Although Japan learned the game of baseball from the Americans, many would argue that the Japanese brand of baseball differed (and continues to differ) in character from the Western one. This unique style of baseball that developed in Japan is referred to as “samurai baseball,” named for its similarity to the traditional samurai code and belief system of pre-modern Japan. According to Chris Kincaid, “The one-on-one fight between the pitcher and batter had the same dynamics as sumo and martial arts. The discipline of the game also resonated with Japan’s history of samurai code, bushido” (1). As indicated earlier, one of the reasons baseball so easily integrated into Japanese culture was its similarity to traditionally desirable cultural values. Early on in baseball’s development in Japan, the concept of yakyū-dō—the Way of Baseball—appeared as a codification of the values and aims of Japanese baseball (3). This way of baseball manifested itself through an emphasis on hard work and extreme practice, strong loyalty to the team, and unquestioned obedience to the manager and coaches. On the playing field, the “samurai way” resulted in an extremely conservative, run-by-run strategy. While American teams aimed for big home runs, their Japanese contemporaries patiently bunted and walked their way around the diamond (4).

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Early Japanese baseball players very consciously drew on the imagery and values of the nation’s samurai past. In a commemorative work published by the Alumni Association of Ichikō in 1903, an Ichikō alumnus wrote the following: “Sports came from the West. In Ichikō baseball, we were playing sports, but we were also putting the spirit of Japan into it . . . Yakyū (i.e., baseball, ‘field ball’) is a way to express the samurai spirit. To play baseball is to develop this spirit. Thus our members were just like the warriors of old with their samurai spirit” (5). The baseball of Meiji Japan had close ties to the traditional samurai code of bushido, which emphasized “dedication, self-perfection, submergence of ego and development of inner strength” (6). This correspondence both connected the new Western sport to traditional values and legitimized the status of Japanese baseball players, which, as Donald Roden argues, enhanced the social image of a student elite (11). Their elitist ambitions were driven by an acceptance of “the Social Darwinist formula that a civilization is defined by its ‘aggressive character’ (tekigaishin)” (12). Essentially, they believed that their performance on the field was a great service to their nation and brought honor to their families, akin to that of a samurai warrior. Indeed, in the late 19th century, “proponents compared the skilled batter to samurai swordsmen and embellished descriptions of the game with poetic allusions to medieval warrior epics” (13). This juxtaposition of warriors and athletes was strengthened by an influential work of literature—Nitobe Inazō’s 1900 book Bushido: The Soul of Japan (2). Nitobe associated the samurai class of the past with certain values that had parallels with how the Japanese started to view baseball. Some of these values were gattsu, seishin (spirit), konjō (to have guts), and magokoro (sincerity/devotion) (14).

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Anecdotes and tales from late 19th-century Japanese baseball teams give us a closer window into how the culture and values of the stoic, devoted samurai made their way into the world of baseball. According to historical writings, the intense training regimen of the Ichikō baseball players was based on the traditional warrior belief that training should be an ordeal the warrior (or player, in this case) must endure to strengthen him mentally as well as physically. Jitsuzo Aoi, a star player for the Ichikō club in the 1890s, was known for his 1,000-swing drill performed every night in the team dormitory (7). The majority of student-ballplayers at elite institutions like Ichikō came from samurai families, and they applied the principles of martial arts and the samurai bushido code to their new sport (8). Amusing tales, too, though likely more entertainment than fact, reflect the samurai-like intensity and devotion of bushido baseball. As one chronicle from the mid-1890s states, pitchers threw so many curveballs that they had to hang from cherry trees adjacent to the baseball field to “straighten their arms out” (9). Another fable suggests that “it was forbidden to use the word ‘ouch’ because it was considered a sign of weakness; if you got hit in the nose with a fast ball and it was really painful then you could use the word kayui (itchy)” (10). Whether apocryphal or not, these amusing anecdotes display the intense discipline of the game of baseball in Japan that aligned with the samurai bushido code.