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
NHK World-Japan’s Deeper Look host Del Irani visited the Yakyu-Baseball exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown to examine the history of Japan- U.S. relations through baseball.
In this two-part series, Irani interviews SABR’s Asian Research Committee Chair Robert Fitts about the the long history of Japan-U.S. baseball interaction, baseball diplomacy, and the cultural importance of Japanese playing in Major League 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 Robert Fitts describes the first professional baseball tour of Japan.
The “King of Baseball” was on the prowl for a new opportunity. Mike Fisher, known by everybody as Mique, was a bom promoter and bom self-promoter. He was a risk taker, tackling daunting projects with enthusiasm and usually succeeding. He was the quintessential late-nineteenth-century American man; through hard work and gumption this son of a poor Jewish immigrant transformed himself into a West Coast baseball magnate.
Bom in New York City in 1862, Fisher grew up in San Francisco. Renowned for his speed, he played baseball in the California League during the 1880s before an industrial accident in March 1889 damaged his left hand and sidelined his career. Fisher soon became a policeman in Sacramento, rising to the rank of detective. During his time away from the game, he put on weight and by 1903 was a repeat champion in the fat men’s races held at local fairs.
In February 1902, a new opportunity presented itself when the California League offered Fisher the Sacramento franchise. Fisher pounced on it. In December 1902, the league transformed into the Pacific Coast League, but within a year Fisher relocated his franchise to Tacoma, Washington. Hampered by poor attendance, despite winning the 1904 championship, Fisher sold his share in the team but stayed on as manager as the franchise moved to Fresno in 1906. But his stay in Fresno was short as he left the team after the 1906 season. Without a franchise, Fisher turned to promoting and, in the fall of 1907, took a squad of PCL all-stars to Hawaii.
“So pleased is Mike Fisher with the reception that his team has met with here,” reported the Hawaiian Gazette, “that he is already planning for more worlds to conquer. He is now laying his lines for a trip to be made … next year, which will extend farther yet from home. … The plan, as outlined by Fisher, will include a start from San Francisco, with a team composed exclusively of players from the National and American leagues,” and a stop in Hawaii before continuing on to Japan, China, and the Philippines. It was the first time an American professional squad headed to the Far East.
By early December 1907, Fisher had teamed up with Honolulu athlete and sports promoter Jesse Woods to organize the trip. Woods sent a flurry of letters to Asian clubs to gauge their interest. In February, John Sebree, the president of the Manila Baseball League, responded “that Manila would meet any reasonable expense in order to see some good fast baseball by professional players.” In early March, Woods received a letter from the Keio University Baseball Club stating that they would help arrange games in Japan for the American team. The Hawaiian Gazette noted, “This was good news for Woods, who has been in doubt as how such a trip would be received by the Japanese. There has been so much war talk that Woods was afraid that Japanese might refuse to play baseball with us.” A letter in early April from T. Matsumura, the captain of the Yokohama Commercial School team, confirmed the enthusiasm for the tour in Japan: “When you visit our country, you would certainly receive a most hearty welcome from our baseball circles.” Isoo Abe, the manager of the Waseda University team, added, “We are preparing to give you a grand ovation. We are going to make you feel at home, and we will strive to make your visit to Japan to be one that will linger long in your memories.”
In late June, Woods sailed for Asia to finalize the details for the tour. The touring team was now known as the Reach All-Americans. With the name change, it is likely that the A.J. Reach Company sponsored the team but despite extensive research, the nature of the sponsorship is unknown. Woods’s reports from the Far East were encouraging. “I have all the arrangements made. Forfeit money is up everywhere, and everything is on paper. The team will take in Japanese and Chinese ports and Manila.”
While Woods was working out the itinerary, Fisher built his roster. As usual, he thought big. It would be “a galaxy of the best players in the country.” He began by engaging Jiggs Donahue, the Chicago White Sox’ slick-fielding first baseman, to manage and help recruit the team. “I do not know why Mike Fisher came to me to ask me to get up the team, for I did not know him,” Donahue told a reporter. “I will willingly undertake the work, however, for I believe it will prove to be a grand trip and a success.” Donahue quickly recruited fellow Chicagoans Frank Chance, Orval Overall, and Ed Walsh and began working on the leagues’ two biggest stars, Honus Wagner and Napoleon Lajoie. “Both Wagner and Lajoie are said to be enthusiastic over the plan,” reported the Inter Ocean of Chicago, “but cannot decide whether or not they will be able to arrange their affairs in such a way as to make the trip, which will last two or three months.” By June, Fisher had added New York Highlanders star Hal Chase, Chicago’s Doc White, and Bill Bums of the Senators. Although Wagner and Lajoie declined the invitation, Fisher’s team received a boost on August 23 when Ty Cobb announced that he would join the tour. The recently married star planned to take his bride on the trip as a honeymoon.
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
The KBO League has ten professional teams, but every fan recognizes an unofficial 11th team: the Strongest Monsters (now the Blazing Fighters). The Monsters first appeared on JTBC’s variety show Strongest Baseball (known to Americans as A Clean Sweep, and currently airing on Netflix). The premise was simple: retired players who had once excelled in the KBO form a team and compete against high school, university, and minor league teams. If they fail to maintain a winning percentage above .700 for the season, the program ends. The logline was straightforward, but the results were surprising.
Strongest Baseball Shakes Up the Game in Korea
TV shows where retired players form a team and play baseball have existed before, with Back to the Ground on MBN as a prime example. But those programs stopped at simply evoking nostalgia for legendary players. Strongest Baseball went a step further, setting a .700 winning-percentage target and giving viewers a clear reason to cheer for the team as if it were a real professional club.
Strongest Monsters Team Roster, 2023 Season
Strongest Baseball rewrote the playbook for Korean baseball entertainment. On game days, Jamsil Baseball Stadium – the largest in Korea, with over 20,000 seats – was sold out. Like a pro team, the Monsters had their own fight songs and sold jerseys.
Above all, the true value of Strongest Baseball lies in how it sparked the popularity of the KBO League. By adopting a variety show format that anyone could enjoy without pressure, it allowed viewers to naturally learn the rules of baseball. As a result, it broke down one of professional baseball’s biggest entry barriers: its complicated rules. The Strongest Monsters also faced high school teams, introducing promising young players to the audience. Fans who had supported these prospects continued to follow them into the KBO once they were drafted. From 2022 to 2024, the years during which Strongest Baseball aired, KBO League’s annual attendance rose from 6.07 million to 8.10 million to 10.88 million. In boosting the league’s popularity, Strongest Baseball clearly served as a catalyst.
The future seemed bright, but that expectation fell apart. The Strongest Monsters roster now plays under the name Blazing Fighters, and the show’s title has changed from Strongest Baseball to Blazing Baseball. Meanwhile, the show Strongest Baseball remains, with a new roster preparing for broadcast. So, what happened in between?
The Conflict Between JTBC and Studio C1
The split into two programs began with a dispute between the broadcaster and the production company. The original Strongest Baseball was produced by Studio C1 and aired by JTBC. Each season began with open tryouts, and season four was no exception – until February 2025, just weeks before tryouts, when JTBC abruptly announced their cancellation.
Studio C1 quickly countered, stating that tryouts would proceed as planned. Indeed, they did, but the incident brought the JTBC–C1 conflict into the open. The next flashpoint was production costs: JTBC accused C1 of overbilling and withholding financial records and announced it would replace the production company.
C1 fired back, claiming JTBC had withheld live game revenue for two years without disclosing the amounts. They also declared they would continue producing the program independently. The dispute escalated into lawsuits, which are still ongoing.
From Strongest Monsters to Blazing Fighters
Fans’ attention shifted to the players – whichever side retained the Monsters’ core identity would inherit its fanbase. The winner was C1. Except for Sim Soo-chang and Oh Ju-won, the entire roster sided with C1. With the players’ backing, CEO Jang Si-won quickly began production on a new show, rebranding Strongest Baseball as Blazing Baseball and renaming the team Blazing Fighters.
Blazing Fighters on the field
Challenges persisted after the Fighters’ debut. When C1 uploaded Blazing Baseball episodes to YouTube, JTBC filed complaints, leading to repeated takedowns. The turning point came from business deals: despite legal risks, the Fighters signed a home stadium contract with the city of Daejeon, secured a uniform deal with Wilson, and sold patch ads to sponsors including Kakao Pay Securities.
C1’s biggest win was landing a live broadcast contract with SBS Plus, a major terrestrial channel. Now, for the first time, a baseball variety show streamed games like a professional team. To top it off, C1 launched its own platform, where fans could watch Blazing Baseball without fear of takedowns. While it has generated less buzz than seasons 1-3 (because those streamed on Netflix), Blazing Baseball still sells out Gocheok Sky Dome tickets in just five minutes.
The Trials of Strongest Baseball
Meanwhile, Strongest Baseball has faced headwinds before even airing. Only two players from the original Monsters stayed with the JTBC version. JTBC quickly filled the roster with other retired players, but a bigger issue arose when hiring a new manager.In late June, JTBC announced Lee Jong-beom, a coach for kt wiz, as the new Strongest Baseball manager – right in the middle of the KBO season. With kt in a tight pennant race, the loss of a coach angered the team’s fans, who directed their frustration at both Lee and JTBC. Lee explained that he accepted the job because he believed “reviving Strongest Baseball will greatly advance Korean baseball,” but public opinion remained cold. Already criticized by the original fanbase, the show now lost neutral viewers as well.
Thumbnail of the teaser for Strongest Baseball
Strongest Baseball is slated to premiere in September, but its teaser videos are filled with more comments supporting Blazing Baseball and criticizing JTBC.
So now the question is, will Blazing Baseball keep its old fanbase and remain on top? Or will Strongest Baseball use JTBC’s corporate power to turn the tide? Whether JTBC or C1 ultimately prevails, one fact remains: this is a turning point in Korean baseball entertainment as well as the growing popularity of the game in Korea.
How this saga ends could have a massive impact on whether Korean baseball continues its shocking rise and the way it will be seen on the international stage for years to come.
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. In this article Carter Cromwell discusses the first US university baseball team to tour Japan.
Links between Japan and the Seattle area are nothing new. They were first forged in the late nineteenth century when Japanese began immigrating to the Pacific Northwest, and they’ve strengthened over the years. One of the consequential connections has been baseball.
In 1905 a team from Japan’s Waseda University toured the American West Coast and played against various US teams. That led to a trip to Japan three years later by a group of a dozen University of Washington players, and those two journeys set the stage for frequent travels by Japanese and Seattle teams. The 1914 Seattle Nippon was the first Japanese American club to go to Japan, and the 1921 Suquamish Tribe became the first Native American team to do so. Teams from the University of Washington also made trips to Japan in 1913, 1921, and 1926 (and then returned 55 years later, in 1981). Before World War II, 13 clubs from the Pacific Northwest traveled to Japan, and about a dozen Japanese university teams made the reverse trip. The 1908 University of Washington tour was the first US collegiate tour of Japan and the first by a mainland US team. It was made possible by arrangements completed by Professor Isoo Abe, a Japanese college athletic instructor who had been the driver behind Waseda’s trip to the United States in 1905. Professor Abe—known in Japan as the “Father of University Baseball”—had been impressed by the hospitality shown by the University of Washington and the Seattle residents during the 1905 visit. In addition, the University of Washington had accepted the largest number of Japanese students in the United States at the time and was familiar to the Japanese people.
Abe had persuaded his university to subsidize the 1905 tour, despite the fact that Japan was fighting a war with Russia at the time. Baseball historian Kerry Yo Nakagawa said, “From a baseball standpoint, [Waseda was] the best team in Japan, and they wanted to test the water of American baseball at the university level. They wanted to dissect the American game, use it as a laboratory to learn.”
Three years later, that still held true, and Waseda invited the University of Washington to come to Japan. Washington did not send its official team, but all 11 players making the trip had played for the Huskies and were from the state of Washington. They included first baseman Webster Hoover of Everett, pitcher Huber Grimm of Centralia, right fielder Byron Reser of Walla Walla, second baseman Arthur Hammerlund of Spokane, catcher Roy Brown and pitcher Earle Brown of Bellingham, third baseman Ralph Teats and center fielder Leo Teats of Tacoma, and shortstop Walter Meagher, pitcher Ed Hughes, and left fielder Percy Logerlof of Seattle. Howard Gillette managed the team.
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
The Baseball’s Bridge Across the Pacific exhibit made a powerful return at the 2025 MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta, drawing thousands of fans to Truist Park from July 12–15. Presented by the Nisei Baseball Research Project with Major League Baseball, the Japanese American Citizens League, and MLB’s Diverse Business Partners program, the showcase celebrated the enduring legacy of Japanese American baseball, U.S.-Japan baseball relations, and its influence on the global game. This year’s edition featured new Georgia connections in Japanese baseball, rare artifacts, tributes to baseball pioneers Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh, and thought-provoking art by Ben Sakaguchi, while honoring the late MLB Ambassador Billy Bean. With its blend of history, culture, and human stories, the exhibit strengthened its call for a permanent exhibit in a museum and teased plans for the 2026 All-Star Game in Philadelphia during America’s 250th birthday celebration.
The KBO League was founded in 1982. But long before its launch, baseball was already part of Korean life. From the first known instance of baseball on the Korean Peninsula in 1894 to 1981, how did Korean baseball connect with the wider world?
The first established baseball team with a primarily Korean roster was the Hwangseong YMCA Baseball Team, founded in 1904. Philip L. Gillette (1872–1938), an American Protestant missionary, evangelized various Western sports to Korea: basketball, skating, baseball, and more. Among them, baseball captured the attention of many young Koreans. A game played by catching a ball with a large glove and hitting it with a wooden bat to score runs was unlike anything Koreans had seen before.Gillette formed the team, ordered baseball equipment directly from the United States, and trained the players himself. Their first game, against the German School team in 1906, marked the beginning of competition beyond Seoul, as the YMCA squad traveled to Kaesong, Pyongyang, and other cities to face school teams there.
Poster from the 2002 film “YMCA Baseball Team”
Full-scale international exchange began in 1912. From November 5 to 12 of that year, the team traveled to Japan to play a series of games against Japanese students. On November 7, 1912, they recorded their first-ever victory against a Japanese school. In an era when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule, news of a win over Japan gave great encouragement to Koreans enduring those dark times.
However, the following year, missionary Gillette was expelled, and several players were wrongfully arrested. The team was ultimately disbanded.
Despite ongoing Japanese colonial rule, baseball persisted. In 1922, a Major League All-Star team visited Korea. In 1925, the University of Chicago baseball team and an American women’s baseball team also came to play, keeping the spirit of international baseball alive. Another milestone came on May 23, 1923, when Heo Seong, fresh from studying in the U.S., founded the Joseon Baseball Umpires’ Association, Korea’s first organized umpiring body.
The real turning point came in 1925 with the construction of Dongdaemun Baseball Stadium (then called Gyeongseong Baseball Stadium, demolished in 2007). With a dedicated ballpark in place, numerous amateur clubs sprang up, mostly led by young Koreans.
After liberation from Japan in 1945, eight industrial-league teams were founded: the Financial Union Baseball Team, Joseon Transportation Baseball Team, Gyeongseong Electric Baseball Team, Joheung Bank Baseball Team, Namsun Electric Baseball Team, Joseon Electric Baseball Team, Samguk Coal Baseball Team, and Jungang Industrial Baseball Team. In the fall tournament of 1946, six more teams joined – such as the Post Office (Communications Bureau) Baseball Team, the Railway Bureau Baseball Team, and the Seoul City Bureau Baseball Team, further expanding the industrialz`-league ecosystem.
Even during the post–Korean War slump in baseball, change was in the air. In 1956, a Zainichi Korean student team visited from Japan, followed by a Japanese industrial-league team in 1961. These exchanges opened the door for Japanese players to come to Korea, and for Korean players to go to Japan’s professional leagues.
One famous case was Baek In-chun, a former industrial-league player who joined Japan’s Toei Flyers (now the Nippon-Ham Fighters). In the opposite direction, Kim Sung-keun came from Japan to continue his baseball career in Korea’s industrial league. Whereas industrial teams before the 1960s were mostly run by public institutions, Korea’s rapid industrialization in the 1960s–70s saw banks and private companies forming and operating their own corporate teams.
Industrial-league baseball reached its peak in 1975, the year the Lotte Giant (precursor to today’s Lotte Giants) was formed. These industrial teams didn’t compete in a regional-franchise-based league like modern pro teams; instead, they were company teams made up largely of employees, operating in a kind of workplace baseball system.It wasn’t until the spring of 1982 that professional baseball, the KBO League, officially began. While industrial-league baseball gradually faded into history after that, baseball as a sport became deeply woven into everyday Korean life.
Every Tuesday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations.
We will begin with the first foreign baseball club to visit Japan: the St. Louis team from Hawaii which arrived in 1907 and played ten games.
Located on the pathway between the US mainland and Japan, Hawaii was important in the history of US-Japan baseball exchanges. The baseball ties between the two islands began in 1907, triggered by a rivalry between two Tokyo universities.
In June 1907, Suejiro Ito was dispatched to Hawaii by the Toyo Migration Company to survey the labor situation of the 50,000 Japanese immigrants working in the sugar and pineapple fields. There, he came across a rumor that Waseda University was negotiating with Stanford University for a baseball team tour of Japan. Ito, a graduate of Keio University, thought, “I wanted my alma mater to be the first to invite a foreign team to Japan. Before Waseda.”
For many years the college teams were the pinnacle of baseball in Japan. Right after the turn of the twentieth century, a group of teams in the Tokyo area, Waseda, Keio, Gakushuin University, First Higher School, and the Yokohama Cricket and Athletic Club (YC&AC: a sports club of foreign residents), battled to be the top team in Japan. The two universities, Waseda and Keio, developed a fierce rivalry. The Waseda-Keio match was called the Sokei-sen (the abbreviation for Waseda-Keio game), and it was watched with great interest by baseball fans across the country.
The history of the Sokei-sen began as follows. Keio University founded its official university baseball club in 1892. Waseda, on the other hand, had to wait for nine years, until 1901, for its baseball club to be bom. In 1903 the latecomer Waseda University sent a written challenge to Keio University. Following proper etiquette, Waseda asked in a humble manner for the more experienced Keio team to teach them baseball. The letter read, “Our team is still underperforming, and our players are still immature. We would be honored to have a lesson from you in the near future.” The first game of the Sokei-sen was played on November 21, 1903, with Keio beating Waseda, 11-9.
However, things changed in 1905. Waseda upset Keio, not on the field but in the international scene. Waseda carried out a monumental tour of North America, becoming the first Japanese team to visit the United States. The Waseda team, led by baseball director Isoo Abe, swung around the US West Coast, winning seven games and losing 19 against colleges, high schools, and semipros. Although the results were not encouraging, Waseda brought back to Japan the latest in baseball techniques and strategies, known as “scientific baseball,” including the hit-and-run, second-shortstop cooperative play, and pregame warmup, as well as equipment such as baseball shoes and gloves. Waseda willingly shared the new knowledge with other teams. With this, Waseda became the leaders of Japanese baseball.
After the US tour, the Waseda-Keio rivalry flared up even more. In the fall of 1906, the two teams planned a three-game series. After Keio won the first game, the school’s cheering group congregated outside the home of Waseda’s founder, Count Shigenobu Okuma, and shouted, “Banzai Keio!” The Waseda students viewed this as an extreme insult. At the second game, Waseda packed the stands with 1,200 cheerers, in clear violation of the agreement that limited the cheering groups to 250. The horde celebrated Waseda’s victory by marching to the former home of the late Keio founder Yukichi Fukuzawa (who had died in 1901) and yelling, “Banzai Waseda!” Fearing a riot at the third game, Keio president Eikichi Kamata and Isoo Abe of Waseda agreed to cancel the final match. The Sokei-sen would not be played for years to come.
The void left by the extinction of the Sokei-sen caused a sense of crisis in Japan’s top baseball world. A number of attempts were made to revive the Sokei- sen, but all failed. For example, at the end of 1906, the Tokyo Sports Press Club made a vain effort to mediate between the two schools. Another attempt was made in the summer of 1907 when Leroy E. McChesney, baseball captain of the YC&AC, proposed a formation of Japan’s first baseball league “Keihin Yakyu Domei,” but Keio refused to join. Waseda won the first and last championship, as the league lasted only one fall season.
Ito was annoyed that Waseda had been the first Japanese team to travel abroad so he wanted to make sure that Keio would be the first to invite a foreign team to Japan. Luckily enough for Ito’s plan, Kakugoro Inoue, a graduate of Keio University and member of Japan’s House of Representatives, stopped in Honolulu on the way back from a four-month tour of Europe and the United States. On August 22, Ito met with Inoue to ask for his cooperation for Keio to bring over a baseball team from Hawaii. Inoue gave his word (“I will give my all for our alma mater”) and left for Japan.
Ito selected the St. Louis College alumni team for the Japan tour, because it had recently won the 1907 championship of the Honolulu Baseball League. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser thought highly of the team: “The makeup of this team is nearly as strong as any aggregation which could be picked up in the Territory [of Hawaii].” The Hawaiian Star noted that a Japanese student who had seen St. Louis play believed that the team would be a very attractive drawing card if it came to Japan.
The captain of the St. Louis team, Pat Gleason, brimmed with confidence and excitement: “We will certainly show those Japs something that they do not know about baseball, and the chances are we will come back with another championship tacked on our pennant.” It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for many of the St. Louis players who had never been away from the islands.
Continue to read the full article on the SABR website
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