1873 IS THE year which is popularly quoted as the date of the introduction of baseball into Japan. That is not correct. Baseball was introduced into Japan through the Foreign Settlements nearly fourteen years before 1873, and in fact, very soon after the opening of the treaty ports in 1859.

Several persons at one time or another have claimed credit for the introduction of baseball into Japan, and many more have had that honour thrust posthumously upon them. Certainly many baseball enthusiasts did on occasions make important individual contributions towards popularizing the game in various schools, universities, clubs, and other places, but the names of those who actually first introduced the game into Japan is something which never will be known. Furthermore nobody knows, nobody can ever know, exactly where or precisely when the first game was played. Certainly it would have been a very modest and informal affair.

There appears to be an irresistible urge on the part of writers, concerning the early days, to describe a certain happening as being the “first” of its kind without troubling to do any research on the subject. For example we are told of the first cow to be slaughtered for meat, the first butchers shop, the first beef restaurant, the first baker's shop, the first foreigner to visit some particular locality in Japan, the first persons to introduce baseball, and so on without end. I advise readers to look with suspicion on any “firsts” regarding the early days, and indeed on those who relate them. Rarely have I found any such “firsts” which have stood up to a close investigation.

From time to time one reads a glamourous account of how some famous team of basebailers visited Japan and played an exhibition game at which some important dignitary was present, whereupon the sport was adopted by the Japanese. In some so-called official histories of foreign sports in Japan, several such lively accounts are given of the introduction of various other sports also. The fact, however, is that foreign sports were not introduced in that fashion. Actually they usually crept in unobserved, as it were, and gradually spread, until suddenly people realized they were here.