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Katsuke Nagasaki’s
breath billowed as he wound his way through Tokyo’s narrow, crooked
streets. The morning of February 22, 1935, was chilly. But that
was good—part of the plan. Nobody would look twice at his bulky
overcoat.
His neighbors in
working-class Okachimachi rose early. Men and women dressed in
padded traditional jackets called hanten were sweeping the
sidewalks before their small wooden houses and discount shops.
Others were hauling display tables stacked with ceramic teapots and
dishes, small kitchen appliances, or crispy rice crackers called
sembei out from their cluttered one-room shops to the narrow
sidewalks. Above the street, women leaned out of second-story
windows, beating their colorful futons with wooden paddles to
cleanse them of musty night smells before airing them out on the
window sills.
As the
thirty-year-old Nagasaki reached the wealthier Ginza neighborhood,
the streets became wider and cleaner. Delivery men glided by on
heavy black bicycles piled with crates of beer and sake bottles for
the area’s many bars, fresh fish from the still-under construction
Tsukiji market, and bundles of wrapped cloth for the dress shops.
Occasionally, an aging black truck lumbered down the larger
streets. As the depression had deepened, trucks and gasoline
became too expensive for all but the most prosperous businesses.
Besides, the Imperial Army had requisitioned most of the fuel.
Japan had several hundred thousand troops deployed in Manchuria as
well as the standing armies in the colonies of Korea and Formosa.
Nagasaki had not
joined the army. There were better ways for a man of his skills to
serve the Emperor. He practiced his swordsmanship each day and
eked out a living by instructing others in this ancient art. He
also taught the newer form of self-defense known as jujitsu.
Some of his students shared his political views and he had
introduced a select few to his fellow members of Bushinkai
(The War Gods Society). The group was small; not well known like
the Black Dragon Society, which had agents across Asia and ties to
members of parliament, but it was dedicated and after today would
receive the recognition it deserved.
Soon the three-story
concrete Yomiuri Newspaper building loomed ahead. The sidewalks
became crowded as men in suits and fedoras rushed to work at the
newspaper and the nearby offices. In a three-piece brown suit and
dark tie peaking out from beneath his overcoat, Nagasaki blended
into the crowd. He had an intelligent, pleasant long face with a
high forehead and neatly trimmed thin mustache.
At 8:40 A.M. a black
sedan cruised down the street. Nagasaki slipped into the shadows as
it halted in front of the newspaper building. A short, balding man
with black-framed, coke-bottle thick glasses emerged from the auto.
The man did not seem imposing, but Nagasaki knew that Matsutaro
Shoriki should not be underestimated. The newspaper’s owner was a
judo master and uncommonly brave. As a young police inspector, he
had single-handedly quelled angry mobs during the Tokyo riots of
1918 and ‘20. As Shoriki said good morning to the doorman and began
to climb the stairs into the building, Nagasaki strode forward. It
was Nagasaki’s only chance. He drew his short samurai sword from
beneath his coat and the gleaming blade flashed through the air
striking Shoriki’s head. As his target collapsed, the assassin
fled, leaving Shoriki prostrate in a pool of blood.
The doorman and an
office boy rushed the judo master to the newspaper’s infirmary,
where he remained unconscious for five hours. Shoriki would spend
the next 50 days in a hospital but survived to create a media empire
before dying of old age in 1969.
Later that day,
Nagasaki walked into a local police station and gave a detailed
confession. The primary reason for the assassination: Shoriki had
defiled the memory of Emperor Meiji by allowing Babe Ruth and his
team of American all stars to play in the stadium named in the
ruler’s honor.
| Three months earlier, nearly 500,000 Japanese had lined
the streets of Ginza on November 2, 1934 to welcome the
American ballplayers as a motorcade took them from Tokyo
Station to the Imperial Hotel. Ruth and his teammates
stayed in Japan for a month, playing 18 exhibition games
against Japanese opponents in 12 cities. But there was more
at stake than sport. Japan and the United States were
slipping towards war as the two nations vied for control
over China and naval supremacy in the Pacific. Politicians
on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the goodwill
generated by the tour and the two nations’ shared love of
the game could help heal their growing political
differences. Many observers, therefore, considered the all
stars’ joyous reception significant. The New York Times,
for example, wrote: “The Babe’s big bulk today blotted out
such unimportant things as international squabbles over oil
and navies.” Connie Mack added that the tour was “one of
the greatest peace measures in the history of nations.” But
the shared love for a sport would not be enough to overcome
Japan’s growing nationalism and fanatical groups’, such as
Katsuke Nagasaki’s Bushinkai, desire for war. |
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Banzai Babe Ruth!:
Baseball Diplomacy and Fanaticism in Imperial Japan is the story
of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan
though the tour of Major League all stars in 1934, and the efforts
of Nagasaki’s War Gods Society to drive the nations apart.
The story contains international diplomacy, espionage, attempted
murder and, of course, baseball. It will follow some of baseball’s
most colorful personalities as they toured the then exotic Orient
and will introduce to English-speaking fans the Japanese stars, such
as ace pitcher Eiji Sawamura, who played against the Americans in
friendship but died in the jungles of the South Pacific as their
bitter enemies. It will follow Moe Berg’s forays into espionage;
the ultra-nationalist War Gods Society attempt to decapitate tour
organizer Matsutaro Shoriki; and the birth of Japanese professional
baseball. It will introduce the lesser-known tales of Victor
Starffin, the Russian immigrant and player for Japan whose father
was a convicted murderer; and Jimmy Horio, a Japanese-American who
played for the All Nippon team in an effort to gain a Major League
contract. It is a true tale of how two groups of men from different
cultures, temporarily united by their love for baseball, were drawn
apart as their countries rushed towards war. Some of these
friendships, however, endured the conflict and later played an
important role in reconciling to two nations. The
1934 All American tour of Japan was more than just a series of
exhibition baseball games. It was an event that changed lives and
influenced history.
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