Baldacci visits Japan’s baseball museum

TOKYO – On the afternoon of Japan’s final World Series game, a small group of Maine officials toured the country’s Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in honor of Maine native Horace Wilson, who brought baseball to Japan in 1872.

“If it wasn’t for Horace Wilson, we would not have Daisuke Matsuzaka,” Gov. John Baldacci said Thursday, referring to the famous Red Sox starting pitcher. The museum is located inside the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium.

Baldacci, Maine Economic and Community Development Commissioner John Richardson, Maine Office of Tourism Deputy Director Carolann Ouellette and Maine International Trade Center staff members Janine Bisaillon-Cary and Wade Merritt toured the facility and admired its exhibits, a few of which recognized U.S. contributions to Japanese baseball.

A relief sculpture and photograph of Wilson are in the museum, as well as a brief history of his efforts to introduce baseball to Japan. Wilson was from Gorham and came to Japan to teach at Tokyo’s Ichiban Chugaku, the First Higher School of Tokyo, which later became Tokyo University. One day he decided to take his students outside for exercise and ended up teaching them how to play baseball, according to the museum’s description.

There have been reports that baseball also was introduced by American teachers at other schools in Tokyo and Kumamoto, Japan, and by Americans at foreign settlements in Yokohama and Kobe, according to the museum, but details of those reports have yet to be investigated.

“We say thank you to the American people and the Wilson family because baseball is our most loving sport,” said Miwako Atarashi, curator of the museum.

The museum had several rooms of baseball uniforms, shoes, bats, sculptures and other mementos of famous Japanese baseball teams. A few American players also were recognized. A bat belonging to Jackie Robinson was on display. The story behind it was that in the 1950s or ’60s, Robinson visited Japan and broke a bat while playing baseball. He gave the bat to a young Japanese boy, who donated it to the museum nine years ago.

Baldacci signed a baseball for the museum and gave its president, Fumio Kobayashi, several Portland Sea Dogs pennants and caps. In return, the museum gave Baldacci a scrapbook of information about Horace Wilson and the history of baseball in Japan.

“Baseball is a good way to keep good relations between U.S. and Japan,” Atarashi said.