In baseball scoreboards news, we will look at the development of baseball in Japan.

The most popular team sport in Japan is not soccer, like many people think, but baseball. There are national leagues at school, university and professional level. These games are covered feverously in the media during the spring and summer. Japan is one of the very few countries other than the US where baseball is played professionally and where it has a large following.

The game of baseball was first played in Japan in 1874 at Tokyo university. An American teacher, Horace Welson, brought the game from the US and resided at this university. He loved the game, and wanted to share his passion with the Japanese people. He would never have imagined what this first game would lead to! In 1880, the first college teams were created and they played regularly against Americans who were residing in Japan. Theses games received a lot of publicity, and this helped make baseball quickly become popular amongst the Japanese people.

Around the turn of the century baseball became the major sport in Japan, as clubs were forming in every school across the country. The universities created a league called the Big Six, which was the country’s most popular league until 1945. Until today, it remains the most popular college basketball league.

The first Japanese team to visit the US was the Wasada university team in 1906. Between 1906 and 1936, the Waseda and Chicago universities played each other 10 times.

The baseball scoreboards show that in 1934, an American major league all-star team visited Japan and played against a select Japanese team made of the best players from their non-professional teams. These players went on to become the first professional players in Japan, and were the core of the Nihon Baseball Club team, which was formed at the end of 1934. Within a few months, several such teams had formed, and this professional form of baseball quickly became the most popular spectator sport in Japan. The annual attendance for games was close to 15 million, and the games were televised on the most popular channels.

After World War 2, baseball games between Japanese and American teams became more frequent. In 1948, the San Francisco Seals, which played in the Pacific Coast League, visited Japan. Numerous such teams followed their example in the years to follow. American players even started signing for Japanese teams, as there were fantastic opportunities to be had in Japan. The game had truly completed its migration from North America to East Asia!

For more information, go to:
en.wikipedia.org