Time Machine: Nichibei Yakyu tours helped foster goodwill between U.S. and Japan

This story originally ran in the Japanese newspaper Yukan Fuji in 2018.

TOKYO — The fall 2018 visit to Japan by Major League All-Stars — the first since 2014 — is followed on the calendar by the arrival of the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners in Tokyo to play Opening Day 2019. Such events have become routine in Japan these days, but it might be a good time to stop and consider the long and important history such visits have had in bringing Japan and the United States closer together. 

The 2018 MLB visit marked the 38^th such tour with all but a solitary visit by the San Francisco Giants in March of 1970 played in the preseason. The A’s-Mariners 2019 opening two-game series will be the fifth such event in Japan, dating back to the New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs in 2000. 

The very first American squad to visit Japan was the Reach All-Americans, a team of mostly major league reserves and Pacific Coast League players, who toured Japan in 1908, a time when baseball already had a history of more than three decades in Japan and was popular on a high school and college level.