Uniforms

Hi, I'm the Captain's friend who's searching for this information. I just wanted to give everyone a little more background and share my (meager) findings thus far.

So to begin with, I'm a researcher working with a writer, David Feldman, who writes books called "Imponderables." In these, he attempts to answer questions from readers about everyday mysteries. The question I'm currently working on is "Why do Japanese baseball uniforms have the name of the team and the player's last name in English (or at least in Roman characters)?"

In "You Gotta Have Wa," Robert Whiting tells of the Dai Nippon club touring the U.S. in 1935, and says, "[The players were] wearing uniforms with numbers written in Chinese characters, they confused Americans trying to keep score. Their lengthy name was also so difficult for their hosts to master that Shoriki changed it to the Tokyo Giants, after the National League team from New York."

According to the baseball-almanac (Numbers and Names), the first numbers were put on jerseys in the majors in 1916, and didn't catch on at all, until the Yankees adopted the big, bold numbers on the backs of uniforms in 1929. Names on uniforms apparently came much later, in 1960, when the White Sox put names of players on their uniforms.

My understanding is that the first Japanese professional league came to be in 1936, so my guess is that they had numbers on their jerseys the whole time. But were the numbers in Roman characters or Chinese? Mr. Whiting didn't say.

And none of this, of course, sheds any light on the question of why the player names and team names are in English.

So... does anybody here have any speculation at all? Has anybody ever seen pro uniforms with team and/or player names in Chinese or Japanese characters? What about amateur/college/high school unis?

Any thoughts at all on the topic would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

This is a very interesting question. My personal guess would be the same as the one the Captain mentioned, to look like the Majors. Another interesting question would be, why did Taiwan and Korea put their names in Kanji and Hangul?

Nonetheless, I do have a lead. There is a weekly column in Shukan Baseball called "Uniform Monogatari" ("The Uniform Story") written by Tsunashima Ritomo (family name first). While the "Uniform Monogatari" page isn't one that I save (I just save Chiba-san's articles and the cross-word lately), Tsunashima-san does have a home page, complete with the ShuBe articles. Click "Uniform Story" in the left-hand frame to view some of the old uniforms.

At the very bottom of the "Top" page is an e-mail address. If anyone knows the story about uniforms, I'd say that Tsunashima-san is the man. Looking around his site, I see some things in English, so a translator may not be necessary. If language is a problem, I'm sure the Captain can find a way to pry the information you want out of him at a local bar.

I don't suppose you can post a rough draft of your findings?

Hope this helps.

Westbaystars, thanks for that tip. I'm on the case now. Will post a synopsis when it is all finished.

Captain

My apologies for the lateness of this. The following reads a bit like a story. Though a tad rough, it is understandable, yet in the end truly lacks an answer to the question raised.

By Ritomo Tsunashima.

There are a couple of theories about where baseball began in Japan. But the most common origin is at Kaisei School at Hitotsubashi (today Tokyo University). An American, Mr. Horace Wilson, who was a teacher at the school, taught students how to play. The students were very likely wearing kimono and hakama (trousers for kimono).

In 1878, the first baseball team in Japan was at the Shinbashi Athletic Club, and they were also the first team to wear a uniform. The club was established by Mr. Hiroshi Hiraoka who was brought up in Boston, MA. He brought the balls, bats, uniforms, exactly in the same style as the ones used in the USA in those days, to Japan.

The export and import of goods and customs was quite frequent and familiar between Japan and the U.S., so any changes in the U.S. were directly reflected in the baseball playing in Japan. This was how Japanese baseball developed. The players of baseball were fans of the western style of life and they were fond of western culture.

When the appearance of alphabet letters on uniforms exactly is unknown, but likely it was a short time after alphabet letters appeared on uniforms in the U.S.

The first professional baseball team was established in 1921 and had a stadium in Urayasu, but it was disbanded in 1929. This team had their uniforms printed with letters.

In 1934, a U.S. All-Star team (including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Lefty Grove) came to Japan. Japan built up a team to play with them. In the following year, this team went to the U.S. Uniforms worn at this time included kanji numbers on the backs. Kanji for "Nippon" could also be seen. They played against all Pacific Coast League teams and won 6 of 21 games. There's also a little story: Americans who saw the games often asked, "What are the plus and minus symbols on their backs?"

This was the first time the Japanese went to the U.S. to play baseball and tried to make their uniforms very Japanese. But the kanji numbers on their backs was for this one time only. Mr. Frank O'Doul, who looked after the Great Nippon Tokyo Baseball Club, named this team the Tokyo Giants. This team later became the Yomiuri Giants.

In 1936, the Japanese Professional baseball league started and the Tokyo Giants appeared with the uniform reading "Giants" in alphabet letters and Arabic numbers on their backs.

Kanji characters appeared on uniforms in 1940 during WWII. Professional Baseball officials decided to use the Japanese language in baseball games. As a result, western names for the team name were forbidden and instead Japanese names were used. On the front, kanji was used instead of alphabet letters.

Professional baseball continued during the bomb raids by the U.S., and uniforms became army-style in 1943, with playing baseball finally being forbidden in 1944.

After WWII professional baseball started again with alphabet letters and never after used kanji letters on uniforms.

Other than professional teams, we cannot forget about high school baseball, in which kanji are used on their uniforms, as well as alphabet for many teams. Most likely, kanji uniforms were used before WWII, but there is no evidence for that. We can also say most high schools attending the Koshien National High School Baseball Tournament before WWII were fond of the western style and most likely were using alphabet letters on their uniforms. But schools attending the baseball tournament after WWII disagreed with the western style, maintaining a conservative, Japanese style.

I always figured it was because it was easier (and cheaper) to have 26 iron-on (or is it stitch-on) decals, then the 100s (even 1,000s) that would be needed to properly write each players' name. Although that's just my theory.

My favorite uniforms were the Hankyu Braves of 1984-88 and the Kintetsu Buffaloes uniforms of the 1980s. BTW, when did Kintetsu wear those red, midnight-blue, and white combo?

This happens everywhere in Japan. Name of products, band names, etc., etc. Everything in Romaji. Japan is infatuated with so called Japanlish. Next time when you go to Japan, go to the supermarket and look at the product names. Also, go visit Shibuya or Shinjuku. Japanlish nonsense everywhere. As a Japanese person, I have been embarassed with this for a long time.

In contrast to the Chinese who really take pride in their culture and convert everything in sight into Kanji, Japanese think it's cool to use English, even though most of the time they don't really understand what it really means.

Very true. Yes. It has embarassed me, too. This is one of the reasons I don't like the Giants' "ouen." They just take things from the MLB (e.g. "Lets go Giants").

Well, don't be that embarassed. When I was studying in Okinawa, I went to the "Orion Fest" (beer festival) and there was a U.S. Marine there with "Chikan" tattoed in giant red letters across his chest. =) I'm pretty sure he didn't know what that meant either.

Now back in America I've noticed that this is the new in thing for tattoos. I would venture to say that about 50% of these so called "Kanji" tattoos are written wrong. Many have the stroke order/direction wrong. In some of the extreme cases they are upside down, or written so poorly it looks as if a 4 year old (or I) have written them. Quite often people do not even know what is written on them.

While some of the English on Japanese products, commercials, or T-Shirts may be a little odd or silly, at least you are not getting them permanently tattooed on your bodies. So just sit back drink a Pocari Sweat, listen to the latest HalCali single and have a good laugh. Because that is more or less what I do when I see those tattoos.

Is there a book covering Japanese baseball uniforms? If not, what's the closest thing I can find to that?

Another thing occured to me about the uniform names, and that is that Kanji usually have more than one possible reading, and some Japanese have unusual names with unusual Kanji, so it might not always be easy for even the Japanese themselves to read certain names. Or, other common names can be read multiple ways, like Nakata and Nakada or Kaneda and Kanada, which respectively use the same Kanji. In most application forms for example, there are entry spaces for the name in both Kanji and Kana (the phonetic alphabet) because even Japanese cannot always say for certain how a certain name should be pronounced just by looking at the Kanji alone. Romaji (Japanese written using Roman Letters) however can be read by all Japanese and it makes it clear how to pronounce the name.

The closest thing that I found to a uniform book was a Baseball Magazine quarterly edition a couple of years ago with some of the history of the Japanese professional uniforms. It shows a funny picture of the 1973 Nittaku Home Flyers, the one season that the team was known by that name. Now they are the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters - it is still tough saying that!

Anyways, the 1973 Flyers had seven, yes that is correct, seven uniforms for a half season. Sadly to say, the company gave up team to Nippon Ham after that one season. Maybe they should have spent the money on players? [Link to photos]

As for the numbers, this is just my opinion, but the numbers could have possibly corresponded with the position that they were playing in the scorebook. 1, pitcher to 9, right field. If you look at the kids in the koshien tournament, their uniform numbers aren't that high. Just a guess.