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B E A R I N G S
A Game That Lived In Infamy
As predicted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dec. 7, 1941 was a day that has lived in infamy. Sixty years ago, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into World War II. In the world of sport, it was baseball that felt the greatest shock from the attack. For more than two decades, the baseball establishment had carried on an active campaign to promote the national pastime in Japan, Asia and the rest of the world. During the earlier part of the 20th century, the effort was quite successful, and much was written about the power of baseball to spread the virtues of democracy. In the 1920s, the progress of baseball in Japan was viewed as a sign that the Japanese were proceeding along the highway of civilization. Japanese college teams toured the United States, and U.S. colleges reciprocated. Professional players soon joined the parade of baseball diplomats. In 1931, Lou Gehrig led a group of All Star players overseas and returned to praise the tremendous enthusiasm of Japanese fans. The second big tour took place in 1934, when Babe Ruth and other players were met in Tokyo by 100,000 screaming fans waving American flags. This tour was seen as a great boost to international peace and friendship; Connie Mack, the famous long-time manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, called it “one of the greatest peace measures in the history of nations.” It certainly didn’t appear that the United States and Japan were headed to war. Although this would be the last major league contingent to go to Japan before the war, teams from Harvard and Yale toured the island nation in 1934 and 1935, and the Tokyo Giants came to the United States for spring training in 1936, the year the Japan Professional League was formed. Through it all, writers continued to proclaim that the rise of baseball’s popularity was symbolic of the advance of nations. But by the late “30s, there was little of this sort of thing being written. Instead, attention had turned to Europe, where people who had not experienced the civilizing effects of baseball were headed down the road to war. In 1940, ominous news began to come from Japan. First, radio broadcasts of professional baseball games in Japan ceased. Then, English terminology such as “ball” and ’strike” were eliminated from the game and replaced with corresponding Japanese words. The names of teams such as the Tigers and Senators were also changed. The emperor of Japan was dubbed “Mr. Herohater” by the weekly "bible of baseball," The Sporting News.
Then came the attack on Pearl Harbor. Along with the rest of the nation, the sporting press was appalled. For baseball writers, the news was particularly galling; for almost two decades, many of them had been writing about baseball’s role in improving relations between the United States and Japan. Following the attack, many of them quickly turned to deconstructing the war via baseball.
Several theories were put forward. One line of reasoning suggested that the Japanese never fully had converted to baseball, had never acquired the soul of the game. Americans would never ’stab an “honorable” opponent in the back,” or “crush out his brains with a bat while he is asleep,” wrote J.G. Taylor Spink, the publisher of The Sporting News. For Spink, there were more important lessons to be learned. First, he proclaimed the gift of baseball should be withdrawn from Japan, and more care should be taken in the future when deciding who would receive such a gift. Major league baseball should acknowledge its mistake and announce to the entire world that Japan was unworthy to retain baseball. The revocation should be made retroactive to Dec. 7, when, according to Spink, ‘the Jap agents of Hell treacherously attacked Pearl Harbor.” One New York writer warned the Japanese that they could not beat the United States in War, baseball or marbles, and that they had made a great mistake at Pearl Harbor. “Mr. Tojo will wake up some night with the feeling that he got into this thing with two strikes against him and [pitcher Bob] Feller having one hell of a day,” columnist Dan Daniel wrote. Clearly, the sportswriters saw the attack on Pearl Harbor as a result of some flaw in the Japanese character rather than a failure for baseball. Of course, it was neither. But the point is that an era was passing. The extravagance of claim and the gross naivete would shortly be toned down. Sportswriters would have to "tell it like it is." But on this 60th anniversary, it is interesting to look back on the simpler world of 1941, when sport could be heralded for all that is good in the world. Richard C. Crepeau is a professor of history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He is the author of Baseball: America’s Diamond Mind (click here to purchase). Related Sites |
