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Baseball came to Japan in the 1870s when Horace Wilson, a
teacher at Kaisei Gakko in Tokyo, introduced the game to his
students in 1872 and Hiroshi Hiraoka, an engineer for the
national railways, returned from studying in American and
organized the Shimbashi Athletic Club in 1878. The game
quickly spread and soon kimono and geta clan young men could
be seen batting balls throughout Tokyo. By the end of the
nineteenth century, high school and college teams existed
across Japan.
There is just one known nineteenth-century Japanese baseball
card. It is a round menko dating to 1897. Casting or
flipping menko is a game that dates from the Edo period when
the pieces were made from clay, wood or metal. There are a
variety of different menko games but in the most basic,
players attempt to flip over their opponent’s menko by
tossing their own menko at one lying on the playing field.
During the Meiji period (1868-1912) cardboard menko
gradually became the dominant type. These early menko often
depicted historical figures, military heroes, government
officials, and generic objects such as trains, flags, and
animals. Sports figures were rare although several
nineteenth century sumo menko sets survive. The only
identified baseball menko from this period depicts a generic
player in a quitted uniform catching a ball barehanded.
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Meiji-era boys playing menko |
The
first known Japanese baseball card |
By the turn of the century baseball had become the most
popular high school and collegiate sport with thousands of
fans watching games between rival Waseda and Keio
Universities. Within a couple of decades, leagues were
created to crown national champions. In 1915 the Asahi
newspaper created the
National Secondary School Baseball Championship, know known
as summer Koshien. Nine years later, the Mainichi newspaper
created a spring tournament known as the National Secondary
School Baseball Invitational Tournament. In 1925, the top
university teams in Tokyo formed the Tokyo Big Six Baseball
League which remained
the pinnacle of Japanese baseball until the creation of a
stable professional league in 1935.
Shortly after the turn of the century,
college and high school teams began issuing black and white
or sepia tone postcards. Postcards remained the most
prevalent form of Japanese baseball card until the
mid-1920s. These cards were often sold as sets in paper
envelopes and depicted team pictures, star players, and
action shots from important games. Postcard sets were also
produced for the 16 American collegiate and 5 professional
teams that toured the Land of the Rising Sun between 1905
and 1929.
By the 1920s, baseball menko became more
common. Menko from the twenties and thirties took four
forms. The first were the traditional round menko, usually
measuring one or two inches in diameter with a color drawing
of a player on front and a blank cardboard back. The second
were rectangular menko. These were usually about an inch
wide and 1 ˝ to 2 inches tall with a color drawing on the
front and a two-tone image on the reverse. The reverse
image could be nearly anything—scoreboards, animals,
trophies, baseball equipment were all common. Baseball
statistics or biographical details of the depicted player
were rarely, if ever, placed on the reverse. Some companies
elongated their rectangular menko until they became 3 or 4
inches long while maintaining a width of about an inch.
These are now known as oblong or bookmark menko and highly
sought after by collectors. The forth type of menko are
neither circular nor rectangular but are cut to the shape of
their depicted image. These are known as die cut menko.
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ca.1930 menko |
Shotaro Ogawa
ca. 1920 |
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ca.1930
Bookmark Menko |
Univ. of Washington menko
ca. 1921 |
Yutaka Ikeda
Die cut menko |
1929 Nichieido Seika
Bookmark Menko |
Bromides, mass-produced collectible photographs printed on photo
paper with blank backs, also became common in the late
1920s. These cards usually depict popular college stars or
visiting American players. They vary in size from 1 by 1
1/2 inches to postcard-size cards. Pre-War bromides were
usually printed in black and white, or sepia tone, rather
than color. Bromides rarely have writing on their backs
and like most vintage Japanese cards are unnumbered. As
bromides were often pasted into scrapbooks, slight glue
residue or paper remains are commonly found on the cards'
backs.
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1931 Yuasa Bromide
Lou Gehrig |
1930 JBR32 Bromide
Shigeo Mizuhara |
1934 tour bromide
Babe Ruth |
1930 JBR 32
Shotaro Ogawa |
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ca1930 Undogaho Bromide
Wrapper |
ca 1930
Undogaho Bromide |
1934 tour bromide
Connie Mack |
ca
1930
Nobuo Kura bromide
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Closely related to bromides are furoku—magazine
inserts often printed on thin glossy paper. These inserts
could be game cards, collectible cards, or pinups. During
the pre-war period, pinups, measuring up to 9 by 12 inches,
seem to be the most common furoku.
In 1934, the Yomiuri newspaper sponsored a Major League tour
that would change Japanese baseball. The All Americans
formed one of the strongest teams in the history of
baseball. Led by Babe Ruth, the roster included Lou Gehrig,
Jimmie Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, Earl Averill, Lefty Gomez,
Lefty O’Doul and Moe Berg. To challenge this formidable
opponent, Yomiuri owner Matsutaro Shoriki bought together
Japan's most talented players. Although the team contained
eleven future Japanese Hall of Famers, they lost all 18
contests by a combined score of 189 to 39. Unlike previous
Japanese all-star teams, which played just a few games
against touring opponents before disbanding, Shoriki decided
to keep the team together as professionals. Following in
the Giants' footsteps, other Japanese professional teams
were formed and a series of professional tournaments were
played in 1936. In 1937, eight teams joined the Japan
Professional Baseball League and played the first full
season of Japanese pro ball. The widely popular league
continued until play was suspended in 1944 due to Allied air
raids.
But unfortunately for collectors there are only a handful of
pre-war cards of professional Japanese players. Shortly
after the creation of the Nippon Professional Baseball
League, Japan invaded China and initiated a series of events
that would lead to World War II. Shortages of materials
during these wars seem to have curtailed baseball card
production. Thus, there are no known contemporary baseball
cards of Japan’s famous pitcher Eiji Sawamura, who played
from 1936 until his death in 1944.
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