Baseball is generally considered a quintessentially American game. It is colloquially referred to as “America’s Pastime,” and over the last 150 years has become entirely 
enmeshed in American culture. Countless songs, movies, television shows, and books have been created about baseball and playing Little League baseball is almost a mandatory experience for young boys growing up in the US. In recent decades, however, baseball has experienced unprecedented international growth. Professionals in the American Major Leagues now hail from all corners of the world. The Little League World Series draws teams from Asia, Europe, South and Central America, Australia, and most recently even Africa. In fact, baseball has become the most popular sport in many Asian countries and is second only to soccer in most of the Latin world. However, since the very beginning of colonization hundreds of years ago, Western cultural practices have been important tools for “Westernizing” the places that they travel to. Even today, typically Western cultural facets like McDonalds and General Electric are credited with spreading Western ideals to decidedly non-Western places. So, the question begs, when baseball spreads to new places, as it has been wont to do in the last few decades, does baseball “Americanize” the place it goes to or do the people there make it their own and thereby “globalize” the game?
Other than the United States, the country with the most devoted baseball following is undoubtedly Japan. Like in the US, baseball in Japan is played by children at play and in schools. Also like the US, many Japanese colleges and universities field teams and compete amongst themselves. The most prominent form of baseball in the country, however, is the Nippon Professional Baseball league. The NPB was formed in 1950 and is made up of 12 teams. Like professional baseball in the US, it is made up of the best available players and is followed by huge throngs of devoted fans. However, that is where commonalities between baseball in America and Japan stop. The sport is a national obsession in Japan to a far greater extent than in the US. Successful NPB players are exalted as heroes and foreign players that play in the league are also incredibly popular.
In their great love for the game, the Japanese have conformed baseball to their culture, both on and off the field. In the US, at the professional level, practice is generally not a major part of the typical schedule. In Japan this is not the case. Despite playing as many as 140 games a season, Japanese professional teams devote hours a day to honing their craft in incredibly well organized practices. For foreigners, this, in addition to the very different actual ball and skewed field dimensions in Japan, can be quite an adjustment.
The fan experience in Japan is also very different. Whereas in the US, all fans are intermingled, in Japan, fans of the road teams sit separately. Thousands of people attend every game but unlike in the US, hot dogs and hamburgers are not part of the game day experience. More traditional Japanese foods such as fish and beef are much more common sights. In addition, every team has their own fight song that the crowd delights in singing at various intervals during the game. It is also obvious to foreign players that Japanese crowds are much more involved in and knowledgeable about the game than typical American fans. Without a doubt, the Japanese have co-opted baseball and made it their own. They respect the American game but they do not try to emulate it.
Baseball has also recently gained popularity in Europe. It is by no means, however, one of the major sports there. Baseball is not often played in schools and there is no European professional league, though each country generally has a national team that competes against a wide variety of opponents. European baseball looks very different from Japanese. Attendance at games is a fraction of what it is elsewhere and Europeans have not embraced baseball nearly to the extent that the Japanese and Americans have. As of a consequence of this, baseball in Europe has remained relatively unchanged and is nearly identical to the American version.
It seems that the answer to the question of whether baseball abroad “Americanizes” or is “globalized” is less than straightforward. It depends a lot on the culture to which baseball travels and that place’s acceptance of the sport. The more whole-heartedly a country or culture accepts the game, the more it alters it to accommodate its own needs or customs. For whatever reason (and theories abound), the Japanese have taken to the sport a lot more than Europeans and have integrated it into their culture to a far greater degree. They play with a unique style and have new and different philosophies about what makes a good baseball player or a wining team. Also, the Japanese public has embraced the players in a fashion unheard of in Europe and transformed the games into uniquely Japanese events. Likewise, baseball games in Latin countries only vaguely resemble games in the US or Japan.
The beauty of baseball is that appeals differently to different people and can be played in a variety of different ways. The American game is quick but precise and powerful, the Latin game is very fast and offense heavy and, the Asian game is slower and more rooted in selfless, mechanically and fundamentally sound play. Each version has its merits and the diverse collection of people in the Major Leagues makes for a fascinating combination of all three styles; styles that would not exist unless each culture had taken baseball and adopted it, conforming it to their own cultural values and skill sets. The American game, which is the pinnacle of baseball competition as it’s played today, has evolved as a direct result of foreign influences. In a sense, it has become globalized by Latin, Asian, and even some European players joining the league and introducing their own styles of play. As the game continues to develop in America, it has started to mirror the Latin American sandlots and the Japanese domes, combining them with the already entrenched version to create an entirely new, diverse, and well rounded game that has its own unique challenges. In this sense, it is beyond doubt that baseball has been affected by its global reach. Though in some places, baseball is still an American institution, so many people have so enthusiastically embraced it that baseball has become a truly global game, and no longer simply America’s Pastime.
-Max Frankel
