Defying wars and trade fights, baseball still forges bonds between U.S., Japan

TOKYO — Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the de facto ruler of devastated Japan, witnessed “the greatest act of diplomacy ever” in the wake of World War II.

No diplomats were involved. That 1949 act involved the minor league San Francisco Seals’ 11-game baseball tour of Japan.

“Most Japanese were not happy having Americans running their country,” said Robert Whiting, a long-term American expatriate and expert on Japanese baseball.

The Seals’ tour, which marked the first time the two national flags flew side by side since the war’s end, “turned Japanese people’s attitude in a more favorable way,” he said.

Mr. Whiting, author of “The Chrysanthemum and the Bat,” spoke at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in a feel-good event promoted by the U.S. Embassy. Promoting good vibes might be a good idea, given current events and historical anniversaries.

Last week, President Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on Japanese exports, sparking fears across Japan Inc. of a return to the bitter trade wars of the 1980s and 1990s. This year also marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Japan hosts the largest contingent of GIs stationed overseas, and Japan and the U.S. are each other’s leading overseas investor. In terms of cultural linkages, however, the longest and strongest of all may be baseball.

Culture wars, wars

The sport “has been a bridge between the U.S. and Japan, fostering connections that go beyond the game itself,” said Marcus Holmes, a professor of security and diplomacy at the College of William & Mary.

“The Japanese have played baseball longer than they have played judo — almost as long as America has,” Mr. Whiting said.

The game was formalized in its basic outline in the U.S. in the 1830s and arrived in Japan in 1859. It offered locals an advantage over traditional martial arts: It inculcated teamwork.

“The Japanese liked it as it had the one-to-one element of kendo or sumo — pitcher vs. batter — but also had the group element,” Mr. Whiting said.

National differences surfaced when U.S. educators introduced baseball to Japan’s first Western-style schools.

“They applied martial arts principles to the game: endless training and development of spirit,” Mr. Whiting said. “They practiced before school and after school; whether it was raining or snowing or 100 degrees outside, practice went on.”

Baseball “channeled the spirit of bushido” — the “way of the warrior,” he said. At Ichiko preparatory school, which educated children of former samurai, it was forbidden to say “ouch.” Players practiced their swings warrior-style 1,000 times each night.

The first Japanese-U.S. baseball match — between the expatriate adults of the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club and Ichiko’s teens — was won by the Japanese, 29-4, in 1896.

Japanese press accounts lauded the young players as heroes, helping popularize the game across the school system. Today, the annual High School Baseball Championship is Japan’s biggest sporting event in terms of the number of participants.

Boosting the game’s popularity even more was a 1934 tour by an all-star U.S. team, including Babe Ruth, that took Japan by storm. After war broke out in 1941, U.S. GIs in the Pacific theater heard taunts of “Babe Ruth go to hell” from the enemy, Mr. Whiting said.

Yet even in ultranationalistic wartime Japan, the game thrived, though English-language terms were replaced by Japanese alternatives.

When the war ended, stadiums used as munitions dumps were cleared. The Seals’ 1949 tour helped restore postwar goodwill.

Japan’s pro baseball league, dating to 1936, was reorganized in 1950, and a distinctly Japanese brand of baseball emerged.

Culture wars, trade wars

“In Japan, teams have meetings every day, and players who screw up are singled out for abuse [by coaches],” Mr. Whiting said. “In America, team meetings are rare: The philosophy is that the player should know what he had to do to keep his job in the lineup, and lots of players are offended by coaches telling them what to do.”

American players in camp take time off with wives and girlfriends, while Japanese camps often feature harsh, late-night sessions and a “practice-till-you-die” spirit.

Baseball practices mirror the workaholic corporate practices of the domestic business world.

“In Manhattan, lights are out after 5 o’clock, but in [Tokyo business district] Marunouchi, lights are on late into the night,” Mr. Whiting said. “Underpaid overtime and death from overwork are almost unheard of in the U.S.”

Fans reward player commitment with an in-stadium passion far from the laid-back American style.

“Look at the fans here: They love baseball. They’ll watch it in snow and rain. It’s like a UCLA-Notre Dame game, every game,” said Warren Cromartie, a retired U.S. pro baseball player whose resume includes stints with the Montreal Expos and the Yomiuri Giants. “They have your personal song when you come up to the plate.”

In the 1980s, a rebuilt Japan surged its exports, flooding the U.S. with goods such as cameras and cars. Americans cried foul. According to scholar Ron Wickes, trade and investment tensions soared from 1986 to 1995.

Japan’s top diplomat turned out to be a ballplayer. In 1995, ace pitcher Hideo Nomo, Japan’s first pro player to transfer to Major League Baseball, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers and electrified U.S. fans.

“He was the first international sports star Japan had produced,” Mr. Whiting said. “Americans could not identify a Japanese prime minister, famous singer or other individual, but everyone knew the name Nomo.”

The New York Times once called Nomo “the one export from Japan that nobody in the U.S. was complaining about,” Mr. Whiting said. “He probably did more than any politician to improve cross-cultural relations.”

Others followed: Ichiro Suzuki, whose U.S. career promoted MLB TV sales in Japan; Hideki Matsui, who never refused autographs and invited reporters to dinner (allegedly gifting some of them from his collection of adult videos); and pitcher-slugger Shohei Ohtani, one of the American game’s highest earners and most prominent stars.

“These players changed Americans’ image of Japanese from a ‘faceless’ people,” Mr. Whiting said.

Baseball amity

Baseball bonding has been a two-way street, with many U.S. players coming to play in Japan’s 12-team Nippon Professional Baseball League. Four Americans have managed Japanese pro teams. Mr. Whiting said televised U.S. baseball games have upgraded America’s image in Japan to the extent that a majority of Japanese no longer consider interracial marriages dubious.

“The great thing about baseball is it has a tremendous ability to transcend where you are from,” Mr. Cromartie said. “American, Spanish, Japanese … it’s nine men, it’s baseball.”

Japanese baseball has even exceeded the American game in head-to-head international competition. Of five World Baseball Classics, Japan has won three, including the more recent edition in 2023, to the U.S.’s one, although some Americans complain that recent WBC teams don’t always include the country’s best players.

Millennial Japanese are approaching the size and strength of Americans, but national differences persist.

 “There’s more power and speed in MLB; Japan is more fundamentals and team play,” Mr. Cromartie said. “But the game’s the same.”

“Thirty years ago, Japanese bashing was popular in everyday conversation; now Americans talk about Japanese film, design and Hello Kitty,” Mr. Whiting said. “Baseball has played the biggest role in bringing our countries together. … There’s always something we can learn from each other.”