EVER WONDER HOW BASEBALL GOT TO JAPAN? HERE’S THE STORY OF HORACE WILSON, WHO DIED MARCH 4, 1927.
Baseball hasn’t existed in Japan as long as it has in the United States, but our national pastime has been part of Japanese culture for over 140 years. According to Japanese baseball officials, the game was brought to the Land of the Rising Sun in the 1870’s by Horace Wilson, a Tokyo University English Professor from the United States.
Wilson was born on a Gorham, Maine farm in 1843. After the Civil War he headed west to California and later to Japan. One day in 1872 (or 1873, depending who’s telling the story) he decided his students at the First Higher School of Tokyo, now known as Tokyo University, needed some recreation. He got their blood pumping with a bat and ball, and taught them the game of baseball, which he probably learned during the Civil War.
According to Steve Solloway of the Portland, (Maine) PressHerald, a game was organized a few weeks later between the Japanese players and a group of foreigners, one of whom was Horace Wilson. The foreigners won 34-11 and a Japanese pastime was born.
Contributing sources:
Baseball Reference
Japan Baseball Daily
Portland Press Herald, May 20, 2007, by Steve Solloway
Horace Wilson
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