American Valor Quarterly Issue 11 - Fall 2014 | Page 9

professional league continued to
play until August 1944. Just as in the
United States, the game served as a
major morale booster to civilians and
servicemen, and despite being at war
with the nation that introduced them
to baseball, the Japanese people could
not curb their insatiable appetite for the
game.
“Professional teams such as Kyojin
(Tokyo) and the Hanshin (Osaka)
Tigers played 80-plus games a season
between 1940 and 1943. However, the
draw on manpower reduced teams to
a 35-game season in 1944, playing one
game every four days. By 1945 nearly all
professional players from Japan’s eight
teams were in military service and 69
of them were killed, including national
superstars Eiji Sawamura and Shinichi
Ishimaru.”
Not only were the Japanese
passionate fans of their own teams, they
followed the American game closely
as well and many American baseball
stars such as Babe Ruth and
Lou Gehrig toured Japan and
received wildly enthusiastic
receptions.

ballparks where they
faced a tough year of
readjustment. Even
those who went on to
great success had lost
several years of prime
playing time.
A Seattle computer
specialist, Ralph
Winnie, did an analysis
of the data on the
major leagues and
published a projection
of what their stats
would have been if
they had not served
during the war.
Bill Gilbert in his
book, They Also
Served, summed up
the findings:
“Winne discovered
that (Ted) Williams
would have become
the