February 2, 2026 7:30am
[Editorial]Ahead of the World Baseball Classic (WBC), which will be held in March, interest in baseball is increasing at home and abroad. This year marks 150 years since the first match between Japanese and foreign teams in Tokyo. The Japanese team had the names of two Fukui natives. Our predecessors left their names in the history of Japanese baseball during the era of civilization and enlightenment. If you follow in his footsteps, you will find the origins of the modern Japanese national team, “Samurai Japan.”
The first person to introduce baseball to the Japanese was Horace Wilson, an American teacher. It is said that it began in 1872 (Meiji 5) when students at Daiichi University Ward Daiichi Ichiban Junior High School (later Tokyo Kaisei School, University of Tokyo) were taught.
Last year, this newspaper reported that Masanao Yoshida, an outfielder for the Red Sox in the US Major League Baseball and a native of Fukui City, visited Wilson’s birthplace and interacted with his relatives.
An American newspaper published in 1976 introduced the Japan-US baseball game that was held that year. According to the report, the Japanese athletes who participated were students from Tokyo Kaisei School. The foreign team includes the names of American residents, including Wilson and diplomats.
According to Koichi Kitamura, an employee of the Fukui City Griffith Memorial Hall, the list of members was published in an American newspaper, and among the Japanese players, the No. 4 center is Itaru Kasahara, the fourth son of Hakuo Kasahara, who introduced the vaccine to Fukui. Number 9, Second, appears to be Chujiro Sasaki, the eldest son of Nagajun Sasaki, a samurai of the Fukui clan who was active as an engineer at the end of the Edo period.
Both were students who studied under W.E. Griffith, an American teacher invited by the Fukui clan, and who was loved by them. Following the abolition of the feudal domain, he moved to Tokyo to study hard. The number one second on the foreign team was Edward H. Mazet, who replaced Griffith as a teacher in Fukui. At the time of the match, he was a teacher at an English school in Tokyo.
The game was played over seven innings due to time constraints, and the foreign team won 34-11, but the newspaper article described the Japanese players as “very interested in baseball, quick in movement, and good at throwing.”
Griffith worked as a teacher at Tokyo Kaisei School for two and a half years before returning to Japan. A monument commemorating the birthplace of Japanese baseball stands at the site. At first, Japanese baseball began as a “fun event,” but later the emphasis on spirituality, such as the supremacy of victory and self-discipline, came to be emphasized.
Today, the performances of players such as Shohei Otani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the Major Leagues have raised the reputation of Japanese baseball not only for their superior technique but also for their mental strength and dedication to the team. American baseball commentators have pointed out that the differences in national character towards baseball were reflected in the game. During the Meiji period, the seeds of baseball that were played by hired foreigners and the “Samurai Boys” grew greatly. I want to pay attention to what kind of flowers they will bloom this year.
