5.” In May 1908, before a game against the crew of the USS Milwaukee,the Seattle Daily Times reported that the Nippon “have picked up the fine points of the great national game rapidly from playing the amateur teams around here every Sunday.”
Two months later, the Daily Times featured the team when it took on the all-female Merry Widows. Mistakenly referring to the Nippons as “the only Japanese baseball club in America,” the newspaper reported, “when these sons of Nippon went up against the daughters of Columbia, viz., the Merry Widow Baseball Club, it is a safe assumption that the game played at Athletic Park yesterday afternoon was the most unique affair in the annals of the national game.” Over a thousand fans, including many Japanese, watched the Nippons win, 14-8.
Soon after the game with the Merry Widows, second baseman Tokichi “Frank” Fukuda and several other players left the Nippon and created a team called the Mikado. The Mikado soon rivaled the Nippons as the city’s top Japanese team, with the Seattle Star calling them “one of the fastest amateur teams in the city.” In both 1910 and 1911, the Mikado topped the Nippon and Tacoma’s Columbians to win the Northwest Coast’s Nippon Baseball Championship.
As Fukuda’s love for baseball grew, he realized the game’s importance for Seattle’s Japanese. The games brought the immigrants together physically and provided a shared interest to help strengthen community ties. It also acted as a bridge between the city’s Japanese and non-Japanese population, showing a common bond that he hoped would undermine the anti-Japanese bigotry in the city.
In 1909 Fukuda created a youth baseball team called the Cherry—the West Coast’s first Nisei (Japanese born outside of Japan) squad. Under Fukuda’s guidance, the club was more than just a baseball team. Katsuji Nakamura, one of the early members, explained in 1918, “The purpose of this club was to contact American people and understand each other through various activities. We think it is indispensable for us. Because there are still a lot of Japanese people who cannot understand English in spite of the fact that they live in an English-speaking country. That often causes various troubles between Japanese and Americans because of simple misunderstandings. To solve that issue, it has become necessary that we, American-born Japanese who were educated in English, have to lead Japanese people in the right direction in the future. We have been working the last ten years, according to this doctrine.”
As the boys matured, the team became stronger on the diamond and in 1912 the top players joined with Fukuda and his Mikado teammates Katsuji Nakamura, Shuji “John” Ikeda, and Yoshiaki Marumo to form a new team known as the Asahi. Like the Cherry, the Asahi was also a social club designed to create the future leaders of Seattle’s Japanese community, and forge ties with non-Japanese through various activities, including baseball. Once again the new club soon rivaled the Nippon as Seattle’s top Japanese American team.
THE NIPPON TOUR
During the winter of 1913-14, Mitomi “Frank” Miyasaka, the captain of the Nippon, announced that he was going to take his team to Japan, thereby becoming the first Japanese American ballclub to tour their homeland. To build the best possible squad, Miyasaka recruited some of the West Coast’s top Issei players. From San Francisco, he recruited second baseman Masashi “Taki” Takimoto. From Los Angeles, Miyasaka brought over 30-year-old Kiichi “Onitei” Suzuki. Suzuki had played for Waseda University’s reserve team before immigrating to California in 1906. A year later, he joined Los Angeles’s Japanese American team, the Nanka. He also founded the Hollywood Sakura in 1908. In 1911 Suzuki joined the professional Japanese Base Ball Association and spent the season barnstorming across the Midwest. Miyasaka’s big coup, however, was Suzuki’s barnstorming teammate Ken Kitsuse. Recognized as the best Issei ballplayer on the West Coast, in 1906 Kitsuse had played shortstop for Guy Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team, the first professional Japanese club on either side of the Pacific. He was the star of the Nanka before playing shortstop for the Japanese Base Ball Association barnstorming team in 1911. Throughout his career, Kitsuse drew accolades for his slick fielding, blinding speed, and heady play.
To train the Nippons in the finer points of the game, Miyasaka hired 38-year-old George Engel (a.k.a. Engle) as a manager-coach. Although Engel had never made the majors, he had spent 14 seasons in the minor leagues, mostly in the Western and Northwest Leagues, as a pitcher and utility player. Miyasaka also created a challenging schedule to ready his team for the tour. They began their season with games against the area’s two professional teams from the Northwest League. On Sunday, March 22, they lost, 5-1, to the Tacoma Tigers, led by player-manager and future Hall of Famer Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity. The following Sunday the Seattle Giants, which boasted seven past or future major leaguers on the roster, beat them 5-1. Despite the one-sided loss, the Seattle Daily Times noted, “the Nippons … walked off Dugdale Field yesterday afternoon feeling well satisfied with themselves for they had tackled a professional team and had made a run.”
In April 1914, Keio University returned for its second tour of North America. After dropping two games in Vancouver, British Columbia and a third to the University of Washington, Keio met the Nippons on April 9 at Dugdale Park in what the Seattle Daily Times called “the world’s series for the baseball championship of Japan.” On the mound for Keio was the great Kazuma Sugase, the half-German “Christy Mathewson of Japan,” who had starred during the school’s 1911 tour. The team also included future Japanese Hall of Famers Daisuke Miyake, who would manage the All-Nippon team against Babe Ruth’s All-Americans in 1934, and Hisashi Koshimoto, a Hawaiian-born Nisei who would later manage Keio.
Nippons manager George Engel was in a quandary. His usual ace Sadaye Takano was not available and as Keio would host his team during its coming tour of Japan, he needed the Nippons to prove they could challenge the top Japanese college squad. Engel reached out to William “Chief’ Cadreau, a Native American who had pitched for Spokane and Vancouver in the Northwestern League, one game for the 1910 Chicago White Sox, and would later pitch a season for the African American Chicago Union Giants. Pretending that he was a Japanese named Kato, Cadreau started the game. According to the Seattle Star, “Engel was very careful to let the Keio boys know that Kato, his pitcher, was deaf and dumb. But later in the game Kato became enthused, as ball players will, and the jig was up when he began to root in good English.” Nonetheless, Cadreau handled Keio relatively easily, striking out 13 en route to a 6-3 victory.
Throughout the spring and summer, the Nippons continued to face the area’s top teams, including the African American Keystone Giants, to prepare for the trip to Japan. Yet in their minds, the most important matchup was the three-game series against the Asahi for the Japanese championship. The Nippons took the first game, 4-2, on July 12 at Dugdale Park but there is no evidence that they finished the series. Not to be outdone by their rivals, the Asahi also announced that they would tour Japan later that year. Sponsored by the Nichi-nichi and Mainichi newspapers, the Asahi would begin their trip about a month after the Nippons left for Japan.
The Nippon left Seattle aboard the Shidzuoka Maru on August 25. Their departure went unreported by the city’s newspapers as international news took precedence. Germany had invaded Belgium on August 4, opening the Western Front theater of World War I. Throughout the month, Belgian, French, and British troops battled the advancing Germans. Just days before the ballclub left for Japan, the armies clashed at Charleroi, Mons, and Namur with tens of thousands of casualties. On August 23, Japan declared war on Germany and two days later declared war on Austria.
After two weeks at sea, the Nippon arrived at Yokohama on September 10. The squad contained 11 players: George Engel, Frank Miyasaka, Yukichi Annoki, Kyuye Kamijyo, Masataro Kimura, Ken Kitsuse, Mitsugi Koyama, Yohizo Shimada, Kiichi Suzuki, Sadaye Takano, and Masashi Takimoto. Accompanying the ballplayers was the team’s cheering group, consisting of 21 members and led by Yasukazu Kato. The group planned to attend the games to cheer on the Nippon and spend the rest of their time sightseeing.
As the Shidzuoka Maru docked, a group of reporters, Ryozo Hiranuma of Keio University, Tajima of Meiji University, and a few university players came on board to welcome the visiting team. The group then took a train to Shinbashi Station in Tokyo, where they were met by the Keio University ballplayers at 2:33 P.M. The Nippon checked in at the Kasuga Ryokan in Kayabacho while the large cheering group, which needed two inns to accommodate them, settled down at the Taisei-ya and Sanuki-ya.
Only two hours later, the Nippon arrived at Hibiya Park for practice. Not surprisingly, after the voyage they were not in top form. The Tokyo Asahi noted, “Even though the Seattle team is composed of Japanese, their ball-handling skills are as good as American players, and … their agile movements are very encouraging. … They hit the ball with a very free form, but yesterday, they did not place their hits very accurately, most likely due to fatigue. … The Seattle team did not have a full-fledged defensive practice with each player in position, so we did not know how skilled they were in defensive coordination, but we heard that the individual skills of each player were as good as those of Waseda and Keio. In short, the Seattle team has beaten Keio University before, so even though they are Japanese, they should not be underestimated. On top of that, they have good pitching, so games against Waseda University and Keio University are expected to arouse more than a few people’s interest, just like the games against foreign teams in the past.”
The Nippon would stay in Japan for almost four months, but the baseball tour itself consisted of just eight games—all played during September against Waseda and Keio Universities. The players spent the rest of the time traveling through their homeland and visiting family and friends.
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Do you know that the NPB’s first ever overseas games were held in China? It was in 1940, from July 31 to August 23, the official regular season games were played in Manchuria (present-day Northeast China), which Japan controlled at the time. A total of 72 games were played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing 16 games.
The fundamental national policy of the Japanese government at the time was to “build a new order in Greater East Asia, centered on the Imperial Nation and based on the strong union of Japan, Manchuria, and China.” Companies were rapidly expanding into Manchuria, and Manchurian immigration was a major national initiative. As part of this effort, all professional baseball teams visited Manchuria and played games there for about a month. Travel between cities was by third-class sleeper train, with games immediately upon arrival, maintaining a grueling schedule. Players suffered from bedbugs on trains and in inns.
“At the lodgings, we were tormented by swarms of bedbugs. Everyone’s thighs and stomachs were covered in pink bite marks, but we couldn’t change lodgings. Even during games, we scratched away.” (Michinori Tsubouchi, “Baseball in Wind and Snow: Half a Century,” March 25, 1987, Baseball Magazine Sha)
Tetsuji Kawakami: “I woke up in the middle of the night to find bedbugs swarming everywhere. Since I was practically naked, they bit me all over, and the itching woke me up.” “Unable to bear it, I consulted with Chiba and Yoshihara. We tried placing dishes filled with alcohol under the table legs, and the bugs couldn’t climb up anymore. I spread a futon on the table and finally managed to sleep.“ (Takamitsu Kawakami, ”My Father’s Jersey Number Was 16,” Asahi Shimbun Publishing, 1991)
The balls used were cheap, shoddy products that wouldn’t fly at all, making the games themselves poor, but the event was a commercial success. Attendance: 137,499 people. Revenue: 229,660 yen.
The results for the nine participating teams were as follows:
Dongdaemun Baseball Stadium and Suengui Baseball Stadium
by Jeonghyun Won
Korea’s First Baseball Stadium: Dongdaemun Baseball Stadium
The history of baseball is not complete if we only look at the records of players and teams. The stadiums where the games are played are just as integral to baseball’s story. In the United States, the birthplace of baseball, the first baseball field is believed to have been Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, built in the early-to-mid 1800s. Although it no longer exists, records say that the first official baseball game took place there on June 19, 1846. Korea’s first baseball stadium also, unfortunately, no longer exists. Where one now finds Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), one of Seoul’s most famous tourist attractions, once stood Dongdaemun Stadium, the birthplace of Korean baseball. The history of Dongdaemun Stadium parallels Korea’s own painful modern history. In 1925, during the Japanese colonial era, the Japanese government constructed Gyeongseong Stadium as part of its policy to indoctrinate and control the Korean population. This was the beginning of Dongdaemun Stadium. After Korea’s liberation, the stadium was renamed Seoul Stadium.
At that time, Seoul Stadium was the mecca of Korean sports and the beating heart of the nation. The stadium hosted the most popular sporting events in Korea, including high school baseball tournaments and international competitions like the Asian Baseball Championship. It was here that Choi Dong-won, one of the greatest pitchers in Korean baseball history, recorded an astonishing 17 consecutive hitless innings. The legendary rivalry between Kim Geon-woo and Park No-jun, one of the defining rivalries of the early professional baseball era, also began here. The very first game in the history of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) (MBC Blue Dragons vs. Samsung Lions, 1982) was held at Seoul Stadium, and in 1985 the OB Bears (now the Doosan Bears), the first KBO champions, used the stadium as their home ground for an entire season.
But Seoul Stadium could not escape the flow of time. In preparation for the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the government built the new Seoul Sports Complex in Jamsil. Seoul Stadium lost its position as the center of Korean sports, was renamed Dongdaemun Stadium, and entered a period of gradual decline.
High school baseball games continued to be held there, but the stadium was overshadowed by the popularity of professional baseball. To make matters worse, the decades-old facilities were increasingly shunned by players and spectators alike. In the mid-2000s, one baseball insider remarked, “The artificial turf is practically like concrete—if you make a mistake, you could get seriously injured. The dugouts are so cramped that players have to stand throughout the entire game. The bathrooms and other facilities are terrible, making things just as uncomfortable for fans[ZP1][c2] .”[i]After years of debate, Dongdaemun Stadium finally closed its doors on November 13, 2007, following the Seoul High School Baseball Fall Championship final between Baemyung High School and Chungam High School.
The Heart of Incheon Baseball: Suengui Baseball Stadium
Suengui Baseball Stadium
If one only thinks about today’s professional baseball scene, the cities that come to mind are Seoul, Gwangju, or Busan. But Incheon also has every right to call itself a “baseball city.” Records show that as early as 1897, students of the Incheon English Night School played one of Korea’s first baseball games there. Incheon Commercial & Industrial High School (now Incheon High School) even represented Korea several times at Koshien, Japan’s most prestigious high school baseball tournament, during the Japanese colonial period.
Suengui Baseball Stadium was the site of countless memories for Incheon’s baseball-loving citizens. Built about ten years after Dongdaemun Stadium, Suengui opened its gates in 1934. During the heyday of high school baseball, Incheon High School and Incheon Dongsan High School were among the most dominant teams in the country, and Suengui Stadium was packed to capacity almost every day. Even after the start of professional baseball, fans continued to flock to the stadium. The Sammi Superstars (one of the KBO’s inaugural teams), and later the Cheongbo Pintos and the Taepyeongyang Dolphins, all used Suengui as their home stadium. However, the professional teams’ results paled in comparison to those of the legendary local high school teams. In the 20 seasons of professional baseball played at Suengui, the postseason was hosted there only four times.
The gap between the fans’ overflowing passion and their teams’ underwhelming performance sometimes led to a rowdy, almost “hooligan-like” fan culture. While baseball fandom throughout Korea could be unruly in the early professional years, Incheon fans were considered especially intense, earning the nickname “Dowon Warriors” (Dowon Stadium was another common name for Suengui Stadium due to its proximity to Dowon Station). During Sammi’s infamous 18-game losing streak, fans once blocked the players’ bus and even demanded hearings with the team’s manager. But this passion also helped advance Korea’s fan culture. In the 1980s, before organized cheering squads existed, Suengui had an unofficial cheer captain, Mr. Kim Young-sik, who would rally the fans, lead applause, and chant the players’ names, setting the foundation for the lively cheering culture that KBO fans know today.
Suengui Stadium later served as the home of the Hyundai Unicorns and SK Wyverns, but in 2001 it relinquished its “home of pro baseball” status to Munhak Baseball Stadium. Eventually, the site was redeveloped for a soccer-specific stadium and residential apartments, and Suengui passed into history.
“As Long as We Remember, It Never Truly Disappears”
Dongdaemun Stadium Memorial Hall
Today, if you visit Euljiro 7-ga in Seoul or Dowon-dong in Incheon, you won’t find a baseball stadium. But the spirit of the ballparks can still be felt. Inside Dongdaemun Design Plaza, the Dongdaemun Stadium Memorial Hall preserves the history of the stadium and displays equipment used there. At Incheon’s Dowon Station underpass, an exhibition called the “Incheon Sports Timeline” briefly recounts the history of Suengui Stadium. Through these spaces, one hopes that American baseball fans, and fans everywhere, can gain a deeper appreciation for Korean baseball and enjoy it even more.
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. Today Stephen D. Boren and James Elfers discuss the Chicago White Sox and New York Giants stop in Japan during their 1913-14 world tour.
On January 27, 1913, John McGraw of the National League champion New York Giants and Charles Comiskey, owner of the American League Chicago White Sox, announced their plans for a world tour to be held after the 1913 World Series. The tour would be modeled after the 1888-1889 “Great Baseball Trip Around the World” when A.G. Spalding’s Chicago National League Club, led by captain Adrian “Cap” Anson, and a team selected from the National League and American Association by John M. Ward traveled the globe playing in New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, (Egypt, and Europe. When Comiskey heard of the Spalding world trip he supposedly stated, “Someday I will take a team of my own around the world.”
The tour would begin in Cincinnati and the teams would barnstorm across the country until they reached Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 19. From there, they would sail to Japan, China, the Philippines, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, before returning to New York on March 6, 1914. Comiskey’s close friend Ted Sullivan, a former manager and minor league executive, was named the advance scout to organize the tour, and sailed from San Francisco to Honolulu, Japan, and Australia. While Spalding’s tour had supposedly broken even, Sullivan felt that this one would make money. A few months later, Comiskey’s advance agent, Dick Bunnell, sailed for Europe to complete the arrangements on that continent.
In June 1913, after White Sox manager James Callahan “called on President Woodrow Wilson to explain the proposed world tour … Wilson expressed his approval not only because he said he considered himself a base ball fan, but because he thought the movement might result in the creation of an international league.” Wilson also thought the tour might help advance international peace and amity.
Many New York players were not enthusiastic about the proposed tour. The original plan required each person to personally put up $1,500 for expenses and for all to share equally in the profits. The players thought it would be a great trip but too expensive. The sponsors understood the players’ reluctance to make the financial commitment. McGraw initially refused to discuss the trip until the Giants were sure of winning the pennant and thus a share of the World Series money, until on July 29 he held a team meeting and for the first time officially informed his players of the world tour. He showed them the financial arrangements and received a large number of positive commitments, from Christy Mathewson and Chief Meyers among others. Meanwhile, Comiskey and Callahan began contacting players from other American League teams in case their players refused to go under the proposed conditions.
On September 24 Charles Comiskey announced that 75 people would go on the World Tour. Each player would be required to post $300 to guarantee his appearance on the ship but once on board, the money would be refunded. For such an unprecedented tour with so many passengers, great logistic and fiscal planning was needed, and both Comiskey and McGraw were prepared to write checks of $100,000 to defray additional expenses.
On October 7 Harry M. Grabiner, Comiskey’s personal representative, announced that he was finalizing the plans for the massive around-the-world trip. He said he expected the tour to be the largest sporting event ever. Preliminary reports from foreign countries suggested that baseball would be a worldwide topic before the players returned home. Grabiner said he had multiple requests for exhibition games from American Western cities. The tour was advertised like a circus with long billboard posters. Arrangements were made to film the games in foreign cities, as well as life on the ship and receptions with foreign monarchs and ambassadors.
The tour left Chicago on the night of October 19 on a special train of five all-steel cars including an observation car and a combination baggage and buffet car. This traveling hotel was the party’s home as they barnstormed across the Midwest and West Coast, playing 31 games in 27 cities, before sailing for Japan from Vancouver a month later.
By the time the teams reached Vancouver, their rosters had shrunk. Christy Mathewson and Chief Meyers decided not to accompany the teams across the Pacific. To even the squads, the White Sox loaned Urban “Red” Faber to the Giants. The final Giants roster consisted of pitchers Bunny Hearn (Giants), George Wiltse (Giants), and Faber (White Sox); catcher Ivey Wingo (Cardinals); first baseman Fred Merkle (Giants); second baseman Larry Doyle (Giants); third baseman Hans Lobert (Phillies); shortstop Mickey Doolin (Phillies); and outfielders Lee Magee (Cardinals), Jim Thorpe (Giants), and Mike Donlin (Giants).
Of the 11 “New York” players, there were only three pitchers. There were no backup infielders, outfielders, or catchers. Counting Mike Donlin, who did not play in the major leagues in 1913 (he did return to the Giants in 1914), there were only six actual members of the New York Giants, and of those six, only Merkle and Doyle were regulars. Hearn had been in only two games (1-1 record) and Wiltse had not won a single game.
In the end, few of the White Sox players were willing to go. Of the 13 players on the roster, only six were White Sox and one was manager Callahan, who had played in only six games all season. There were three pitchers but no backup infielders. The official “White Sox” roster consisted of pitchers Jim Scott (White Sox), Joe Benz (White Sox), and Walter Leverenz (St. Louis Browns); catchers Andy Slight (Des Moines, Western League) and Jack Bliss (Cardinals); first baseman Tom Daly (White Sox); second baseman Germany Schaefer (Washington Senators); shortstop Buck Weaver (White Sox); third baseman Dick Egan (Brooklyn Robins); and outfielders Tris Speaker (Red Sox), Sam Crawford (Tigers), and Steve Evans (Cardinals). Jack Bliss had previously been to Japan as a member of the 1908 Reach All-Americans.
Besides the 24 players, the party included McGraw; Comiskey; umpires Bill Klem and Jack Sheridan; Chicago secretary N.L. O’Neil; A.P. Anderson (manager of the tour); Dick Bunnell (manager and director of the tour); Ted Sullivan (author and lecturer); and Chicago newspaper writers Gus Axelson (Record-Herald) and Joseph Farrell (Tribune). There were also wives, McGraw’s personal physician, Dr. Frank Finley, several children, and other friends.
On November 19, 1913, the tourists boarded the RMS Empress of Japan in Vancouver and began their journey across the Pacific. For 17 days, the passengers endured tossing seas, driving rains, and even a typhoon. Most of the players suffered from seasickness and some, like Tris Speaker and Red Faber, could barely eat. On December 6 they finally arrived in Yokohama, three days behind schedule. Prior to their arrival, only three American college squads and one professional team had traveled to Japan. The lone professional team, the Reach All-Americans, consisted mostly of minor-league players with a smattering of undistinguished major leaguers. McGraw and Comiskey’s clubs would showcase major-league stars to the Japanese fans for the first time.
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Victor Starffin was more than a great pitcher. He wasn’t just a Giant on the field, but also a giant off the field. The first 300 game winner in Japan amazed baseball fans all throughout his career, from his amateur days as a young teenager, wowing crowds in Asahikawa, to the end of his career, winning his 300th game with the Tombo Unions. Since his career and his tragic passing at the age of 40 years old, Starffin’s legacy as a ballplayer has been well documented and known.
However, due to his early passing, his two daughters, Natasha and Elizabeth, sadly did not have much time with their father. As a mother, while watching her children at play, it dawned on Natasha that her father had passed away by the time she was their age. Up until then, she had known about his achievements but, she says, “didn’t really care who he was.”
At its essence, the film Tokyo Giant: The Legend of Victor Starffin is about Natasha and Elizabeth connecting with their father all these years later, as well as reuniting with each other after over four decades. The film speaks to the unending bonds of family across centuries, wars, and oceans.
It shows Japan as the nation grows into an international power, following its Westernization, industrialization, and victory in the Russo-Japanese War. During this time, Japan and the U.S. gradually inch towards war, with hostilities increasing, despite their mutual admiration for each other, which was on display during the 1934 American League All-Star team’s tour of Japan.
Starffin’s family fled Russia during the violent, ghastly Russian Revolution. Victor’s father was an officer in the army of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and bribed the drivers of carriages full of frozen corpses to let them hide amongst the corpses so they could escape the Red Army. The Starffins initially settled in Harbin, located in Manchuria, before emigrating to Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture, as refugees and the only Russians in their new city of Asahikawa.
Japan had recently started accepting refugees because of international pressure from nations criticizing them for not doing so. A little over ten years before Starffin was born, Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War and agreed to the Treaty of Portsmouth. For his notable contributions in brokering the treaty between Russia and Japan, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Japanese leaders were denounced for what were perceived by the Japanese people to be the treaty’s lenient terms.
1949 Karuta Victor Starffin baseball card
Tokyo Giant: The Legend of Victor Starffin captures the increasing hostility that foreigners in Japan, known as gaijin, faced. Victor was bullied as a kid and sports was the only way he could make friends and get along with his classmates. Because of his size and strength, he was seen as a leader. Even though he was the greatest pitcher in Japanese history, his daughters also experienced the same anti-foreigner sentiments. Due to this mistreatment, after Elizabeth left Japan in her youth, she did not return for forty-three years, when she returned for the filming of this documentary.
Starffin was a prodigious baseball talent during his youth, with his goal being that of winning the Summer Koshien baseball tournament. When Matsutarō Shōriki, the owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun, was forming a baseball team to compete against the 1934 American League All-Stars, he invited the high-school pitcher to join the team, but Starffin declined to. At the time, the elder Starffin was imprisoned after killing his lover, a Russian girl who worked at the family’s teahouse. Initially, he claimed it was a crime of passion, but later accused her of being a Soviet spy. Shōriki, who previously was the chief secretary of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, heard about the father’s crime and blackmailed Victor, saying that if he didn’t play for his All-Nippon team, then the Starffin family would be deported back to Russia, which, as it was then controlled by the Soviets, would be a death sentence for the family. Having no choice, Starffin joined Shōriki’s team.
The 1934 All-American tour of Japan was years in the making, with Shōriki spending years trying to persuade Babe Ruth to come to Japan to play there. What convinced “The Sultan of Swat” to entertain the Japanese fans with his thunderous home runs was that he was to be celebrated as “The King of Baseball,” which was particularly important to him as he was at the very lowest of his career. Joseph Grew, the American ambassador to Japan, said “Babe Ruth… is a great deal more effective Ambassador than I could ever be.” Ruth’s family, including his adopted daughter Julia Ruth Stevens and granddaughter Linda Ruth Tosetti, make appearances in the documentary, providing insight about the tour and commentary about a parallel in Ruth and Starffin both being dissatisfied with how their careers ended.
Whereas the Americans perceived baseball to be a game that should be leisurely enjoyed, the Japanese viewed it as a training for the harsh battles of life. The games against Ruth and his fellow all-stars were about more than baseball. They were about national pride. Japanese fans thought that if they could beat Americans in their game of baseball, then they could also be victorious against them in other arenas.
The tour upset Japanese nationalists. One stabbed Shōriki for being “unpatriotic” for bringing Babe Ruth and other American ballplayers to Japan. After the All-Nippon team became Japan’s first professional baseball team following the tour, many more Japanese fans were upset. Professional baseball was seen as not pure and a “freak show.” When the team played at Meiji Jingu Stadium, near the shrine where Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken are worshipped, they were seen as committing sacrilege and defiling the area.
It is painful to see how Starffin and his daughters were so mistreated. He was suspected of being a spy and even had to change his name, which his daughters point out in a heartbreaking scene where they show league most valuable player awards he received in consecutive seasons while playing for the Tokyo Giants, one referring to him as Victor Starffin while another uses the name of Suda Hiroshi, a name he adopted when he was forced to use a Japanese name in order to continue playing. During World War II, he was sent to a detention camp.
The film’s highlighting of the discrimination and persecution that Starffin faced helps the viewer understand the spirit that he brought to the ballpark as he marched towards 300 wins as a member of the Tombo Unions, a new ballclub full of aged players. Japanese baseball historian Masaru Ikei says that “he might have been burning off his resentment from his wartime oppression.”
Interviews with former friends, classmates, and teammates of Starffin’s illuminate the person behind the astounding pitching. It’s heartening to see each of them share their warm memories of him. Starffin Stadium in Asahikawa is the only municipal stadium named after a private person in Japan. Yasuyuki Takakuwa, a childhood friend of Starffin’s, was so inspired by his friend that he worked to get the stadium named after him.
late 1940s Victor Starffin menko
This documentary is about more than just Starffin himself. It is about a family reuiniting with each other. Natasha and Elizabeth, separated since they were young, come together with each other, their father, and other family members. Elizabeth says “I know who he[, my father,] is now, what kind of a person he was, and [that] makes him, in my mind, a lot bigger of a person.” Their cousin, Oleg, who Elizabeth visits in her father’s birthplace of Nizhny Tagil, a city slightly east of the Asia-Europe continental border, says “[f]or me, more than anything, it’s a family reunited. An entire century passed, and we’re together again.”
In an animated scene that brings to mind the catch between John and Roy Kinsella, father and son, in Field of Dreams, Tokyo Giant: The Legend of Victor Starffin concludes with a loving game of catch between Victor, Elizabeth, and Natasha, who says “my father has always been in my heart. I’ve felt that he always watches over me from heaven.” This heartwarming moment reminds the audience of the importance of family and is a testament to the enduring love that the Starffin family has for each other. Released in 2022 and directed by Tchavdar Georgiev, this film can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video and Roku. Tokyo Giant: The Legend of Victor Starffin is a film not only about baseball and history, but, most notably, also, one about the Starffin family’s grace, persevering courage, and motivating journey of reconnection. I highly recommend this film.
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. Here Yusuke Suzumura discusses Stanford University’s 1913 tour of Japan.
The Stanford University Baseball Team is closely connected to the development of baseball in Japan. This stems from 1904-05, when Waseda University was planning an expedition to the United States and negotiated with different universities there, and Stanford University was the first to respond. One of the reasons Stanford accepted Waseda’s request was that Zentaro Morikubo was a student at Stanford and facilitated negotiations between the two universities. Zentaro was the son of Sakuzo Morikubo, a member of the House of Representatives in Japan’s Imperial Diet; Zentaro later became a member of the Japan Amateur Athletic Association and was appointed a member of the Japan Baseball Umpires’ Association (an organization founded in 1916 with the intent of spearheading the establishment of baseball rules in Japan). As such, Zentaro Morikubo was a prominent figure in the baseball world at the time.
The Waseda team traveled to the United States in 1905, played against the Stanford Cardinals twice, and lost both games. They lost because the Waseda team’s play did not extend much beyond the rudimentary stages of throwing and hitting the ball, whereas the Stanford team approached the sport in an organized and systematic manner.
On March 31,1913, Keio University announced an invitation to the Stanford University baseball team to visit Japan later that spring. At the time, St. Mary’s College and Santa Clara University were the two best college baseball teams on the West Coast, and Stanford was second to these universities, alongside the University of California and the University of Washington. Stanford had won games against all of these universities before they visited Japan, and therefore Keio was “expected to probably lose.”
An 11-man contingent boarded the passenger ship Nippon Maru and departed San Francisco on May 10, 1913. Graduate student R.W. Wilcox was the manager. The players were Ray Maple, pitcher; Al Gragg, pitcher; Leslie Dent, catcher; Tom Workman, first base; Louis Cass, second base; Pete McCloskey, third base; Zeb Terry, shortstop; Arthur Halm, left field; Walter Argabrite, center field; and Heinie Beeger, right field.
The trip was scheduled for 10 weeks, longer than any previous trip by a Stanford team. They planned to play at least 12 games, starting with Keio in Japan, with a two-week visit to Hawaii on the way home. Keio provided 7,000 yen ($3,500) to cover the trip expenses. In 1913, 7,000 yen was equivalent to approximately 28 million yen (approximately $240,000) in 2022. In addition, the Stanford baseball team raised $200 from a match against the Santa Cruz Colored Giants; the university donated $250; and the Quadrangle Club donated $50, making for a total of $500. With the funds provided from the Japanese side and the donations from Stanford, the large amount of money they were able to raise suggests high expectations for the trip in both countries.
The Stanford group arrived at Yokohama around 8 A.M. on May 27. The Japan Times reported, “Immediately after the health inspection, the six-foot huskies were swarmed by a gang of newspaper reporters, and the Keio ball players and students who went out in a launch to meet them. ‘Banzai’ and college cheers were exchanged on the deck.” The team held a press conference at the request of the Japanese press, in which they described how they spent their time training during the 17-day voyage on the Nippon Maru. “Thankfully, the seas were calm, so we were able to practice every day. We still ended up dropping 15 of the four-dozen balls into the sea. However, perhaps because of the daily practice, everyone gained weight, with some of us gaining as much as 12 kg [about 26 pounds].”
Obviously, the team had indulged in a comfortable lifestyle during the voyage. However, when the Stanford players arrived at Yokohama, despite their massive weight gain, their physiques drew little attention from the Japanese, who remarked only that their physiques were “imposing.”
By way of example, the Yomiuri Shimbun favorably introduced the players in the following terms: “They are all elegant young gentlemen, dressed in winter suits and caps. Their physiques seem particularly imposing when one looks at the All-Philippines Baseball Team. Based on this alone, they would seem to have the power to overwhelm the Japanese baseball world.”
The All-Philippines Baseball Team had come to Japan on May 10, and had planned to stay until June 1 and play a total of 10 games with Waseda, Keio, Meiji University, and Yokohama Commercial School. Some of the games were canceled due to rain, and the Philippines team ended up playing eight games, of which it won only one, against Waseda, losing the other seven.
The All-Philippines Baseball Team was said to have “selected the very best of Philippine baseball,” with a total of 16 members, of which 13 were players, and one was a substitute. The players were generally of medium build and height, and while three had excellent physiques, another three were of smaller stature. While the results of the games are not necessarily always decided on the basis of physique, when one considers that the Philippines team had won only one out of the eight games, it is perhaps unsurprising that people thought that physique played a part in the team’s poor performance. The comment that “[t]heir physiques seem particularly imposing when one looks at the All-Philippines Baseball Team” can be taken not only as a comparison of the physiques of the All-Philippines players and the Stanford University players but also as an indication that there were high expectations for the latter based on the superiority of their physiques.
It should be noted that an article in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun reported that “the players bore no signs of fatigue and were very comfortable during their 17-day voyage, with each gaining about 750 g [about 1.5 pounds].” Compared with the Yomiuri Shimbun article, none of the players seems to have gained a large amount of weight. While it is difficult to judge which description is accurate, we can nevertheless deduce that the players did indeed gain weight during the voyage.
The Stanford team was evaluated favorably by the Japanese during their time in Japan, as illustrated by the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun: “They are all the very best of young gentlemen morally influenced by Dr. Jordan, who resembled a messenger of the god of peace, and they seem to be very pleasant and friendly upon first meeting in the American style.”
“Dr. Jordan” was David Starr Jordan, who became the first president of Stanford University in 1891 and also became the first chancellor of the university in June 1913. Jordan visited Japan frequently from 1900 to investigate his academic specialty of ichthyology, the study of fish. Moreover, Jordan was a researcher, university administrator, anti-imperialist, and antiwar activist. Rather than his role as an ichthyologist and educator, the assessment of Jordan in Japan related to his opposition to the anti-Japanese-immigration movement in the United States, which was the most significant concern between the two countries at the time; he was on the side of the Japanese, arguing that “no parliament should pass the Japanese Exclusion Act.” In addition, he was described as “a great player for peace” who “loved peace and was convinced that peace was a global truth.”
Thus, the baseball players were depicted as gentlemen inspired by Jordan precisely because they were at Stanford University. In addition, the more distinctive players in the group were thus described:
Pigeon-toed and with a liking for beans, Cass is the odd man out in the group—so pigeon-toed in fact that his fellows tease him every which way. He made everyone laugh by saying that he was going to advertise himself in the papers as a pigeon-toed rickshaw man when he arrived in Tokyo. Argabrite’s family runs a bean shop, and he also has a great liking for beans, hence the nickname “Bean.” Workman is extremely timid and never left his lifeboat during the voyage.
While matters such as physique and family business have nothing to do with baseball itself, these topics were a good source of information to better know the players. The fact that such articles seeking to convey the personalities of the players were published, even if they were primarily intended to amuse the readers and satisfy their curiosity, demonstrates that people had a high level of interest in the Stanford University baseball team.
Having thus attracted people’s attention, how did the Stanford players adjust once they were in Japan? They started practicing at 1 P.M. on May 28 at Keio University’s Tsunamachi Grounds, with the practice lasting for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Second baseman Cass hit a succession of home runs to left field and left fielder Halm hit “a fire-breathing home run like a powerful cannon” with a long shot to right field. In defensive practice, the players threw the ball with machine-like accuracy, catching even difficult throws. Although they had not yet shown their full potential, the Stanford players were praised as “the epitome of the American national sport.”
The players’ track records were good as well, and as a team they were the strongest since the Stanford University baseball team was founded. They were said to be among the best teams on the West Coast, having won four times and lost once against Santa Clara University, which had previously defeated the Waseda University baseball club, 10-2. The cleanup hitter was Louis Cass, and the ace pitcher was Ray Maple, a side- arm thrower. Maple, first baseman Tom Workman, and shortstop Zeb Terry had such a high level of skill that they had been invited to join professional clubs. Maple turned down an offer to join the Philadelphia Athletics, Walkman received an offer from the Boston Red Sox, and Terry was invited to join the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League and later had a seven-year major league career.
Given this context, it was thought that Keio, Meiji, and the Tomon Club, which consisted of graduates of the Waseda University baseball club, would not be able to compete with the Stanford team. In fact, the Stanford team did not perform as well as its track record would have suggested.
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
On April 11, 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and while the rest of the world put professional sports on hold, the CTBC Brothers played the Uni-President Lions at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium to start the world’s first professional baseball game of the year. Taiwan, long neglected—or isolated—by the international community, was finally gaining a global audience, not only for its successful COVID-19 response that led to this much-anticipated season-opening, but also for a national sport that had always craved international recognition.
But this moment in the limelight did not actually elevate the profile of Taiwanese baseball or boost Taiwan’s “soft power” in global influence as reported. One problem was that Taiwan’s major league was confusingly named the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), and no casual fan was going to research the historical or linguistic context of why that is the case, or care that this league is different from the China Baseball League (CBL) across the Taiwan Strait. Some media outlets used the term “Chinese Baseball League” or “Chinese baseball,”undercutting Taiwanese baseball’s distinct identity.
After popular podcaster Jared Carrabis erroneously reported, “We are playing baseball in China” in April 2020, he followed up with something perhaps worse: “Correction—it’s a Chinese baseball league in Taiwan. Whatever. It’s baseball. And it’s happening.” The name of the CPBL, now resembling a marketing blunder, has been a contentious topic for decades, involving domestic politics, ethnic identity, and even foreign affairs. However, the name is just a symptom of a much larger, perhaps generational problem. Taiwanese baseball is having an identity crisis, yet its fans seem to be entirely unaware or indifferent.
As a national game, baseball has captivated Taiwanese fans and reflected a unique and collective self-image in Taiwan for almost a full century. This self-image, as with any other expressions or aspirations of consciousness, is full of complications, contradictions, and ultimately illusions. As baseball faces challengesaround the world, any initiative to advance the sport requires an examination of its role in society. For the Taiwanese people, it means facing, coming to terms with, and addressing the harsh realities of their historical relationship with baseball.
Existing scholarship offers an extensive historiography of baseball in Taiwan. In Playing in Isolation, Yu Junwei provides an assessment of a national game that is arguably hollowed out from within by inorganic incentives. Government policies that focused on maximizing propaganda instead of the long-term development of baseball buoyed amateur participation but led to the game’s decline. In Colonial Project, National Game, Andrew Morris offers a reading of baseball as a manifestation of Taiwanese social identity within the context of globalization. He discusses in depth the historical dynamics between Taiwanese baseball and governing forces like Japan, the Republic of China, the United States, and even capitalism. Finally, in Empire of Infields, John J. Harney makes the case that Taiwanese baseball epitomizes a nuanced history transcending simple narratives of assimilation or resistance. The history of Taiwan is complex, and the history of baseball in Taiwan is no exception.
Fans around the world view and cherish baseball through the lens of nostalgia; Taiwanese fans specifically find a shared pride in old tales of international glory. Despite undoubtedly creating a collective identity, Taiwanese baseball has sometimes been marked by unsavory goals and means and often entangled with class and ethnic stratification. Investment in baseball development has primarily been made to serve the interests of empires, literal and otherwise. The legacy of those interests continues to hinder the modern game, and a clear-eyed attempt to reconsider baseball’s cultural role is needed for the game’s future in Taiwan.
In this essay, two of Taiwanese baseball’s most prominent origin stories, the Kano and Hongye legends, are thoroughly examined. The historical incentives of creating or reinforcing myths surrounding these origins are weighed against the cultural costs of upholding them; their many complications or contradictions are laid out and contextualized. While any attempt to amend or remove these culturally pertinent legends will likely be futile, examining the manufactured significance that overlays them is an essential first step toward creating authentic baseball moments beyond historical or extrinsic interests. These cultural moments may just evolve into the beginnings of a new era of Taiwanese baseball.
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. In this article Christopher Frey focuses on the long history of the University of Chicago and Waseda University’s ties through baseball.
On the fourth day of spring in the 20th year of the Imperial Heisei era, just as the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom, another chapter in one of the most significant stories in US-Japan sports history was about to be written. It was Saturday, March 22, 2008, and while the Boston Red Sox held off the Hanshin Tigers and the Oakland Athletics rallied to beat the Yomiuri Giants in an exhibition double bill at Tokyo Dome, what really mattered that day was the long-awaited return of another American baseball team: the University of Chicago Maroons.
The Chicago squad was coming for its sixth Japan tour, once again at the invitation of Waseda University, as part of that prestigious Tokyo-based institution’s 125th-anniversary celebrations. Given that the first time the Maroons came was in 1910 while the last had been in 1930—not to mention Waseda’s five return tours between 1911 and 1936—Chicago’s arrival was touted as renewing a nearly 100-year-old rivalry, with promotional posters and merchandise declaring it to be the “Restart of Legend.”
The matchups between Waseda and Chicago in the late-Meiji, Taisho, and early-Showa eras were truly epic battles fought on both sides of the Pacific, yet they sprang from the labors of an idealistic Japanese professor with support of two Maroons turned missionaries, so these baseball exchanges were always imbued with goodwill. As the 10 series were contested over the course of three decades, American dominance slowly gave way to spirited Japanese play inspired by the unlikely pairing of a manager who derided putting too much importance on results and his team’s former captain turned coach who became hellbent on winning. And although the two teams were torn apart by war, the baseball ties between Chicago and Waseda would fully heal when at long last their legendary rivalry was restarted in 2008.
The bond between Waseda and Chicago began forming in 1904, shortly after Fred Merrifield—former standout third baseman and Maroons captain—was sent to Tokyo as a missionary by the American Baptist Union. By the time Merrifield arrived, Waseda had just won Japan’s college baseball crown quite impressively, doing so only a few years after Professor Isoo Abe—one-time pastor and graduate of Doshisha and Hartford Theological Seminary—established their first full-fledged team in 1901. Abe had inspired his men to the title by promising that if they won he would arrange a trip across the Pacific to play against other university nines. Upon learning that a former Chicago ballplayer was teaching Sunday school nearby, Abe begged the American to become their part-time coach. Merrifield was happy to help and spent several days a week with the club. Although he wasn’t able to accompany Waseda to the United States due to his missionary obligations, he suggested they take a token of his baseball pedigree with them by adopting the same type and color of lettering he had worn while playing for his alma mater. So Abe’s team embarked on the first-ever foreign trip by a Japanese sports team donning jerseys with “Waseda” emblazoned in the same shade of maroon worn by Chicago. Merrifield then said in a letter published by the Chicago Tribune: “Give the Japanese player a little more training in the fine points of the game and I prophesy he will hit your curves, field and slide with the zest, and make his share of the fun. And then, after bowing politely to the umpire, he will go home and teach his younger brother to do still better at the great game of baseball.”
After Waseda returned with a decent record of 7-19, Merrifield resumed coaching the team. By early 1907 he and Abe were trying to arrange a tour all the way to Chicago; but before a plan could be set, an illness forced his resignation from the Baptist Union. Yet it still seemed providence was at play, for another former Maroon standout was soon on his way.
Alfred Place, who hit a club-best .357 playing alongside Merrifield in 1900, was being sent over by the Foreign Christian Ministry. It was reported that “[h]e will work among the students of the Imperial and Waseda universities … and while he is teaching them athletics, he will also endeavor to win them over to Christianity.” After arriving in Tokyo in January of 1908, Place helped Waseda secure wins over the University of Washington later that year and the University of Wisconsin during its Japan tour in 1909. Now with some success against American teams on both sides of the Pacific, on April 18,1910, Abe wrote to University of Chicago Director of Athletics Alonzo Amos Stagg, issuing a formal invitation:
It is a great pleasure for me to ask you if it is possible for the University of Chicago baseball team to come over to Japan. … If you come here next fall, all the baseball fans will surely welcome you with open arms. … You know Fred Merrifield and Alfred Place have done a great deal in coaching our teams, and we believe we can give you tolerably good games if you would come here.
It was agreed that Chicago would tour Japan that October and play five games against both Waseda and Keio University. Although Stagg regretted to inform Abe he couldn’t “visit Japan with the boys” due to football-coaching duties, he would do everything he could to ensure that his team was ready. After receiving Place’s scouting reports as well as insights from Merrifield, who was now living in Michigan, captain J.J. Pegues later recalled, “[W]e determined to go prepared to play our best game,” while noting that they spent the summer practicing and playing against local semipro teams. Pegues added, “As a result, we were really in better shape for a hard series in the fall than during the regular spring college season. … The teams of Waseda and Keio also spent the summer months in practice; so that all three teams were in the pink of condition.”
The Chicago team even took lessons on Japanese language and culture, then were honored with letters of introduction to the Imperial Japanese government from President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox. Shortstop Robert Baird recounted in 1976 that their trip was deemed “an opportunity for each member of the team to consider himself as an American ambassador of goodwill to improve relations between the two countries.” Baird added, “Even today, sixty-six years later, I am sure that every one of us accepted this responsibility to a high degree.” All of this preparation served them well, for upon arriving at Yokohama aboard the Kamakura Maru on September 26, 1910, they were surrounded by reporters. As Pegues later detailed in an article for The Independent:
Thruout [sic] our stay we were considered not only as guests of Waseda University, but also as guests of the Japanese nation, and while objects of constant curiosity, we were at the same time subject to every form of Japanese politeness. Also I may say that while the Japanese stared at us constantly and questioned us continually, we returned both stares and questions with interest, as they seemed far stranger to us than we can have seemed to them. … When we were hauled thru the streets of Yokohama in “rickshaws,” on our way to the train for Tokio [sic], we insisted on leaving the tops of our man-drawn carriages down in spite of the steady rain; so that we might have an unobstructed view of the strange sights … and it was only thru stern necessity that we forewent sightseeing during our first few days in Tokio [sic], and devoted our time to practising [sic] for the games now close at hand.
Pegues noted how they were “requested to practice in secret as far as possible, and without previous announcement, as it was feared students would desert their class-room work to watch us in action.” Yet large crowds still came to see the Maroons train, leading him to declare, “Only a ‘world’s series’ could excite such interest at home, and we looked forward with much curiosity to the first game.” In the meantime, the players stayed at the Imperial Hotel and were guests of honor at a banquet held at a Western-style restaurant fit for dignitaries, with Abe presiding while the American team’s chaperone, Professor Gilbert Bliss, said the University of Chicago hoped to return the favor the following year.
Stagg had appointed his ace, Harlan Orville “Pat” Page, as the team’s player-manager, who, in addition to his baseball duties, served as a “Special Correspondent” for the Chicago Tribune. In Page’s report about that evening, he described how, “Following the twenty courses of both American and Japanese variety the two teams sang their alma mater, and the old Chicago yell drowned out the Waseda battle cry, although the new dress suits of the Maroons interfered with the vocal efforts.” The US ambassador to Japan, Thomas O’Brien, also hosted Chicago along with players from both the Japanese universities, as well as “a number of the Japanese nobility,” including Waseda’s founder and former Prime Minister Shigenobu Okuma. “After a musical concert the guests adjourned to the garden, where American dainties were served,” Page recalled, and then added that “Mr. O’Brien promised to be with the Maroons at the games.”
When the day finally arrived for the opener, “The fences were draped with red and white bunting and the entrance festooned with American and Japanese flags,” Pegues recalled and then noted, “Practically all of the spectators had entered the field when we arrived, an hour and a half before the game was to commence, and as we passed in we were greeted with a great outburst of handclapping.” Despite lopsided support for Waseda, Pegues acknowledged how “[e]veryone rose to salute us and then settled down once more and waited for the game to start.” Before getting underway, Waseda’s cheer captain Nobuyoshi “Shinkei” Yoshioka—infamously known as the “Heckling Tiger Beard Shogun”—led a parade of the team’s most hard-core supporters down behind the third-base line. Yoshioka had been recruited a few years earlier to lead the cheering squad after Abe observed that students in America would chant their “college yell to take away the enemy’s spirit.”
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
To gauge the popularity of professional baseball in Korea, you don’t have to rely only on stadium attendance or TV ratings. Just look at the little stickers hidden inside convenience-store bread packs, known as “띠부씰 (Tibucil).” Short for “떼었다 붙이는 스티커 (tear-and-stick stickers),” the term has long been a pop-culture symbol linking generations and industries. Today, it also serves as a barometer of baseball’s popularity.
The Seeds of a Fan Culture
The Tibucil craze began in the late 1980s, when stickers featuring celebrities or cartoon characters were slipped inside bread packaging. Kids swapped them during school breaks. In 1999, 국찐이빵 (Gukjin Bread), modeled after comedian Kim Guk-jin, and 찬호빵 (Chan-ho Bread), named for MLB pitcher Park Chan-ho, sold 600,000–700,000 packs per day, sparking a nationwide boom. In the 2000s, 포켓몬빵 (Pokémon Bread) pushed sticker collecting to its peak.
That generation of elementary school collectors are now thirty- and forty-somethings with spending power, sharing the habit anew with their children.
Gukjin Bread (left) and Chan-ho Bread (right)
KBO League Joins In: The Arrival of KBO Bread
In spring 2025, this collecting culture fused directly with the KBO League. SPC Samlip launched “크보빵 (KBO Bread),” created with nine clubs and stuffed with 215 random baseball Tibucil across ten product types. The design encouraged fans to hunt down “내 팀, 내 선수 (my team, my player).”
The craze was instant. One million packs sold in just three days, and 10 million in 41 days, matching the blistering pace of Pokémon Bread’s 2022 revival. The sales surge coincided with KBO’s record 10 million spectators in 2024, and projections of 12 million in 2025. Stadium fever spilled over directly into Tibucil mania.
From Stickers to Baseball Culture
The KBO Bread phenomenon soon moved beyond limited-edition stickers. In May 2025, SPC released a follow-up line, “모두의 크보빵 (Everyone’s KBO Bread),” featuring 180 stickers of team uniforms and 26 of national-team uniforms.
The concept expanded, too. Popular “야푸 (yagu food / baseball food)” like chicken, nachos, and burritos were reimagined as bread and snacks: 끝내기 홈런 미트 부리또 (Walk-off Home Run Meat Burrito), 몸 쪽 꽉찬 양념치킨볼(Inside Fastball Spicy Chicken Balls), 4-6-3 카라멜 땅콩 베이스 샌드 (4-6-3 Caramel Peanut Base Sandwich). Product names themselves echoed baseball lingo, heightening fan engagement.Thus, what began as a small sticker evolved into an experience spanning culture, food, and merchandise, keeping baseball’s momentum burning.
Everyone’s KBO Bread, released in February 2025
Connecting Stadiums and Convenience Stores
From the start, KBO Bread became a central marketing tool. Between March 20 and April 21, 2025, SPC ran a “크보빵띠부씰 드래프트 이벤트 (KBO Bread Tibucil Draft Event)”: post your sticker with hashtags #크보빵 and #띠부씰드래프트 on social media for chances to win a pure-gold baseball, iPad Mini, national-team uniforms, team goods, or ballpark tickets.
Follow-up campaigns tied to 모두의 크보빵 (Everyone’s KBO Bread) included photo contests and “도감 완성 (album completion)” challenges. Convenience stores near stadiums handed out stadium-exclusive stickers. Clubs devised their own twists. The Hanwha Eagles offered the fiery 이글이글 핫투움바 브레드 (Eagle-Hot Ttuk-Ttu-mba Bread), NC Dinos sold 공룡알 흑임자 컵케이크 (Dinosaur Egg Black Sesame Cupcakes).
This spurred a lively ecosystem: buying bread at stores, swapping duplicates online or at meet-ups, and filling feeds with proof photos and unboxing videos. Rare Tibucil fetched premiums many times over retail. Much like MLB baseball cards, but in Korea, more entwined with everyday life.
A Sudden End After 73 Days
But after just 73 days, the KBO Bread boom came to a halt. The reason: an industrial accident at SPC’s Siwha factory and the resulting boycott.
SPC had already faced scrutiny after repeated workplace accidents, including the 2022 death of a 23-year-old female worker caught in bakery machinery. When another accident struck a production site in spring 2025, boycott calls surged. SPC halted production to stem the backlash, and the product disappeared.Scarcity drove prices sky-high. A Do-young Kim national-team sticker resold for ₩15,000, a Hyun-jin Ryu for ₩13,000, five to ten times retail. Ironically, the discontinuation only intensified the collector craze, birthing a new “단종템 프리미엄 (discontinued-item premium)” culture.
Photo of KBO Bread Tibucil stickers
What Tibucil Teaches About Korean Baseball
The Tibucil boom revealed three lessons for Korean baseball:
An affordable gateway. For under ₩2,000, kids could “own” their team or player, lowering the entry barrier compared to pricier caps or jerseys.
An online–offline bridge. Though sold in convenience stores, Tibucil extended naturally into social media, secondhand markets, and stadium exclusives.
A real-time popularity index. Sticker trade velocity and prices quickly signaled which players and teams were hot, providing insights for marketers.
Even though KBO Bread are gone for now, the message is clear: small collectibles, smartly tied to fandom, can expand touchpoints, blend online and offline, and serve as live metrics of buzz. One day, another little collectible might just set Korean baseball aflame again.
SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee is excited to host Leron Lee for a zoom chat on October 4, 2025, at 8pm EST. The program will begin with a live interview hosted by Rob Fitts to be followed by Q&A session with viewers. You must sign up below to attend.
Leron Lee played eight season in the Major Leagues with The St Louis Cardinals (1969-71), San Diego Padres (1971-73), Cleveland Indians (1974-75), and Los Angeles Dodgers (1975-76), before going to Japan in 1977. There, he played 12 seasons (1977-1987) with the Lotte Orions. During this time, he was named to four All-Star teams and four Best Nine teams. He led the Pacific League in home runs and RBI in 1977, and won the batting crown in 1980. He retired with 1579 NPB hits and 283 home runs. His .320 lifetime NPB batting average is the highest in NPB history.
Asian Baseball Committee meeting
When: Oct 6, 2025 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. Today Joe Niese focuses on the Wisconsin Badger’s 1909 tour of Japan.
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt sent his eldest daughter, Alice, and Secretary of War William Howard Taft on a tour of the Far East, making stops in China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. The trip was part of Roosevelt’s plan to act as mediator in the Russo- Japanese War, in the process solidifying the United States’ place in the hierarchy of trading in the Orient. While the visit was successful on both accounts, by the end of the decade the relationship between Japan and the United States was growing contentious over actions being taken in South Manchuria (China). In essence, the United States was on the brink of being blocked out of Oriental trading by Japan’s South Manchurian train line. Taft, who became president in 1909, saw an opportunity to work toward an agreement of some kind, where both countries could continue to utilize the area. Hoping that a resolution could be made, Taft saw a prospect for bonding in one of the two nations’ few common grounds—the baseball diamond. The University of Wisconsin-Madison had a series of games planned for the fall in Japan, and Taft wanted to capitalize on the game’s international appeal.
Baseball was one of the University of Wisconsin’s first athletic teams. The first recorded game was played on April 30,1870, when the university’s team, the Mendotas, thumped the Capital City Club, 53-18. In 1877 a baseball association was formed. By the first decade of the 1900s, the school’s baseball program had become a victim of the game’s nationwide success. Seemingly every club and fraternity on campus was fielding a team. In January 1909, when financial constraints arose, university officials proposed that the intercollegiate team be dropped in favor of skating and intramural baseball. Ultimately, the plan never came to fruition, but the baseball team, under coach Tom Barry, did little to prove its worth, ending with a 4-8 record and a fifth-place finish in the Big Ten Conference.
During the tepid 1909 season, Genkwan Shibata, a native of Toyama, Japan, and an honor student in the university’s commerce program, had been negotiating a series of games between the school team and ballclubs in Japan. “Shibby” worked with Professor Masao Matsuoka of Tokyo’s Keio University (a 1907 alumnus of Wisconsin) to bring the plan to fruition. Just before commencement, it was announced that the university would send a baseball team to Japan in the fall for a series of games. To offset some of the cost, Keio helped sponsor the trip, guaranteeing up to $4,000 toward Wisconsin’s finances. This was the second time in as many years that an American university had traveled to Japan to play an exhibition series. The previous fall, Waseda University sponsored a trip for the University of Washington.
Due to Barry’s commitments as the head football coach, a replacement baseball coach was sought out. The university didn’t have to look far, turning to part-time political science faculty member Charles McCarthy. The timing couldn’t have been any better for McCarthy, who had recently suffered a self-described “nervous breakdown.” A renaissance man, he had been steeped in work for the past decade. After obtaining his doctorate in American history from Wisconsin-Madison in 1901, McCarthy helped set up the Wisconsin Legislative Library. His knowledge of economics made him a frequent sounding board for President Roosevelt. He remained at the university as a part-time political science lecturer and assistant football coach. He was also heavily involved in the state’s progressive movement and the political movement’s quintessential work, the “Wisconsin Idea.”
As much as McCarthy was involved in politics, he was an athlete at heart. Despite his slight frame, McCarthy had been an All-American fullback and standout punter at Brown University. While attending law school at the University of Georgia, he took over the football coaching duties from Glenn Scobey “Pop” Warner. He coached for two years (1897-98), leading the team to a 6-3 record. When he came to Wisconsin as a doctoral student, he immediately immersed himself in the athletic program, focusing on football. In the years leading up to the trip to Japan (1907-09), he “played an extremely important part in the athletic situation” at the university.
In addition to McCarthy acting as coach and university representative, Shibata was named business manager and interpreter. Ned Jones was the press correspondent. Everyone on the Badgers’ 13-man roster was a Wisconsinite: catchers Elmer Barlow and Arthur Kleinpell; pitchers Douglas Knight and Charles Nash; first baseman Mike Timbers; second basemen John Messmer and Kenneth Fellows; third baseman Arthur Pergande; shortstops J. Allen Simpson and Oswald Lupinski; and outfielders David Flanagan, Harlan Rogers, and R. Waldo Mucklestone.
The Badgers didn’t have any future major leaguers, but they were a talented group. Knight pitched for former big leaguer Emerson “Pink” Hawley’s Oshkosh Indians of the Wisconsin-Illinois League while waiting for the trip. Barlow and Messmer attracted interest from professional ball teams. Messmer, the team’s best all-around athlete, was the university’s first nine-letter winner, collecting three each in football, baseball, and track. He also captained the swim team, dabbled in water polo, and was a “prime candidate for the crew team,” perhaps the school’s most popular and competitive athletic team. Rogers was a three-sport star (football, basketball, and baseball).
In July, University president Charles R. Van Hise received a letter from President Taft, an ardent baseball fan, for McCarthy to pass along to Thomas J. O’Brien, the ambassador to Japan. It read:
My dear Ambassador: I am advised that the faculty of the University of Wisconsin has accepted the invitation of the Keio University of Japan to play a series of ten games of baseball with the Japanese university in the month of September.
I am glad such a trip is to be undertaken, as it can not but be of advantage to the universities in the encouragement of manly sports and athletics, and will lead to a better understanding between the universities of the two countries.
I shall greatly appreciate any courtesies of consideration within your power which you may be able to extend to the team while in Japan which may add to the usefulness and pleasure of their visit there.
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog 