defeating a team of American traders and missionaries belonging to the private Yokohama
Country and Athletic club in a series of historic games in 1896 received prominent newspaper coverage—a first for baseball
in Japan—and caused the game’s popularity to soar. Suddenly, “spirit ball” was elevated to the status of national sport.
Ichiko games were rich in symbolism because they demonstrated to the nation the potential fruits of hard work and conveyed
the message that if the Japanese could defeat the Americans at a game the foreign barbarians had invented, then surely they
could surpass them in trade and industry as well. The fact that U.S. sailors were added to the Yokohama team at one stage
and still the Ichiko players prevailed made the experience especially sweet.
Star pitcher Tsunetaro Moriyama, a left-hander who later pitched a shutout against the Yokohama Americans, became Japan’s
first baseball legend, hypostatsizing the grand virtues of
konj
(fighting spirit) and
doryoku
(effort). Moriyama threw so hard every day at the Ichiko grounds, using a brick wall on the field for target practice, that
he eventually wore a hole in it—a permanent tribute to fighting spirit that is now commemorated by a plaque. He was also famous
for his habit of setting up a lit candle as a target and trying to extinguish the flame with his pitches. He threw so many
curveballs in practice that his arm became bent; to straighten it out, he would dangle from the limbs of the cherry trees
that bordered the field, pretending to ignore the pain. Moriyama expanded Chuman’s philosophy about preparation when he said,
“Two or three
years
are needed before a team can play its first game.”
Ichiko was also memorialized in a 1905 poem entitled
“YakyBuka,”
an abridged version of which follows:
The crack of the bat echoes to the sky
On cold March mornings when we chase balls on the ice
Year in and year out, through wind and rain
Enduring all hardship, we practice our game
Ah for the glory of our Baseball club!
Ah, for the glitter it has cast! Pray that our martial valor never turns submissive
And that our honor will always shine far across the Pacific.
From the early part of the 20th century, the baseball teams of prestigious private universities Keio and Waseda came to the
forefront, incorporating the Ichiko ethos, which came to be known as
bushido bsubru (bushido
being the term for the way of the samurai warrior).
In 1905, Waseda made a historic tour of North America. It marked the first time intercollegiate squads from the two countries
would face each other, but it was significant in other ways, as well. At the time, Japan was in the midst of a war with Russia—one
from which it would emerge victorious and demonstrate convincingly that it had become a major power. It was the idea of Waseda
dons and Japanese government officials that by sending a team of college athletes all the way across the Pacific just to play
a sporting contest, while simultaneously fighting and winning a war with behemoth Russia, the small island nation would declare
in no uncertain terms its arrival on the world stage.
The Waseda nine won only nine of 26 games against teams from Stanford and the University of California, among others, but
thoroughly impressed critics everywhere with their grasp of the game. The
San Francisco Chronicle
declared that the “little bronze-faced athletes” (“Japs” as the paper also put it) played “gilt-edged baseball,” and that
although they were defeated more often than they emerged victorious, they were not in the least disgraced. As the
Eugene Register
put it, “They made every spectator realize that the students of Waseda University know how to play baseball.”
The trip gave a healthy boost in confidence to the players from Japan. Waseda returned home loaded with the latest in equipment
and technique (pitcher’s windups, sacrifice bunts, sliding into base), as
Country and Athletic club in a series of historic games in 1896 received prominent newspaper coverage—a first for baseball
in Japan—and caused the game’s popularity to soar. Suddenly, “spirit ball” was elevated to the status of national sport.
Ichiko games were rich in symbolism because they demonstrated to the nation the potential fruits of hard work and conveyed
the message that if the Japanese could defeat the Americans at a game the foreign barbarians had invented, then surely they
could surpass them in trade and industry as well. The fact that U.S. sailors were added to the Yokohama team at one stage
and still the Ichiko players prevailed made the experience especially sweet.
Star pitcher Tsunetaro Moriyama, a left-hander who later pitched a shutout against the Yokohama Americans, became Japan’s
first baseball legend, hypostatsizing the grand virtues of
konj
(fighting spirit) and
doryoku
(effort). Moriyama threw so hard every day at the Ichiko grounds, using a brick wall on the field for target practice, that
he eventually wore a hole in it—a permanent tribute to fighting spirit that is now commemorated by a plaque. He was also famous
for his habit of setting up a lit candle as a target and trying to extinguish the flame with his pitches. He threw so many
curveballs in practice that his arm became bent; to straighten it out, he would dangle from the limbs of the cherry trees
that bordered the field, pretending to ignore the pain. Moriyama expanded Chuman’s philosophy about preparation when he said,
“Two or three
years
are needed before a team can play its first game.”
Ichiko was also memorialized in a 1905 poem entitled
“YakyBuka,”
an abridged version of which follows:
The crack of the bat echoes to the sky
On cold March mornings when we chase balls on the ice
Year in and year out, through wind and rain
Enduring all hardship, we practice our game
Ah for the glory of our Baseball club!
Ah, for the glitter it has cast! Pray that our martial valor never turns submissive
And that our honor will always shine far across the Pacific.
From the early part of the 20th century, the baseball teams of prestigious private universities Keio and Waseda came to the
forefront, incorporating the Ichiko ethos, which came to be known as
bushido bsubru (bushido
being the term for the way of the samurai warrior).
In 1905, Waseda made a historic tour of North America. It marked the first time intercollegiate squads from the two countries
would face each other, but it was significant in other ways, as well. At the time, Japan was in the midst of a war with Russia—one
from which it would emerge victorious and demonstrate convincingly that it had become a major power. It was the idea of Waseda
dons and Japanese government officials that by sending a team of college athletes all the way across the Pacific just to play
a sporting contest, while simultaneously fighting and winning a war with behemoth Russia, the small island nation would declare
in no uncertain terms its arrival on the world stage.
The Waseda nine won only nine of 26 games against teams from Stanford and the University of California, among others, but
thoroughly impressed critics everywhere with their grasp of the game. The
San Francisco Chronicle
declared that the “little bronze-faced athletes” (“Japs” as the paper also put it) played “gilt-edged baseball,” and that
although they were defeated more often than they emerged victorious, they were not in the least disgraced. As the
Eugene Register
put it, “They made every spectator realize that the students of Waseda University know how to play baseball.”
The trip gave a healthy boost in confidence to the players from Japan. Waseda returned home loaded with the latest in equipment
and technique (pitcher’s windups, sacrifice bunts, sliding into base), as
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