Baseball arrived in Japan as a classroom exercise in the Meiji era. A hundred and fifty years later it's the country's most popular sport — and the only one with its own summer ritual.
1872: A teacher, a chalkboard, a game
In 1872, Horace Wilson, an American English professor teaching at Kaisei Academy in Tokyo, introduced his students to baseball. A few years later, in 1878, railway engineer Hiroshi Hiraoka — who had picked up the game while studying in the United States and was a devoted Boston Red Sox fan — founded the Shimbashi Athletic Club, the first Japanese baseball team. The kanji chosen for the sport were 野球 (yakyū), meaning "field ball."
1896: The first international game
On March 23, 1896, the Ichikō (First Higher School) team beat an American side from the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club 29-4 — the first recorded international baseball game in Asia. The result made national news and turned a foreign import into a Japanese pursuit. University baseball, particularly the Waseda-Keio rivalry, drove the sport's growth for the next four decades.
1934: Babe Ruth comes to town
In 1934, media mogul Matsutarō Shōriki assembled an all-star club that faced an American touring team featuring Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Gomez. The tour drew enormous crowds and convinced Shōriki to turn his club professional. That club became the Yomiuri Giants — still the most successful team in Japanese baseball. In 1936, the first professional league was founded with seven teams; the first full season followed in 1937.
1950: NPB is born
Play was suspended during the war and resumed in 1946. In 1950, the league reorganized into two circuits — the Central League and the Pacific League — under the name Nippon Professional Baseball. The first Japan Series that year was won by the Mainichi Orions, four games to two. Throughout the 1950s the Giants dominated, and in 1965 they began a run of nine straight Japan Series titles, powered by the "ON Cannon" — Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh.
1964: The door opens
In 1964, left-hander Masanori Murakami moved to the San Francisco Giants, becoming the first Japanese player in MLB. A contract dispute followed, leading to a 1967 agreement that effectively closed the door for three decades. It stayed shut until 1995, when Hideo Nomo found a loophole and joined the Dodgers — sparking "Nomomania" and, in time, a pipeline that now runs both ways.
The modern era
The 2000s brought Ichiro, Matsui and Darvish to America; the 2020s brought Shohei Ohtani to the very top of the sport. At home, the game kept evolving: a playoff format added drama to the pennant race, mascots became local celebrities, and baseball anime carried the culture overseas. In 2022, Munetaka Murakami hit 56 home runs to break the Japanese-born record, and Roki Sasaki threw a perfect game.
An American classroom exercise became Japan's summer language.
Where to start
New to the sport? Our NPB primer explains the leagues and the season, the team directory covers all 12 clubs, and the Koshien guide explains the tournament that started it all.