A pastime with a past

Nearly a century ago, the tables were turned. Japan was at war with Russia, and its best college baseball team was headed to Seattle to play.

"It was viewed as a diplomatic and cultural bridge — a goodwill tour," said Kerry Yo Nakagawa, author of "Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American Baseball History."

"Isoo Abe, who was known as the 'Father of University Baseball,' was able to convince politicians to subsidize the trip even though Japan was at war."

The year was 1905. The Waseda University team, which had stopped first in California, was met at the train station in Seattle by a welcoming crowd of some 400 people.

The trip would plant a seed for baseball exchanges between Seattle and Japan, a largely forgotten history. Like the Mariners' just-canceled trip, it was forged by a combination of money, politics and a desire to internationalize the game.

Japanese and Seattle teams crisscrossed the ocean frequently from 1905 to 1936. Their memories can be discovered in old scorebooks, fading photographs and oral histories.

Seattle-area teams were the pioneers of these exchanges. The 1908 University of Washington baseball team was the first United States university to play in Japan. The 1914 Seattle Nippon was the first West Coast Japanese-American club to go there. And the 1921 Suquamish Tribe became the first Native American team to tour Japan.

"The Waseda's team tour was very important at many levels between the United States and Japan," Nakagawa said.

"From a baseball standpoint, they were the best team in Japan, and they wanted to test the water of American baseball at the university level," Nakagawa said. "They wanted to dissect the American game, use it as a laboratory to learn both the offensive and defensive nuances of the game that they weren't familiar with, such as the double steal, hit and run and the squeeze play."

Seattle became a must-stop on the itinerary of Japanese university teams touring the United States because of good gate receipts, a supportive Japanese-American community and direct steamship service between Yokahama and Seattle by the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line.

During the next 30 years, Waseda returned five times and Japan's powerhouse baseball teams — Hosei, Keio, Meiji and Rikkyo University — also played games here. The Tokyo Giants of the new Japanese professional baseball league visited Seattle in 1935 and 1936.

Three years after Waseda's initial visit, the Huskies were invited to Japan. The 12-member squad left Seattle on Aug. 18, 1908, aboard the 115-foot steamship Tosamaru. They were berthed in first-class cabins and served a mixture of Japanese and European dishes during the 15-day crossing to Japan.

More than 7,000 watched the first game between Waseda and Washington, which the Huskies won 4-2. Washington lost the next game but finished the tour with a 6-4 record against Tokyo teams.

Washington drew good crowds since baseball had become popular throughout Japan after its introduction in 1872. The players were squired around Tokyo and visited temple sites, attended a theater performance and met politicians.

"We were royally entertained by Count Okuma, the great Japanese diplomat, who showed us about his garden and magnificent mansion," Meagher wrote in the school's yearbook.

The trip was considered a rousing success. "We arrived home Oct. 25, all in good health and feeling we had one of the greatest trips that any college team had ever taken," Meagher concluded.

The next wave of Seattle teams to make the trip to Japan were from Seattle's Japanese-American community. In 1914, both the Seattle Nippon and the Seattle Asahi Club teams toured, sponsored by two Japanese newspaper companies, the Tokyo Nichinichi and the Osaka Mainichi.

Seattle's Japanese-American community had a strong interest in baseball and began sponsoring teams in 1904. Japanese-American teams were later organized in Auburn, Fife, Kent and Tacoma. Baseball blossomed in Japanese-American communities all along the West Coast and as far inland as Nebraska.

Under the guidance of Coach Frank Fukada, the Asahi Club dominated Japanese-American baseball in the Northwest until 1927. The team, comprised of Nisei (second-generation) players who were born and raised in the United States, visited Japan in 1914, 1918 and 1921.

The players were curious to see the tiled roofs, narrow streets, wooden clogs and rickshaws their parents had left behind, according to an account Fukada wrote.

In 1923, the Seattle Mikado team traveled extensively throughout the main island and saw the devastation of the earthquake that struck Tokyo and killed more than 100,000 people just before their arrival.

A combination of factors made baseball popular within the Japanese-American community.

"The Japanese immigrants already knew the game well," Nakagawa said. "And it was a way for immigrants to take part in the mainstream of their new home. For them, putting on a baseball uniform was like putting on the American flag.

"Also, inside the baseline lines, they could compete on a level field in America," Nakagawa added. "The rules were black and white and didn't change. If you had the five tools of baseball, you could compete and win. Whereas, outside the diamond, the lines were blurry as they faced anti-immigration laws, anti-miscegenation laws and alien land laws that blocked them from buying land."

Seattle's Japanese-American teams hosted Japanese university teams throughout the 1930s, competed in various leagues, including the Seattle City League, and often won the Japanese baseball championship of the Pacific Coast.

The last Seattle Japanese-American team to venture to Japan was the Taiyo Athletic Club, which made trips in 1933 and 1936.

"The Taiyo were the top team in Seattle at that time," said Connie Shimojima, whose brother-in-law Joe Hirabayashi played second base for Taiyo. "All the players were in their physical prime.

"It was the dream of every youngster to play for the Taiyo team and have a chance to go to Japan," Shimojima said. "It was baseball first when they got to Japan, although the players had relatives there. They were curious about the culture even though some of them had language problems. Also, it was probably the only opportunity they would get to visit, especially since it was in the middle of the Depression."

Two other teams to visit Japan from the Seattle area were the Suquamish Tribe and the Canadian Stars, who took the same boat there in 1921. The Canadian Stars were really the Ballard Merchants, a semi-pro team whose name was changed in the hopes of drawing larger crowds.

The Suquamish barnstormed Japan for two months. They played a high-school team the first day they arrived, after which they were feted by the locals, Lawrence Webster, the catcher of the team, said in an oral history related by the tribe. They played the town's powerhouse team the next day.

Unfortunately, the Suquamish team's American promoter of the tour absconded with their funds halfway through the trip. They survived through the generosity of their Japanese hosts and the gate receipts from their remaining games. By the end of the tour, the Suquamish team barely had enough money to book passage back to Seattle.

The Depression, the rise of the Japanese major leagues and world politics in the late 1930s brought the Japan-Seattle connection to a close. That is, until Japan's Hiroshi Yamauchi helped buy the Mariners in 1992 and the likes of Kazu Sasaki and Ichiro came here to play.

And who knows? Perhaps the Mariners will return to Japan to open next year's season, further extending their shared passion for baseball.

Joanne Klein, Jerome Klena and Robert Fisher of the Wing Luke Asian Museum contributed to this article. Comments can be sent to sports@seattletimes.com.