Picture of growth in Japan

The nation of Japan cares about baseball. That is a given.

When Ichiro Suzuki steps in against Daisuke Matsuzaka April 11, the country might come to a standstill. Everyone will be parked in front of a television.

Baseball has been relevant in Japan from sometime in the 19th century, but the exact beginning is subject to dispute. It is fashionable in many quarters to cite a Tokyo-based American professor named Horace Wilson as the de facto Father of Japanese baseball. If true, this means baseball was introduced to Japan sometime during the Meiji Era (1868-1912, with the application taking place closer to the beginning of the period than the conclusion).

As one might suspect, the idea of a foreign game taking hold in an essentially xenophobic country did not meet with universal appeal. Yes, Robert Whiting, the preeminent American expert on Japanese baseball, tells us that "the Japanese found the one-on-one battle between pitcher and batter similar in psychology to their native sumo and martial arts," and that it "involved split-second timing and a special harmony of mental and physical strength."

However . . .

Whiting also reports that there was much unhappiness about the hold baseball had on the populace. The influential conservative newspaper Asahi Shimbun ran an editorial series "The Evil of Baseball," in which several leading educators registered their objection to the game. One doctor even went so far as to claim that baseball was harmful to the psyche. And this was before anyone knew about Earl Weaver or Lou Piniella.

This man maintained that baseball created "mental pressure."

So?

The angry medical man went a step further, claiming that baseball was physically harmful, as well, leading to "lopsided body development," which, in the case of Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell happened to be the literal truth. Hubbell emerged from his pitching career with a left hand that permanently hung with his palm facing outward, the result of all his signature screwballs.

But the pro-baseball set was very powerful and influential.

One such fellow was newspaper publisher Matsutaro Shokiri, who sponsored a historically important tour of his country by baseball luminaries such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx in 1934. Ruth was nearing the end of his career, but he was still the internationally iconic Bambino. Gehrig was at the absolute peak of his powers and Foxx was just a wee bit on the downside. Just where the American stars were in their careers back home didn't matter to the Japanese. They were honored and thrilled merely to have the three American sluggers set foot on their soil, and it mattered not at all to the Japanese ego that the USA squad won all 17 games.

This was the 1934 baseball equivalent of the 1992 NBA Dream Team, and the direct consequence of their appearance was the establishment of a legitimate professional team, the Great Tokyo baseball club, which was followed, two years later, by the first full-time professional league.

Major league baseball was able to maintain its existence during World War II, but war had a deleterious effect on baseball in Japan. There was no "Green Light Letter," such as FDR gave to baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. There were no deferments, either. Every conceivably able-bodied Japanese man was sent to war, and professional baseball did not resume in Japan until 1950, and did not begin to flourish until five years later, when the authorities figured out how best to utilize television.

Japanese baseball could not have been reborn without the involvement of corporations, and that remains the case today. Long before the routine purchase of American teams by corporate elements, Japanese teams were identified by corporate sponsorships, rather than city tags, which led to some confusion on the part of Americans, who, for example, upon hearing of a team known as the Nippon Ham Fighters, automatically assumed it was the Nippon Ham Fighters, rather than the Nippon Ham Fighters.

American teams began to tour Japan again in the 1950s. The Brooklyn Dodgers and their maligned owner, Walter O'Malley, were, in fact, visionaries, making a postseason trip to Japan in 1956, a year removed from winning the World Series. Japanese baseball had become stereotyped, in the sense that it was assumed the batters were singles hitters with limited power and all the pitchers relied on junk. Even if a Japanese pitcher were to enjoy some success against the Americans, people over here would say, "Well, he throws that slop."

But in 1956, the Dodgers found the competition better than they expected. Fielding a full team, the team that had just gone seven tough games with the New York Yankees went 14-4 against their Japanese competition.

Nine years later, baseball relations between Japan and the US took a step forward when lefthander Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese export to play a full season (1965) in the major leagues, pitching for the San Francisco Giants.

Complex negotiations had allowed him to be brought to the big leagues by the Giants in 1964 at the age of 20, but before he could return to the Giants for the 1965 season, there was a major brouhaha between major league baseball and the Japanese authorities. Murakami joined the Giants with the season in progress, posting numbers of 4-1, 3.75. There was no doubt he was a major league pitcher, but he returned to Japan the following year under what was described as "strong political pressure," finishing with an 85-78, 3.64 career record.

The Dodgers returned to Japan after being swept in the 1966 World Series by the Orioles, and perhaps it was not such a great idea. First, Sandy Koufax had been forced into retirement. Second, neither Don Drysdale nor 20-year-old rookie sensation Don Sutton made the trip. Third, Maury Wills departed after three games. Finally, the Japanese had been working at the game. The Dodgers had great trouble scoring and staggered home with a 9-8-1 record. Clearly, Japanese baseball was better than most Americans had thought.

Now there were Americans who knew better; namely the Yanks who had actually been playing in Japan. As the years progressed, for every American who flourished (Darryl Spencer, Charlie Manuel, Boomer Wells, Leron Lee, Warren Cromartie, Tuffy Rhodes, Joe Stanka, etc.) there would be one who struggled. Some gaijin, as the foreigners were called, couldn't adapt to the culture. Others couldn't adapt to the extraordinary emphasis on practice. And even the successful Americans found that when they did well they were either ignored or simply taken for granted, and when they failed, they were excoriated, or so they claimed.

On the flip side, the Japanese kept getting better. Americans learned about Sadaharu Oh, the all-time international home run king, and Shigeo Nagashima, the superb third baseman. But it wasn't until Hideo Nomo joined the Dodgers in 1995, making him the first significant Japanese player to play in America since Murakami 30 years earlier, that American fans were made to realize how close the countries really were in the game. Nomo went 13-6, led the National League in strikeouts with 236, and was named Rookie of the Year. The toothpaste was out of the tube.

The next big step was taken in 2001 when outfielder Ichiro Suzuki (Call me "Ichiro"), winner of seven Japanese batting titles, came here at age 27 to dazzle every American baseball fan by winning both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards for the Seattle Mariners. And to think some people doubted that any Japanese position player could excel in America.

Hideki Matsui, an enormously popular and successful Japanese outfielder, migrated to the Yankees in 2003 with outstanding results. By now Japanese players are neither a novelty nor a surprise. We've got pitchers, infielders, outfielders, and even an excellent catcher in Seattle's Kenji Johjima.

That brings us to Daisuke Matsuzaka, whose outsized celebrity has more to do with the unimaginable amount of money it cost the Red Sox to get him here than the idea that he could possibly be that good. We already know Japanese stars can play. To which the Japanese fans would simply say, "We told you so."