November 2, 1934: The Yankees vs. the Yankees of Japan

Eiji Swamura

November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at the port city of Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This was the 1st time that American major leaguers faced Japanese professionals.

The American "besuboru" players were adored by the Japanese fans, especially "Babu Rusu." But as much as they loved their own players, the natives were under no illusions: No one was surprised when the Americans won 17 out of 18 games.

The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.

The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and in 1947, they became known as the Yomiuri Giants. Unlike in North American sports, where sports teams merely sell the naming rights to their venues to corporations, in Asian sports leagues, corporations buy teams, and name them after themselves. (This has also been done by Red Bull of Austria, buying the New York Red Bulls and the former soccer teams of Salzubrg and Leipzig.) Yomiuri Shumbun started as a newspaper, and has grown to a massive media conglomerate.

The Giants have won 47 Pennants (38 of them in the Central League, including in 2021) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) Giants of the National League, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."

Among the American players on that tour was Moe Berg, a good catcher, and an intellectual from Newark. Dave Harris, a teammate on the Washington Senators, was told that Berg spoke 7 languages, responded, "Yeah, and he can't hit in any of them." He was right: Berg's lifetime batting average was .243.

Moe Berg

But his skill with languages, and with a camera, led the U.S. Department of State to include him on the roster. With the countries not yet at war, but with tensions between them rising, Berg was able, without suspicion, to go onto the rooftops of major buildings in Japan's various cities, and take pictures and home movies. These images aided the U.S. Department of War (which became the Department of Defense in 1947) to pick bombing targets once Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 forced America into World War II.

That war cut Sawamura's career short: He ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship. The Japanese leagues now give the Eiji Sawamura Award to their best pitcher, their equivalent of the Cy Young Award.

Berg last played in the major leagues in 1939, served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner of the CIA), and lived on until 1972.

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November 2, 1934 was a Friday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start until November 8. So there were no scores on this historic day. But Australian tennis legend Ken Rosewall was born on this day.