Here’s a truth the average American hasn’t done the math on.
“Japan has been playing baseball almost as long as the United States.”
And whatever the fading state of the National Pastime on this side of the Pacific, in Japan, “The National Game” is bigger than ever, drawing huge crowds, creating homegrown stars good enough to dominate America’s game when they join our big leagues.
That 150 year history is the backdrop for a terrific new documentary about baseball and its role in bonding the U.S. and Japan.
Yuriko Gamo Romer’s “Diamond Diplomacy” reminds us of the American Civil War vet turned educator and consultant who brought the game to Japan in the 1870s.
Veteran Japanese and American players, American and Japanese academics and others talk about how baseball connected to Japanese samurai traditions, how baseball is “older than judo,” and was Japan’s first team sport.
Archival footage shows early 20th century Japan and the game the country took to with a fervor almost greater than American baseball mania at its peak. And we hear and see early trips by U.S. teams — including Negro League all-stars treated better in Japan than they were at home — to Japan to play the land of the rising sun’s best.
Julia Ruth Stevens accompanied her dad on a baseball goodwill tour of Japan in the 1930s. Babe Ruth became an instant legend in Japan, and historians recall how flattered The Babe was when that tour was credited with “preventing a war” in the mid-30s. Japanese nationalism had already started what became World War II in Manchuria and relations grew chilly and tense with the rest of the world, particularly in the U.S.
After Pearl Harbor, Stevens tells us of all the souvenirs and mementos of that trip which her father hurled out the windows of their New York apartment.
Romer’s film covers the game’s racist history, how Japanese immigrants were interned during World War II but the kids and adults kept playing baseball. Players were kept from competing for spots on Major Leagure rosters the way African American players were banned. And we hear how General MacArthur, supervising occupied Japan’s peaceful transition and “Westernization,” recognized the game as a healing, fence-mending cure-all as U.S. all-stars were rounded up to tour the country in the late ’40s to boost morale in Japan and ready American acceptance of Japan as an ally.
Masonori Murikami talks about being the first Japanese player to make it into the major leagues, and his disappointment when contracts and obligations made him go home after just a season and a half. The no-contract poaching agreement between MLB and Japanese leagues kept generations of players out of the U.S. until Hideo Nomo worked a loophole to join the Dodgers, and Nomo-mania began.
American baseballer Warren Cromartie was the first MLB player to leave before the peak years of his career to play in Japan, and he brought American style aggressive play to the Japanese league, learned the language and became an icon of Japanese baseball.
And we see the legendary Ichiro Suzuki celebrated for setting the table for just how much a Japanese player could achieve in the North America.
Romer covers a lot of ground in this sometimes touching and even inspiring documentary. About all she misses is Japan’s invitation to participate in the Little League World Series, and its early dominance and ongoing success there.
But as we see a commemorative recreation of the late 19th century first game played between the two countries and marvel at how much baseball has done to bind two very different cultures, “Diamond Diplomacy” makes one appreciate what the game has meant and what the Japanese, at least, still see in it.
There’s a reason poets have paid homage to baseball since Walt Whitman. Perhaps, this film suggests, we should consider what the Japanese see in the ultimate “team” game and how that impacts a culture. What the Japanese embraced Americans seem to have forgotten in our rush off the cliff for all things football.
Rating: unrated
Cast: Warren Cromartie, Ichiro Suzuki, Robert Whiting, Julia Ruth Stevens, Masonori Murikami, Hideo Nomo and Bobby Valentine.
Credits: Directed by Yuriko Gamo Romer. A Flying Crab release.
Running time: 1:26
About Roger Moore
Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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