Social Science Japan Journal Advance Access originally published online on September 19, 2008
Social Science Japan Journal 2008 11(2):223-240; doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyn032
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Social Science Japan Journal 11:223-240 (2008)
© 2008 Oxford University Press
Bushid
Baseball? Three ‘Fathers’ and the Invention of a Tradition
Thomas BLACKWOOD is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo, and the Managing Editor of the Social Science Japan Journal. His research interests include Japanese society, education, popular culture, and youth. He can be reached at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033 Japan, or by e-mail at tsblackwood{at}gmail.com
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 ‘yaky
d
’ (‘the way of baseball’, thought to be a present-day incarnation of bushid, ‘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 bushid 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 Is, 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.
* The research for this paper was made possible thanks to the generous assistance of a US Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship and the Ito Foundation. I would also like to thank four anonymous referees for their helpful feedback.
Editor's Note: This manuscript was accepted for publication before Thomas Blackwood began his appointment as the Managing Editor of the SSJJ in September 2008.