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On September 9th, 2025, the Young Initiative hosted author and journalist Robert Whiting for a lecture on sports diplomacy and the role of baseball in U.S.-Japan relations. Whiting first began his career in Japan as an analyst for the Air Force, and since then has authored several books on baseball and Japanese culture, including Tokyo Underworld, You Gotta Have Wa and The Samurai way of Baseball. 

Among attendees included Deputy Consul General Yamagata from the Consulate-General of Japan in Los Angeles, and Bill Ireton. Ireton is a Japanese-American media executive whose son Will attended Www�ؿ�50�Ȼ� and played on the baseball team. Will is now the LA Dodgers’ translator for Shohei Ohtani. 

Whiting began his lecture by reflecting on the differences between the Japanese and American styles of gameplay: In the U.S., professional training camps have short days, and the players are focused on their individual abilities. In Japan, training camps are several weeks longer and more grueling, with an emphasis on everyone performing drills in the same manner. These differences highlight broader cultural disparities between the two countries that are evident in the workplace, schools, and politics. 

Whiting moved on to explain the history of baseball in Japan. Baseball in the country dates back to the 1850s, but the sport got its first big boost after a game between Tokyo’s Ichikō high school and an amateur baseball team of American expats in 1896. According to Whiting, the school applied martial arts principles to their baseball training and beat the Americans 29 - 4. This victory, along with later successes by Ichikō high school, helped create a fervor around baseball in Japan: “The real reason I think the Japanese took to baseball was because they beat the Americans.”

In 1934, Babe Ruth and an All-Star team of Americans toured Japan, playing a team of Japanese athletes that later formed the first professional baseball team in Japan. This tour inspired several others after it, and set the stage for the creation of Japan’s first pro league. Following World War II, baseball helped to ease tensions between the US and Japan. In 1949, Francis “Lefty” O’Doul and the San Francisco Seals toured Japan at the behest of General MacArthur to improve the morale of the Japanese people. The tour was a hit, and at the stadium of the first game, “American and Japanese flags were flown together for the first time since the end of the war.”

Since then, minor league baseball teams have toured Japan, and Japanese athletes have come to play for American teams, gaining massive popularity and helping to manage relations between the two nations. The first Japanese player to play in the MLB was Mansouri Murakami, who played for the San Francisco Giants. Despite his short-lived career in the US, his success inspired other Japanese baseball players to sign for US teams. Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Susuki, and more recently, Shohei Ohtani are all recognizable names that inspired “mania” in the US and impacted the American game. 

Whiting explained that the popularity of baseball helped to open up Japan to Western individualism and become more accepting of foreigners in the media and the workplace. One might call it the baseball effect, but “you could also call it the Nomo effect, or the Ichiro effect, or the Ohtani effect,” said Whiting. 

“One moral of the story may be that change may come in unexpected ways. 20 years ago, Japan-hate and Japan-bashing were a common form of expression, but now Americans express their fascination with Japanese manga, anime, fashion, and Hello Kitty.”