Negro Leaguers in Japan

First: for decades, the standard story about the rise of professional baseball in Japan has credited a 1934 tour of Japan by major league all stars, including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, for sparking interest in the sport and leading to the first professional league two years later.  But the Japanese baseball historian Kazuo Sayama, in the 1987 Baseball Research Journal, told a somewhat different story. 

He argued that much of the credit should go to Negro League teams that toured Japan in 1920s and 30s, particularly the 1927 Philadelphia Royal Giants, featuring HOFers Biz Mackey and Andy Cooper, along with Rap Dixon and Frank Duncan, among others.

While the 1934 white major league visit has gotten all the attention (and credit), cause-and-effect might actually have been reversed: Sayama noted that the tour was sponsored by the Yomiuri newspaper company, which was already planning to found a professional team (which would become the Giants). So rather than being the catalyst for Japanese pro baseball, maybe it would be more accurately viewed as publicity for a venture that was already in the works.