𝗜𝗸𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂: 𝗝𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗻’𝘀 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 野球 The history of baseball in Japan dates back to the early Meiji Era when Horace Wilson, an American professor at Kaisei Gakko (now Tokyo University) first brought the sport to the college level sometime between 1867 and 1873. After years of the sport remaining at the amateur level, the first professional team was founded in 1920 but didn’t last long at all, until the first professional league was founded in 1936. Th