AMERICAN AND JAPANESE BASEBALL
Baseball in the United States
Baseball, America’s national pastime, has a long tradition. The first organized game to closely resemble the modern one is generally recognized to have been played on June 19, 1846, in the Elysian Fields, a park along the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. That historic game was between the New York Knickerbockers and the New Yorks. Alexander Cartwright (1820–1892), a New York City fireman, has been called the inventor of baseball for creating the Knickerbockers (named for his Knickerbockers Engine Company of the New York City Fire Department), for writing the first rules, and for organizing that first game. He set the basis for the development of the modern game. Yet, evidence of forms of the game go much further back in time. The records of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Northwest in 1804–1806 mention that the men on the expedition played a game of “base” with the Nez Percé Indians while they waited for the snows to melt on the Bitterroot Mountains before trying to cross them. It may have had some relation to what later became baseball. It’s even possible that the game, at least in a primitive form, goes back to well before the American revolution.
Baseball spread rapidly from the New York area after the Knickerbockers were organized. First through the Northeast part of the country, then gradually South and West. During the Civil War, troops from the North introduced it to men from all over the country, even to rebel forces from the South. The first openly professional team was put together in 1869: the Cincinnati Red Stockings. After two years of barnstorming the country playing local teams, it moved to Boston and became part of the first professional baseball league formed in 1871.
Since then an almost religious reverence has grown up around baseball. It has become the most loved game in America. Just reciting the names of the legendary figures of professional baseball who helped to enshrine the game in the hearts of Americans can call up in our imaginations the feats they achieved. From the first five players named to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on its opening in 1939, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson, to those who have joined them down through the years—and some who haven’t—the names of these baseball giants ring out like magic bells calling up haiku-like images of the players in action: King Kelly (Slide Kelly, Slide); Tinker to Evers to Chance; Wee Willie Keeler (Hit ’Em Where They Ain’t); “Shoeless” Joe Jackson; Tris Speaker; Jimmie Foxx; Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse; Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter; Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper; Hank Greenberg; Stan “The Man” Musial; Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller and Nolan Ryan; the “Say Hey Kid” Willie Mays; the Inscrutable Yogi Berra (“It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over”); Don Larsen; Jackie Robinson; Pee Wee Reese; Gil Hodges; Satchel “Don’t Look Back” Paige, Walter Clemons; Henry “Hank” Aaron; Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris; Reggie Jackson; Rickey Henderson; and on and on. Americans have remarkable champions to fill out their dream scorecards. Great hurlers and catchers, great infielders and outfielders, great batters and great base runners. And now they are being joined by great players from Japan, such as Hideki “Godzilla” Matsui with the Yankees and Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners.
Baseball in Japan
Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson, an American teacher of mathematics and English at what is now Tokyo University. He was born in Gorham, Maine, on February 10, 1843, and died in San Francisco on March 4, 1927. Wilson arrived in Japan in 1871 and was a teacher at the school until 1877. He taught baseball to his students and colleagues and enjoyed playing the game with them. From there baseball spread to other schools and to amateur athletic clubs in the Tokyo area and then gradually to other parts of the country. Though there were a few professional baseball teams organized in the 1920s and early ’30s, Major League Baseball didn’t start in Japan until 1936. Today, besides the two major leagues (the Central and the Pacific Leagues), the pennant winners of which play each other in the Japan Series, there are two minor leagues that function as farm systems for the “majors” (NPB: Nippon Professional Baseball). Amateur baseball is still hugely popular with both students and the general population. University and high school teams compete in their own all-Japan championship tournaments, which are enthusiastically followed by the public and featured on national television.
The professional game from the beginning has been dominated by the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants of the Central League. Due to the wide coverage it gets from both television and other media (the team is owned by the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan’s biggest newspapers) and its ability to field outstanding teams, the Giants have been and continue to be the most popular baseball team in the country. They won nine Japan Series Championships in a row—from 1965 to 1973—and are as legendary in Japan as the New York Yankees are in the United States.
Sadaharu Oh, the Babe Ruth of Japan, hit 868 home runs during the twenty-two years (1959–80) he played for the Giants. More than either Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron. Oh also managed the Giants, winning one pennant in the five years he was at the helm (1984–88). Another Giants’ player, Shigeo Nagashima, who played on the nine-in-a-row championship team, was the winner of six batting titles and is loved and revered in Japan as much as Joe DiMaggio is in the United States. Even earlier, Tetsuji Kawakami, a first baseman who wore glasses while playing, was a superstar for the Giants. His feats at the plate earned him the nickname, “God of Batting.”
Baseball & B
sub
ru
Baseball is pronounced “b
sub
ru” (baysubohru) in Japan. [The Japanese word yaky
also means baseball and tama asobi (playing with a ball) is sometimes translated as playing catch, or playing baseball.] Despite the similarity in the sounds of the words and though the Japanese game basically follows the same rules, there are important differences between the way baseball is played in Japan and the way it is played in America. In Japan the emphasis is on team spirit and harmony (wa), while a more individualistic spirit and a greater desire to shine as a star exist among American players. The stress on teamwork in Japan results in a slower style of play. There is more discussion between players and coaches during the game and more use of the bunt and the hit-and-run. Strategy is more important than just letting the player hit away, or letting him try to blast the ball out of the park. The result is that Japanese games tend to be three and four hours long.
Most Americans who have played in the Japanese system also think the Japanese teams tend to overtrain. This tendency comes from another Japanese moral ideal called doryoku (effort). It results in more strict discipline and the following of rigorous practice regimens on both the amateur and professional levels than one finds in the American game. Long and heavy workouts constantly take place in their training camps and during the regular season. The major league teams have both spring and autumn training camps, leaving the players with only one month, December, off each year. Added to this, they are often expected to arrive hours before each game for long practice sessions.
The tradition of Bushido, the way of the samurai warrior to unswervingly dedicate oneself to develop one’s abilities to the utmost, enduring pain and privation to achieve perfection, has been adopted by coaches and players alike in Japanese baseball. When a Japanese pitcher feels his arm getting tired his manager will often tell him to keep on throwing to strengthen it while in America a pitcher will be advised to take it easy and to preserve his energy and strength by periodic rests. The Japanese coaches often expect players to practice until they are exhausted—the batter swings the bat a thousand times, the pitcher throws a thousand times—each player keeps on through pain and fatigue in an attempt to go beyond it, to work it out. This is one way he can fulfill the samurai ideals of on (obligation) and giri (duty) to his coach and his fellow players.
Zen, a Japanese form of Buddhism, which has been a traditional part of the way of the samurai, has also been related to baseball. Kawakami, the “God of Batting,” once said, “Bsubru is Zen.” (R. H. Blyth, the great translator of haiku, wrote “Haiku is Zen.”) The concentration of mind and the dedication to perfecting oneself that are part of Zen practice and meditation is seen as an aid in making one a better baseball player.
Since the interchange of players and coaches between the two countries in the last several decades and particularly with the popularity and success of such American players as Gregory “Boomer” Wells (“Boomah” was the triple-crown batting champ and MVP of the Pacific League in 1984) and Randy Bass (he took the triple crown and MVP in the Central League in 1985) playing for Japanese teams and Japanese stars like Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui playing in Major League Baseball in the United States the differences between the two styles of play are gradually changing. The Japanese are now seeing the wisdom of some system of rest while the Americans are seeing the advantages of tougher discipline and practice. The Japanese are seeing the excitement and enthusiasm that can be generated by a desire to excell as an individual as well as a team and American players are developing more of an appreciation for cultivating team spirit.
Of course these are generalizations and all types of play and practice, good or bad, can be found wherever the game is played. The history of the American game shows that there were many teams where the players put the team ahead of personal glory. For example, the championship teams of the New York Yankees in the late 1940s through the early ’60s have been noted for their great teamwork. Yogi Berra, who won ten world series championship rings with those aggregations, has often remarked and written about how important team spirit was to the Yankees of that era. It was crucial in getting them to the top year after year. They had famous players—Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi himself—but the team came first. And the Japanese game, while famous for team spirit, has been able to produce many outstanding individual stars, like Oh and Kawakami—and even a current Yankee, Hideki Matsui.
For a thorough history of Japanese baseball and how it differs from the American version of the game see Robert Whiting’s You Gotta Have Wa (1989) and The Meaning of Ichiro (2004). Much if not most of the information on Japanese baseball appearing here was gleaned from these valuable sources. These books also chronicle in a vivid style and with fascinating detail the experiences of American players playing in the Japanese professional leagues and that of Japanese players playing for major league teams in the United States.
What both the Japanese and American players (and Canadians, Hispanics, Koreans, and other nationalities) share is a love for the game and a desire to perfect it in all of its manifestations. To execute with skill and art all aspects of the game: from pitching, batting, fielding, running the bases, and throwing, to game-winning strategies and tactics. And with all this, above all, to enjoy the game.