Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, & Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan - Softcover

Fitts, Robert K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803245815 ISBN 13: 9780803245815

Verlag: UNIV OF NEBRASKA PR, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan, and spreading goodwill.

Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the amity generated by the tour—and the two nations’ shared love of the game—could help heal their growing political differences. But the Babe and baseball could not overcome Japan’s growing nationalism, as a bloody coup d’état by young army officers and an assassination attempt by the ultranationalist War Gods Society jeopardized the tour’s success. A tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball, Banzai Babe Ruth is the first detailed account of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All American baseball tour. Robert K. Fitts provides a wonderful story about baseball, nationalism, and American and Japanese cultural history.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert K. Fitts graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received a PhD from Brown University. Originally trained as an archeologist of colonial America, Fitts left that field to focus on his passion, Japanese baseball. He is also the author of Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game and Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball (Nebraska, 2008).

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Banzai Babe Ruth

Baseball, Espionage, & Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan

By Robert K. Pitts

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Robert K. Fitts
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8032-4581-5

Contents

List of Illustrations, 
Recurring Japanese Characters, 
Prologue, 
PART 1 "When I say I'll do something, I bet my life on it.", 
PART 2 "Babe Ruth ... is a great deal more effective Ambassador than I could ever be.", 
PART 3 "The Japanese are equal to the Americans in strength of spirit.", 
PART 4 "There will be no war between the United States and Japan.", 
PART 5 "To hell with Babe Ruth!", 
APPENDIX 1. The All American Touring Party, 
APPENDIX 2. Tour Batting and Pitching Statistics, 
APPENDIX 3. Tour Game Line Scores, 
Acknowledgments, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Matsutaro Shoriki sorted through the papers on his desk, trying to finish his work before his next appointment. The third-largest newspaper in Japan generated a lot of paperwork, but that was a blessing in disguise. It had not always been that way. There were fewer papers five years earlier when Shoriki bought the struggling Yomiuri Shimbun in 1924. Even though he had no previous experience in the news or publishing industry, Shoriki was confident he could turn the company around. Once he focused on a task, he rarely failed. For example, he had become a judo master, Third Dan, by the time he had graduated Tokyo Imperial University — an accomplishment that required many years of dedication for most men. That particular skill had been useful in his previous career as a police inspector; it may have saved his life during the suffrage riots. In February 1920 nearly one hundred thousand protesters had snaked through Tokyo to the home of Prime Minister Kei Hara to demand his resignation. As they reached the minister's compound, a stocky figure blocked the small gate. Shoriki spread his arms wide, demanding that the crowd disperse. An agitator rushed forward. Seconds later, Shoriki had the attacker immobilized and arrested. The police inspector then scanned the crowd, spotted its organizer, plunged into the mob, and emerged with his target in an arm hold. After the arrest, the leaderless mob melted away.

Shoriki had enjoyed his time as a policeman. His daring was celebrated within the department, but he usually relied on guile rather than physical force. Twice he quelled riots by withdrawing his officers and appealing to the crowds' leaders to respect decency. Shoriki rose through the ranks and, at thirty-six years old, became the director of the Secretariat of the Metropolitan Police Board — the chief of staff for Tokyo's police force. But his career had collapsed in just one day.

On December 27, 1923, Prince Regent (and future emperor) Hirohito along with his chief chamberlain, Viscount Tamemori Iriye, traveled by car from the Akasaka Palace to the Japanese parliament. At the Toranomon intersection, twenty-seven-year-old Daisuke Namba stepped out of the crowd, drew a pistol, and fired into the prince regent's car. The window shattered as the bullet narrowly missed Hirohito's head. The crowd detained Namba, who was later executed for the assassination attempt. That evening Prime Minister Gonbei Yamamoto and his cabinet submitted their resignations. Shoriki along with the patrolmen assigned to the Toranomon area were dismissed.

Only two months later Shoriki borrowed one hundred thousand yen (about fifty thousand dollars at the time) and purchased Yomiuri. The paper had a circulation of just forty thousand and was losing money through poor management. Shoriki reduced expenses by cutting waste, instituting rigid employee work hours, and collecting outstanding bills. He pushed himself hard, putting in long hours, and expected his employees to do likewise. He habitually told his staff, "I'm going to work five times as hard as the presidents of the other Tokyo newspapers. Therefore, the least you can do is work twice as hard as the other editors." He increased circulation by focusing on sensational crime and by adding household and entertainment sections, a religious column, and comics. By 1929 Yomiuri's circulation had jumped nearly fivefold, but Shoriki still searched for ways to surpass rival papers.

On this day, his old schoolmate Shigenori Ikeda arrived at the appointed time. The two friends could not have looked less alike. Ikeda, young looking for his thirty-seven years, had a thin, almost feminine face supporting a stylish haircut complete with a flip in front. The dour Shoriki looked older than forty-four. The remaining hair on his balding head was closely cropped, and his heavy-rimmed black glasses with his thick neck gave him an unmistakable turtle-like appearance. Photographs rarely show the uncompromising Shoriki smiling.

Ikeda was the father of the eugenics movement in Japan. He joined the newspaper staff at Hochi Shimbunsoon after college and became their correspondent in Germany from 1919 to 1924. There, he became enthralled by the growing field of eugenics, gaining a doctorate from Jena University before returning to Japan. He founded the Japan Eugenic Exercise/Movement Association in 1926 and the journal Eugenic Exercise/Movement the following year. Unlike later practitioners in the field, who favored sterilizing individuals with genetic disabilities, Ikeda advocated building a stronger gene pool through physical exercise, hygiene, and marriages of compatible couples from distinct geographical and genealogical lines. He crusaded against cousin marriage — a common early-twentieth-century Japanese practice. To help individuals find suitable spouses, Ikeda set up eugenic marriage counseling and even matchmaking services at high-end department stores.

The two sat in Shoriki's office, discussing the newspaper business while sipping coffee. Shoriki's coffee was notorious. Sold in cheap cups for five sen (about two cents) in the newspaper's cafeteria, it was as bitter as coffee could get. But Shoriki seemed to love it and had it brought to his office for guests. Eventually, the August heat and humidity became unbearable, and they climbed to the roof of the blocklike concrete building to cool off. The Yomiuri building was just three stories, but the high ceilings of its top two floors made it tower above the surrounding old-fashioned wooden shops.

Soon after the friends settled on the roof, Ikeda shifted the conversation to baseball — in particular Babe Ruth, the star of the New York Yankees. Shoriki had founded a baseball team while in middle school, but had abandoned the sport and now had little interest in the game. He barely listened.

"How about it, Shoriki-san? If we brought Babe Ruth to Japan, he'd be a big hit."

"What? Babe Ruth ... ?" Shoriki refocused his attention on Ikeda as his friend repeated the idea. Shoriki could promote his newspaper and attract new subscribers by bringing Babe Ruth and a team of American ballplayers to Japan. The newspaper owner remained quiet, then asked, "Why don't you do it over at your company?"

"It's no good," Ikeda said.

"You brought it up with them, Ikeda-kun?"

"Not just Hochi, but Mainichi, Asahi, Jiji. ... None of them wants to take the risk."

"And why not?" asked Shoriki.

"The money."

"How much would such a thing take?"

"Two hundred and fifty thousand yen."

"I see," said Shoriki with a short intake of breath. "That's not cheap." In 1929 250,000 yen was equivalent to $115,000.

Shoriki considered the idea....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: UNIV OF NEBRASKA PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0803245815
• ISBN 13: 9780803245815
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 319
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland