BANZAI BABE RUTH. Baseball, Espionage, & Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan

Fitts, Robert K.

ISBN 10: 0803229844 / ISBN 13: 9780803229846

Published by University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2012

About this Item

This work is the story of the All American All-Stars on their 18-game tour of Japan in November of 1934. It is an intelligent, well-crafted account of an important period in the history of U.S.-Japan relations. Painstakingly researched, rich in color and detail, it goes beyond baseball, illuminating the social, economic, and political life of a distant era, the impact of which can still be seen today. The book contains photographs, illustrations, a map, a list of recurring Japanese characters, appendices, notes, a bibliography, and an index. This HARDCOVER copy is clean and solid. Price is not clipped.

Seller Inventory # 020224

Bibliographic Details

• Title: BANZAI BABE RUTH. Baseball, Espionage, & Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803229844
• ISBN 13: 9780803229846
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Very Good+
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+

About this title

Synopsis

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan, and spreading goodwill.

Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the amity generated by the tour―and the two nations’ shared love of the game―could help heal their growing political differences. But the Babe and baseball could not overcome Japan’s growing nationalism, as a bloody coup d’état by young army officers and an assassination attempt by the ultranationalist War Gods Society jeopardized the tour’s success. A tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball, Banzai Babe Ruth is the first detailed account of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All American baseball tour. Robert K. Fitts provides a wonderful story about baseball, nationalism, and American and Japanese cultural history.

About the Author

Robert K. Fitts graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received a PhD from Brown University. Originally trained as an archeologist of colonial America, Fitts left that field to focus on his passion, Japanese baseball. He is also the author of Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game and Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball (Nebraska, 2008).