Baseball was introduced to Japan in the 1870s by the U.S., and this marked the beginning of a long relationship between the two countries based on the sport. The first international exchange was in 1905, when the Waseda University baseball team traveled to U.S. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig went to Japan in 1934 as members of an All-Star team. Since the end of World War II, Major League Baseball has sent All-Star teams to Japan every other year. For more information about the Japan-U.S. Baseball history, check out “The History of the Baseball Partnership across the Pacific Ocean” by Junya Ishii at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C.

As you might expect, there are some cultural differences between American and Japanese teams. It’s not necessarily about how they play the game. Recently the Nikkan Gendai sports newspaper reported that one major cultural difference is the way the teams treat the dugouts. After one international game, the custodians were shocked to see how dirty the Americans left the dugout. As a baseball fan, I am also surprised about this significant cultural difference. The way the Americans trash their dugouts has become famous in Japan. Japanese fans take photos of the American dugouts as omiyage (souvenirs) of the game. I wonder how Japanese players in the MLB teams are surviving in the messy American dugouts.