Bushido Baseball? Three 'Fathers' and the Invention of a Tradition

Bibliographic Data

ID15100007
AuthorsT BLACKWOOD (The University of Tokyo, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume11
Issue2
Pages223-240
Publication date2008-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Science Japan Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-1465 • E-ISSN: 1468-2680
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ssjj/jyn032
OpenAlexW1990698383
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited6

Japanese baseball is often presented as an example of an unchanging Japanese ‘national character’, and Japanese baseball players are depicted as contemporary versions of the samurai, living and playing baseball according to a code of ‘yakyūdō’ (‘the way of baseball’, thought to be a present-day incarnation of bushidō, ‘the way of the warrior’) by both Japanese and non-Japanese commentators alike. In this paper, however, I argue that rather than Japanese baseball's ideology and practices being reflective of a unique and unchanging ‘essence’ of Japan, they are the result of specific individuals and institutions interacting under particular historical and social forces. Moreover, although the dominant ideology in Japanese baseball has been couched in the rhetoric of bushidō for over 100 years, it is in fact closer to 19th-century Western notions of amateurism, sportsmanship and chivalrous masculinity than the ethos of samurai of earlier centuries. This is largely due to the efforts of Christian socialist Abe Isō, considered to be both the ‘father of Japanese socialism’ and the ‘father of Japanese baseball’, as well as his students Tobita Suishu and Saeki Tatsuo, known as the ‘father of student baseball’ and the ‘father of high school baseball’, respectively.

Sociology · American Sports and Literature · Japanese History and Culture · Psychology · Sports, Gender, and Society

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