Japanese baseball fans try to save stadium Babe Ruth played in

[C0RI0LANUS]

Tokyo, Japan: Thousands of baseball fans have signed a petition to save the iconic Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo, which is nearly a century old and was where Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig once played in 1934.

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/273411229/japanese-baseball-fans-try-to-save-stadium-babe-ruth-played-in

[Brother Buzz]

1. Some Japanese we not to happy with American all-stars playing in the park

The Japanese tycon, Matsutarō Shōriki (the father of Japanese professional baseball), survived an assassination attempt by right-wing nationalist,Katsusuke Nagasaki, for allowing foreigners (in this case, Americans) to play baseball in Jingu Stadium. He received a 16-inch-long scar from a broadsword during the assassination attempt.


A good recap of the 1934 All-Star event:

(Note: Lefty O'Doul was a mover and shaker in making it all happen, and went on to teach the Japanese how to play twentieth century professional baseball after WW11. Japan held him in such high regard they inducted him into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame)

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A329303513&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=794ec319 (Copy and paste the entire link to go to the cool article)

Only one player didn't seem to belong--a journeyman catcher with a .238 career batting average named Moe Berg. Although he was not an all-star caliber player, his off-the-field skills would explain his inclusion on the team. Berg was a Princeton University and Columbia Law School graduate who had already visited Japan in 1932. He was multilingual, causing a teammate to joke that Berg could speak a dozen languages but couldn't hit in any of them. Berg would eventually become an operative for the Office of Strategic Services (oss), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and many believe that the 1934 trip to Japan was his first mission as a spy.

Yet, the goodwill tour was not a complete failure. Several of the friendships cemented during the 1934 visit survived the war and helped reconcile the two nations. Lefty O'Doul, who remained close to both Shoriki and Sotaro Suzuki, traveled to Japan at his own expense in 1946 to renew the friendships and help restart Japanese baseball. Three years later, O'Doul organized the first of several baseball tours held during the Allied occupation. Once again, baseball was used as a diplomatic tool to help bring the nations closer together, but this time with lasting success.

[C0RI0LANUS]

2. Thanks for the terrific info!

The assassin must have been sloppy with his Samurai sword or the tycoon's bodyguards overpowered the attacker in the nick of time.

The assassin used the traditional (or honorable) method of killing his target: Sword (unlike the killer of ex-PM Abe).

Anecdotally, Babe Ruth was struck out several times by a Japanese pitcher and the Babe had a lot of respect for that hurler. I'm not certain if the US and Japanese baseballs were the same dimension and weight at the time, which may have been a factor.

Thank you again. Arigato!