More and more, Japanese baseball players are making their way to the US Major Leagues. When did the first Japanese baseball team play in the US ?

The first Japanese baseball team to play in the U.S. major leagues was in 1905.


here is a bit of history.

the Issei (Japanese immigrants) started their own teams shortly after settling in the US In 1899, the first known Japanese American team - the Excelsiors - was organized in Honolulu. Within a decade, many more teams were formed across the islands and highly competitive leagues developed. Mirroring the ethnic divisions in Hawaiian society, these leagues formed along ethnic lines, with Japanese American teams competing against Chinese American, Portuguese, Hawaiian, and haole teams.

The earliest known mainland Japanese American baseball team is the San Francisco Fujii club, a team of Issei players which formed in 1903, the first year of the modern World Series. Other cities across the US with large Japanese American populations also developed Issei teams around this time. Seattle, Los Angeles and Honolulu, for instance, all had teams by 1905 and organized leagues by 1910.

[This message was edited by koicarp on 08-02-03 at 09:43 AM.]

Very good, Koi ! Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872, and became popular quickly there, according to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.