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Tag: baseball-history

  • All-Stars, Amateurs and Acrimony: Gene Doyle’s 1920 Tour of Japan

    All-Stars, Amateurs and Acrimony: Gene Doyle’s 1920 Tour of Japan

    by John Harney

    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 John Harney focuses on the 1920 major league tour of Japan..

    It began with big dreams and ended in chaos and farce. The 1920 tour was a lot of things all at once: a high profile, all-star tour that served as a diplomatic mission to engender positive relationships between two rising global powers, the United States and the Empire of Japan; a largely successful business enterprise planned and carried out by experienced entrepreneurs; and a debacle that saw a baseball tour with high hopes collapse in acrimony and accusations of skullduggery. Certainly, it was not boring.

    The first mentions of the tour in the American press started to show up in the late spring and early summer of 1920. California-based sports promoter Gene Doyle was promising big things. Specifically, Doyle sought to take an all-star team to Japan to play in exhibition games against local teams. Boasting the cream of the American professional ranks, the tour would feature teams representing each of the major leagues. Doyle had successfully persuaded Buck Weaver, star third baseman of an impressive Chicago White Sox team that had rather surprisingly lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series the season before, to lead the group to Japan.

    It was not solely an American enterprise. Doyle was in partnership with two Japanese businessmen, Yumindo Kushibiki and Tommy Tominaga. Kushibiki was by this time a well-known figure in the United States, known as the “Japanese Exhibition King” for his work in introducing the American public to Japanese cultural artifacts at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 and, closer in proximity to the 1920 tour, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco. Tominaga was more of an obscure figure, an “Americanized Japanese” who had attended high school in Los Angeles but graduated from Waseda University, a bright star in both Japan’s academic and baseball worlds. In truth, he was a fairly minor player who succeeded in establishing himself as a go-between for Kushibiki and Doyle, but his involvement helped give credence to the feasibility of a tour to Japan and lent the endeavor an air of cultural exchange as an act of American generosity.

    The advantages of the tour seemed clear enough, at least to Doyle, who utilized a network of contacts in the California press to hype up interest. The visit of John McGraw and Charles Comiskey’s World Tour to Japan in 1913 gave sufficient precedent, and Doyle and his fellow organizers sang all the right notes. This tour would deepen friendship between the two countries, and also allow the Americans to assist their fellow baseball people in Japan to kick-start professional baseball in that country. The commercial advantages also appeared to be evident and the American papers, long since used to the reality of barnstorming and offseason financial opportunities for baseball players, naturally went along in those assumptions.

    From the start, then, Doyle’s tour—and in the months to come and in the years since it would come to be associated primarily with its central organizer and promoter more than any of the players—was a hybrid of naked commercial interest and a somewhat ambivalent commitment to deepening cultural ties across the Pacific and facilitating a natural leadership position for the United States in the growth of the game across the world. Doyle had big plans; but it wasn’t to be.

    For one thing, Weaver did not join them. Embroiled in the growing Black Sox scandal of the fall of 1920, he dropped out of the tour. He had been the big draw, the biggest name attached to the tour on the day of its announcement. Doyle had intended for Weaver to serve as captain of the AL team and de facto head of the playing squad as a whole. Initially, this had seemingly been successful: By July, Doyle was able to claim that Weaver had helped in signing a host of major leaguers, including St. Louis Browns first baseman George Sisler, Detroit Tigers catcher Eddie Ainsmith, and Weaver’s White Sox teammate Happy Felsch. Tominaga and others talked a big game indeed, happily comparing the coming tour to the around-the-world Giants-White Sox Tour of 1913. It was not to be. Ainsmith, however, stuck with Doyle, and along with Sam Bohne, a Seattle Indian about to begin a career with the Cincinnati Reds in 1921, formed the core leadership of the team. The other big names evaporated.

    The rest of the purportedly all-star group was made up of players from the Pacific Coast League, many of whom had a veneer of legitimacy by having had a cup of coffee in the majors. Outfielder Herbert Harrison Hunter had played a handful of games over the years with the New York Giants, the Chicago Cubs, and most recently the Boston Red Sox. Jack Sheehan had appeared briefly for the Brooklyn Robins. One player, catcher Everett Gomes, was so unknown, even to the press on the West Coast, that in reports on the tour they would refer to him simply as “Catcher Gomes.” Still Doyle persevered. Early plans of a tour around California were scrapped, and they moved to head directly to East Asia with a brief stopover in Honolulu.

    The Hawaiian reception to the tour was enthusiastic. The local lodge of Elks served as hosts and sponsors of the team, and, expecting a dawn arrival, planned to treat the visitors to a sightseeing trip by automobile around Honolulu, followed by a formal lunch and a game later in the afternoon. The Hawaiian hosts got their game—Ainsmith led the AL team to victory over the NL players—but in the end the tourists stopped by the islands for only a few hours. The players returned to the S.S. Korea shortly after and were soon on their way. Doyle was on a high. “So far the trip has been a success,” he wrote to the Los Angeles Express’s Harry Grayson, painting a pretty picture. The players were all in good spirits: Ainsmith was living up to his role of tour captain well, “[f]ull of pepper and keeps the [players] hustling.” Bohne was growing a mustache, and another PCL veteran, Portland Beaver Sammy Ross, was doing a bang-up job running the Filipino band on the entertainment committee. Doyle wanted to be very clear: All was well. So united were the boys, in fact, that to a man they were livid with Minneapolis Millers infielder Carl Sawyer, the latest player to drop out. “[W]hat the gang thinks of him isn’t fit for print,” Doyle told Grayson.

    This merry band arrived in Japan ready for anything and everything. The Japanese baseball world gave it to them. The visit, coming in late November and December in the offseason between fall and spring collegiate seasons, was primed for the attention of an enthusiastic and knowledgeable baseball-loving public. Baseball in Japan by 1920 was continuing to grow, with increasingly sophisticated youth and collegiate baseball infrastructures but a still-nascent professional scene. Excitement for the visit of the Americans was high. The Osaka Mainichi Shimbun reported on the anticipated arrival of the team on November 22, scheduled at 3:30 P.M. on the S.S. Korea. The article showcased large photographic inserts featuring a number of the players, including the aforementioned Carl Sawyer. News of Sawyer’s “treachery” had not yet reached the Japanese editors. The Americans themselves were ready for Japan, the paper said that they had been “swinging bats and leaping about the deck” of the ship in anticipation of landfall near Tokyo.

    The opening game in Japan, a competition between teams representing the AL and the NL to fit the tour’s billing as an all-star tour from the major leagues, took place on November 25. The occasion had actually been delayed two days by rain, despite Doyle and Kushibiki’s original intention for the players to get to work almost as soon as they made landing in Japan, perhaps taking to the field on the day of arrival. Nevertheless, the opening exhibition was a success. The NL came out 2-1 winners, but Ainsmith was heralded as the big star, blasting the only home run of the game.

    The Americans played their first game against Japanese collegiate opposition the next day. Waseda University was home to arguably the most prestigious baseball program in Japan. Waseda had played the first intercollegiate varsity baseball game in the country, a 1903 contest vs. Keio University. By 1920, Waseda was one of six major college teams. In 1924, these teams would formally come together to compete annually in the “Big Six League”; but already the universities played each other in a de facto annual championship with fall and spring seasons. The All-American team faced four collegiate teams in total: Waseda, Keio, Meiji University, and Hosei University. This represented the top tier of Japanese baseball talent, the best-drilled, and—despite their youth—the most competitively seasoned.

    Continue to read the full article on the SABR website

    All-Stars, Amateurs and Acrimony: Gene Doyle’s 1920 Tour of Japan
  • Returning Home: The 1914 Seattle Nippon and Asahi Japanese American Tours

    Returning Home: The 1914 Seattle Nippon and Asahi Japanese American Tours

    by Robert Fitts

    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.

    Continue to read the full article on the SABR website

    Returning Home: The 1914 Seattle Nippon and Asahi Japanese American Tours
  • Declaration of Victory: The Meaning and Achievements of the Stanford University Baseball Team’s 1913 Japan Tour

    Declaration of Victory: The Meaning and Achievements of the Stanford University Baseball Team’s 1913 Japan Tour

    by Yusuke Suzumura

    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

    Declaration of Victory: The Meaning and Achievements of the Stanford University Baseball Team’s 1913 Japan Tour
  • Voyage to The Land of the Rising Sun: The Wisconsin Badger Nine’s 1909 Trip to Japan

    Voyage to The Land of the Rising Sun: The Wisconsin Badger Nine’s 1909 Trip to Japan

    by Joe Niese

    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

    Voyage to The Land of the Rising Sun: The Wisconsin Badger Nine’s 1909 Trip to Japan
  • From Monsters to Fighters: The Turf War in Korean Baseball Entertainment

    From Monsters to Fighters: The Turf War in Korean Baseball Entertainment

    By Hunhee Cho

    The KBO League has ten professional teams, but every fan recognizes an unofficial 11th team: the Strongest Monsters (now the Blazing Fighters). The Monsters first appeared on JTBC’s variety show Strongest Baseball (known to Americans as A Clean Sweep, and currently airing on Netflix). The premise was simple: retired players who had once excelled in 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. 

  • The First Japanese Professional Game Took Place in …. Kansas?

    The First Japanese Professional Game Took Place in …. Kansas?

    by Rob Fitts

    The first Japanese professional baseball game took place not in Tokyo, not in Osaka, or even in Japan, but in a tiny town in Northeastern Kansas.

    In 1906 much of United States was enthralled by Japan and all things Japanese. Japan had just emerged as the improbable victor in the Russo-Japanese War and the year before the Waseda University baseball club had toured the West Coast. Guy W. Green, the owner of the Nebraska Indians Baseball Club, decided to capitalize on the fad by creating an all-Japanese baseball team to barnstorm across the Midwest. It would be the first Japanese professional team on either side of the Pacific.

    Guy W. Green (center) with his Nebraska Indians Base Ball team ca. 1905

    The early twentieth century was the heyday of barnstorming baseball. Independent teams crisscrossed the country playing in one-horse towns and large cities. There were all female teams, squads of only fat men, clubs of men sporting beards, and teams consisting of “exotic” ethnicities. These independent squads were often called “semi-professional” to differentiate them from teams in Organized Baseball (clubs formally associated with Major League Baseball), but they were professional enterprises. The teams signed players to contracts, paid salaries during the season, provided transportation and housing on the road, charged admission to games, and were intent on turning a profit.

    Although Green would claim that he had “scour[ed] the [Japanese] empire for the best players obtainable,” he did nothing of the sort. In early 1906 Green instructed Dan Tobey, captain of the Nebraska Indians, to form a team from Japanese immigrants living in California. Players congregated our March 15 in Havelock, Nebraska for two weeks of practice. It soon became evident that not all of his recruits were strong enough to play on a professional independent squad, so Green and Tobey decided to bolster his roster with Native Americans —hoping that most spectators would not be able to tell the difference.

    The starting lineup featured five Japanese: Toyo Fujita, a writer for the Rafu Shimpo newspaper, at first base; Tetsusaburo Uyeda from Yamaguchi Prefecture at second; 21-year-old Ken Kitsuse from Kagoshima at short; and 21-year-old Umekichi “Kitty” Kawashima from Kanagawa and a man identified only as Naito in the outfield. Manager Dan Tobey and Nebraska Indian veteran Sandy Kissell shared the pitching duties and played outfield on their off days. Seguin, another member of the Nebraska Indians, was the catcher. Roy Dean Whitcomb, an 18-year-old Caucasian from Lincoln, usually played third base under the name Noisy, while a man known only as Doctor filled in as necessary.

    1906 Advertising Card,
    Ken Kitsuse Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame

    On evening of April 13, Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team left Havelock and headed south to begin a twenty-five-week tour that would cover over twenty-five hundred miles through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Their first stop was Frankfort, a small town of about 1,400 people in northeastern Kansas, where they would play the town’s high school squad.

    Frankfort, Kansas circa 1906

    Prior to the game, Guy Green sent out promotional material and flooded local newspapers with advertising and press releases. At the time, there were so few Japanese living in the Midwest that many rural farmers had never seen a Japanese person. So, Green’s advertisements emphasized the players’ foreignness and the uniqueness of the team. A typical announcement read, “Green’s [team] are the most novel baseball organization the world has ever known. Every player is a genuine Japanese. Not one of them can speak a word of English. They do all their coaching in Japanese and is certainly the most Japanesy Japanese you have ever listened to.”

    Playing on the public’s fascination with the Russo-Japanese War, Green also concocted fictional backgrounds for his players. An April 13, 1906 article in the Frankfort Review noted, “One of the most interesting members of Green’s Japanese baseball team is Kitsuse, who left school in Japan to serve during the last great war with Japan. He was wounded in the left leg at Mukden so severely that he was compelled to go home and even yet he limps slightly. He is one of the best me on the team, however, and always a great favorite with the crowds.” Kitsuse, however, immigrated to California on June 8, 1903, almost two years before the 1905 Battle of Mukden.

    1906 Advertising Card, Ken Kitsuse Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame

    On Sunday, April 15 the two teams met on a leveled field just outside of town. There were no grandstands or bleachers—spectators sat and stood on a raised berm that surrounded the diamond. The high schoolers took the field in brand-new red and grey uniforms that had just arrived a couple of days before. The Japanese squad wore white pants reaching just below the knees, wide leather belts, maroon stockings, maroon undershirts, and a winged-collared maroon jersey with “Greens Japs” stitched in white block letters across the chest. The caps were white with maroon bills.

    As the high school contained just 41 students, the match should have been an easy victory for Green’s independent team. Perhaps seeing the game as an opportunity to allow his weaker players to gain experience, Tobey started a mostly Japanese lineup. But Tobey had underestimated the skinny, 15-year-old redhead on the mound. The teenage ace, Fairfield “Jack” Walker would go on to pitch for the University of Kansas in 1911-12 and professionally in the Class D Nebraska State League and the Eastern Kansas League. Although a quiet kid, the Horton Headlight noted “when playing Walker wears a perpetual grin that makes a lot of batters mad because they think he is laughing at them.”

    Besides Walker, the school’s lineup consisted of George Moss behind the plate; a boy identified only as Russell at first; Harold Haskins at second; Willis Cook at third; Leo Holthoefer at short; and Robert Barrett, John McNamara and Walker (unknown first name) in the outfield.

    The schoolboys jumped out to an early 4-1 lead after three innings, forcing Tobey to bring in what the Marshall County Index called “five professional American players.” The visitors battled back, scoring in every inning after the second, to eventually win 11-8. The Frankfort Review reported, “A large number of people witnessed the game and they prounce [sic] it one of the best games ever played here.”

    The near loss to schoolboys confirmed Tobey’s view that many of his Japanese players were not talented enough for an independent team. Green’s Japanese squad would stay on the road until October 10, playing about 170 games and winning 122 of the 142 games for which results are known, but there is no record of the team using an all Japanese starting lineup again.

    Despite the lengthy tour and the uniqueness of the club, The Sporting News, as well as big market newspapers in New York, Washington and Los Angles, did not cover or even mention Green’s Japanese team. As a result, the first professional Japanese players had little impact on the national or international baseball scene and were soon forgotten. But the tour marked the true beginnings of Japanese-American baseball. After the season, the players headed back to the West Coast to form independent Japanese ball clubs. The Mikado’s Japanese Base Ball Team of Denver would barnstorm in Colorado and Kansas in 1908, while the Nanka of Los Angeles would play at the amateur level before changing its name to the Japanese Base Ball Association and becoming an independent barnstorming team in 1911. These teams’ success helped spawn numerous Nikkei clubs as baseball became an integral part of the Japanese-American community and culture.

    1908 Denver Mikado’s Japanese Base Ball Team

    You can read more about the Guy Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team and the early pioneers of Japanese American baseball in my new book Issei baseball: The First Japanese American Ballplayers (University of Nebraska Press, 2020).

    I would like to thank Alice Jones of the Frankfort City Library and Dwight “Skip” McMillen for their invaluable help searching the archives in Frankfort, Kansas.

    Identified Frankfort Players

    Frank Robert Barrett (born April 16, 1888 Frankfort KS – died December 28, 1968 Los Angeles)

    James Willis Cook (born April 30, 1887 Frankfort KS – died December 13, 1960 San Anselmo, CA

    Harold Haskins (born ca. 1892- 12/6/1918, died in the 1918 influenza epidemic)

    Leo Holthoefer (born January 1, 1886 Atchinson, KS – died December 12, 1927 Denver, CO)

    John McNamara (born 1890, Nebraska)

    George Edward Moss (born October 6, 1887 Frankfort KS – died June 13, 1961 Frankfort KS)

    Fairfield “Jack” Walker (born February 20, 1891 Frankfort KS – died 1951, Wichita, KS)

  • Interview with Takeshi Koba

    Interview with Takeshi Koba

    In October 2003, I had the pleasure of interviewing former Carp manager Takeshi Koba before an oldtimers’ game at Tokyo Dome. Koba played for the Carp from 1958 to 1969 but is more famous for managing Hiroshima during their famous Akaheru (Red Helmet) era. From 1975 to 1985 Koba led the Carp to ten winning seasons and three Japan Series championships. He was elected to the Japan hall of fame in 1999.

    How does one become a manger in Japanese baseball? You ask the owner. There are many younger managers nowadays who have no coaching experience and of course no managing experience and yet they are able to become managers. I think that it’s different from the system in the United States. In Japan if you play and you become famous then you can become a manager.

    In my first year as a manager, I was able to win the league championship. But you never know how many years you can actually be a manager. If you don’t get results, the fans aren’t happy, and the team nudges you to quit. So, what do you do? You have to play ball, you have to make sure that people who come to watch enjoy themselves, and also you have to win. So, you have to make sure that the players get together as one and work towards winning. My job as the manager was to make sure that the team was together on that. And when you eventually get fired, my goal was to not have regrets.

    When you take over a team and you have no good pitchers and the defense is bad and you really have to start from scratch then it takes quite a long time to build a winning team, but usually there are only certain sections or certain players who need improvement. It was my job as a manager to reach out to those players and together with the coaches to nurture them in certain directions or in certain ways. Every year I would have to figure out who those players were and pick them out. There are only nine positions in baseball and not including the pitcher, eight positions. I always said that I wanted six or seven position players to be there until the end of the game.

    When I became the manager, we had on our team Koji Yamamoto and Sachio Kinugasa. These were special players. They were recognized by all of the other ballplayers as stars, and they were why we were able to win the 1975 championship. They became role models for the younger players throughout the year. All I needed to say to the young players was, “If you want to catch up to Yamamoto and Kinugasa, if you want to exceed these two, you have to practice harder.” That’s all that was required.

    I was also really very lucky with my two foreign players. Gail Hopkins and Richie Scheinblum could hit and play defense. They were all-round players. I could count on them from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. So, it made managing very easy. When U.S. players come to Japan, there are coming here after really working very hard in the American Minor and Major Leagues. As a manager I asked Jim Lefebvre to scout some players for us. I asked him for players who could adjust to the style here in Japan. Lefebvre said that it really depended on the wife. If the wife can be interested in coming to Japan, if the wife agrees and enjoys the experience then that’s very important. So, I asked for such players.

    When I was a manager, I think that I did everything I wanted to do and I put my whole self into it. I gave it my best. There are many people who say that I am a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—that I have a dual personality because outside of the field I’m very quiet and I don’t say much and don’t complain but once I’m on the field my eyes change, and I become very severe. There are some players who say that I hit them! I never hit anybody, but I put my all into it, and I made sure that the players understood that I’m putting my all into it because that’s an important part of creating a winning team.

    I always told my players from the very beginning of the season that if they had complaints or there was something about the team or the way I was managing that they didn’t like that they could talk to me at any time. And if I could, I would solve that problem to the best of my abilities. Throughout the season, I thought if I could do that it would be best. I didn’t want to be at the end of the season with a player not doing his best and not performing well for the team. I wanted to avoid that kind of situation as it made everyone dissatisfied.

    As a manager, I talked with my coaches, I talked with my staff, and I told them throughout the year that I was confident that I would do my best for the team but if during practice you find something that we need to do more or if another team was doing something that was better then tell me about it. I was proud of what I was doing but I might not have been doing it the best way so if there was something else that’s better, I wanted them to tell me about it. One thing that I think I succeeded in doing well was to create good switch hitters. For example, there were pitchers who the scouts brought to the team but we decided that they weren’t very good as pitchers so we decided to use them as outfielders. If they had the necessary legs and powerful bodies, I would tell them, “Why don’t you work hard and try to become a switch hitter?” Many of my athletes succeed in becoming very good switch hitters. With a group of good switch hitters we were able to create a good team. I think that is why we were able to compete for the league championship for many years.

    When I was playing with a company team, one day I had injured my right finger and I came to the field in street clothes, carrying my right arm, obviously in pain. My manger was very angry with me. He said, “Go back in and put your uniform on!” After I put my uniform on again, he told me to stand in the batter’s box and he threw balls right at me. I was scared so I put my bat in front of me with my left hand because my right was injured. Somehow the ball was hitting the bat that I held with my left hand and my manger yelled, “See you can do it! If you work for one week, you can develop your left arm so you can hit with your left arm.” As you can see, my body is not very big. He said, “If you take time off, your body is going to be less developed so you can’t take any time off. You have to always be in there and keep playing.” That was an important lesson.

     

    1975-76 Calbee Baseball Card of Takeshi Koba

    [Editor’s note: In 1963, Koba’s sixth year of professional ball, Koba was in contention for the Central League batting title when he was hit in the face with a pitch and hospitalized.]

    The injury definitely influence how I played afterwards, maybe it was just a matter of several millimeters but I was no longer able to hit the ball on the meat of the bat so my contact became weaker and therefore I didn’t have as many hits. My average went from .339 to .219 the next year. So, I asked myself how else can I contribute to the game? And I thought, I can use my legs. So, I started stealing bases and I led the league in stolen bases the following year. That’s what I told my athletes, “Ask yourself, how you can contribute to the game.”

    When I was a manager, I always went to see the instructional league in Florida and we sent our young players there to participate. After the regular season here, I would go over and watch these young American players train and they would be working very hard. Most of them were from A or AA and were hoping to make it up to the AAA or Major League level. I took my young players with me because I wanted them to see what kind of severe reality, what kinds of conditions, the U.S. Minor Leaguers were playing in. U.S. players were given only $12 or $13 per day to participate in this. And if they didn’t perform well, they were put back down into the lower-level teams. I wanted the Carp players to understand this. I think that because the Carp players were actually able to see it for themselves, they were stimulated to improve more.

    I was the manager of both Hiroshima and Yokohama. I was the manager of Hiroshima for eleven years. Managers of the other teams would say, “Hey, why are you practicing so hard?” Even when we were on the road before away games, I would always make sure that there were opportunities to practice just as hard. I think that the major difference between American and Japanese baseball, is that in America there is a Rookie League, A, AA, AAA, a whole system where the athletes who come up from the bottom can improve and move up to the next level. But in Japan, there is only the major club and the farm team. So, there are always about ten people, or more, in the farm who don’t quite have the bodies yet, don’t have the techniques yet to play in the major league. If you are always playing in the games you can gain the experience you need but if you aren’t in the games, you have to practice that much harder so that when it’s your turn to play in the games you can play well. If you don’t practice very hard, you can not surpass the other players and get into the major league. The other teams said, “Oh you practice so hard, you must always be tired.” But the tradition of hard practices still continues on the Hiroshima team today. I think because we had such hard practices the younger athletes grew and developed and matured.