Research Paper on Japanese Baseball

How about a paper on the American players playing in Japan and their history? Warren Cromartie's book is a good source as are the first two Robert Whiting books.

I'd second the idea on gaijin. You can add my stuff on the web, the main page being here [Baseball Guru].

Other pages of interest would be my info links, which give you everything I've written about each player. This is my article on the all-time foreign (i.e. not Japanese) born team.

Jim Albright

If you can't read Japanese, then you'll want to focus on an aspect that you can find information in English on. And the person who had the most influence on post-war Japan that you'll find plenty of information in English on is General MacArthur.

I've read that he wanted to get professional baseball going again after The War to raise morale and put Japan on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I read that, or if it was a reliable source. So you could start off the report as an investigation into that rumor, and if it's true, the significance of using baseball to renew ties bewteen two former foes.

It's just a thought.

The occupation forces were using Koshien Stadium to grow potatoes for a while, and thus the Koshien High School Baseball Tournament was played at Nishinomiya Stadium for a couple of years.

However, it should be noted that the occupation office did play a part in getting Osaka Stadium built.

I'm not sure what kind of condition Meiji Jingu Stadium was in when they reopened it with a pro all star game in 1946. It had been utilized as an anti-aircraft installation during the war by the Japanese military and had the bejesus bombed out of it as a result.