Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/428

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AMERICA'S NATIONAL GAME

throughout the Empire, wherever there are boys and men who can take time for such a sport. It must be remembered that conditions in Japan are not favorable to the enjoyment of field sports by the masses. Who may say that in years to come Base Ball may not have liberated multitudes of the youth of that land from their conventional thralldom?

Several years ago students of the leading universities of the Japanese Empire adopted Base Ball as their most popular form of outdoor pastime. The Keio University and the Waseda Imperial University both organized strong teams and have played frequent matches, attracting thousands of highly interested and enthusiastic witnesses.

Twice, at least, teams from Waseda University have visited America.

Writing for Sporting Life, R. S. Ransom describes an interesting game played at Los Angeles, in 1905, between the Waseda University team and a nine composed of American Indians from the Sherman Government, Institute, California:

The meeting of the little brown men from the realms of the Mikado and the red men from Sherman Institute at Fiesta Park in this city. May 20, under the management of Walter Hempel, marked an epoch in the history of Our national game which is deserving of more than passing mention in the columns of America's greatest Base Ball paper. For the first time a Base Ball game was played by teams whose players were from two races that have adopted a sport heretofore distinctively that of the white man. And victory rested with the men from across the sea because of their all-around superiority in every department of the game, coupled with the steadiness and excellence of Kono's masterly work in the pitcher's box. This young man is a marvel, and his work a revelation to our twirlers, who consider themselves overworked, if called on to pitch