著者

西原 茂樹

出版者

スポーツ史学会

雑誌

スポーツ史研究 (ISSN:09151273)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.19, pp.1-18, 2006

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This paper sets out to review the earliest Japan-US intercollegiate baseball games heldby newspapers based in Tokyo and Osaka in around 1910, and thereby to clarify the actualsituations in the beginning of baseball games as media events in Japan. The following fourviewpoints could be pointed out as a result of studies in this paper.(1) The baseball games as media events in Japan couldn't have been taken place until newspaper management policy changed course for thinking more and more seriously of business and advertisement activities or holding various events in the beginning of the 20th century.(2) The first large-scale Japan-US intercollegiate baseball games were held by the Jiji Shinpo in Tokyo, and the Osaka Asahi and the Osaka Mainichi in Osaka. The following several differencies were noticed among them. @The games held by the Jiji Shinpo were independent events of baseball games, on the other hand those by the Osaka Asahi and the Osaka Mainichi were held with various related events. @The Jiji Shinpo's reports on its events were meant for readers who were familiar with baseball to some extent, but reports by the Osaka Asahi and the Osaka Mainichi were also meant for those who were just un- familiar with such baseball. @The former held its,events on the college sports ground, but the latter on the sports grounds owned by private railway companies in Kansai area.(3) In the background of these differences, it seems to reflect that there were some notice- able differences of readership among these newspapers, and differences between Tokyo and Osaka in economic environment seen particularly in a rapid economic leap of newspapers and a rapid development of a network of private railway lines.(4) In holding these Japan-US intercollegiate baseball games, the Jiji Shinpo and the Osaka Mainichi asserted repeatedly that baseball (sports) have diverse educational values. It seems that these assertions were maintained not as a mere theory but a firm objection to those who tried to insist that baseball was of little or no value(mainly those engaged in schoolteaching) , against the background of social environment in those days that various ill and harmful effects would arise by the absorption of students into baseball, and what's more, such ideologies as martial arts were much superior to baseball circulated among the public to some extent.