War and Baseball — Suspension and Revival

Last time, we traced how a foreign ball game took root in Japan over half a century, up to the moment in 1936 when professional baseball gave its first cry. Yet this craze, which drew in students and adults alike, did not last long. As Japan plunged deeper into war, an age arrived in which baseball itself was questioned as ‘the enemy’s pastime.’ Bat and ball were tossed about by the rough waves of the age, until at last they were suspended, and then revived once more upon the burnt ruins. In this episode, we look at how baseball was buffeted by the great wave of war, and how it rose again.

Baseball, Branded an ‘Enemy Sport’

As the country pressed on toward the Pacific War, baseball, born in America, was placed in a difficult position. A mood of keeping at a distance the words and culture of enemy nations, English above all, spread through society, and baseball too is said to have been exposed to the gaze of an ‘enemy sport.’ A game born in America and overflowing with English terms was an easy target of the age.

What is taken as its symbol was the rendering of baseball terms into Japanese. In 1943 (Showa 18), against a backdrop of pressure from Army quarters, the Japan Baseball League is said to have decided to rephrase its terms into Japanese. A strike became ‘yoshi’ (good), a ball became ‘akkyu’ (bad ball), an out became ‘hike’ (withdraw), and so on, as the English signals long familiar to the ear were replaced one after another with Japanese. It has been handed down that, bewildered by the unfamiliar rephrasings, umpires sometimes drew unintended laughter from the crowd.

The foreign lettering vanished from players’ uniforms, and even the cheers of supporters were transformed. Baseball was no longer a pure pleasure but a mirror reflecting the tensions of the age as they were. That said, accounts vary as to how thoroughly such rephrasings were enforced, and how far they were observed in the field. There are also those who see it this way: that even amid the cramped constraints, the passion of the young men chasing the ball could not be so easily extinguished.

Suspension, and Revival from the Ashes

As the war situation worsened, continuing to play baseball itself gradually became difficult. Players left for the front one after another, and the materials for ballparks and the means of travel grew scarce. And at last, in the autumn of 1944 (Showa 19), professional baseball’s league play was driven to a halt. That many players, including Eiji Sawamura whom we touched on last time, lost their lives to the war is also a fact that must not be forgotten. Professional baseball, which should have opened with such splendor, was swallowed by the shadow of the age in a mere few years.

And yet, when the war ended, baseball revived with astonishing speed. Amid days when burnt ruins stretched on and even food was lacking, people strongly sought entertainment. As early as November 1945 (Showa 20), an East-versus-West match gathering professional players was held, and this is remembered as a symbolic event heralding the postwar revival of baseball. The following year, 1946 (Showa 21), professional baseball’s league play resumed in earnest.

Why was it able to rise again so quickly? In the background, it is said, lay the people’s craving for entertainment, which the war had stifled. Bright cheers, the rush of rejoicing and grieving over wins and losses, the time of pinning one’s dreams on a favorite player — such feelings, once lost, came surging back all at once together with baseball. For the people of the burnt ruins, the crack of the bat and the arc of the ball were also a sign that everyday life had returned.

National Fervor and the Road to the Two-League Split

Postwar baseball captured people’s hearts with a momentum surpassing that of the prewar years. New star players appeared one after another, spectators overflowed the ballparks, and the newspapers reported their exploits day after day. Baseball once again grew into a national concern shared across generations and regions. The craze of student baseball we saw last time now blossomed even more grandly in the professional world as well.

That excitement gave rise to a movement seeking to draw new clubs into this world. In 1949 (Showa 24), the baseball world was greatly shaken over the entry of new clubs. There were newspaper-affiliated clubs that wished to join anew, and opinion was split clean in two between those in favor of their entry and those against. The discussions did not come together, and the conflict eventually headed toward a resolution of splitting the league itself in two.

And so, in 1950 (Showa 25), Japan’s professional baseball split into two leagues and stepped into a new age. The trigger for the split was conflict, but as the number of participating clubs grew, baseball broadened its base, drawing in more companies and regions. The two leagues vied for their respective supremacy, and at the summit the champion of Japan was decided — and the framework that would lead to the later Japan Series was shaped at this time. Baseball, which the war had once nearly cut off, won back its place as a national sport in a mere few years, and indeed obtained a vessel larger than before.

The revival of Japanese baseball, risen from the ashes, was unmistakably a story of ‘light.’ People regained their everyday lives together with baseball, and the cheers of a peaceful age echoed through the ballparks. And yet the prosperity that had swelled so rapidly came to harbor new distortions on its underside. The treatment of players, the flow of money, and the temptation surrounding victory — in time, the first great shadow, one that would shake the very trust of the baseball world, had quietly begun to spread in the shadow of this fervor.