It all started with a proposal. Two years ago, the U.S. Embassy in Japan sent out a call for pitches to celebrate 150 years of “baseball diplomacy,” focused on the role the sport has played in the relationship between the United States and Japan. 

William & Mary Government Department Chair Marcus Holmes, Associate Professor of History Hiroshi Kitamura and Government Professor Paul Manna came together to craft a practical yet academically-focused pitch that would knock it out of the park.  

The pitch? The U.S.-Japan Baseball Diplomacy Project, a series of research projects from more than 30 undergraduate students, including a timeline with significant moments and characters from baseball history, and a number of public outreach events. Most recently, the project sent a team from the Williamsburg Youth Baseball League (WYBL) to Japan to practice diplomacy firsthand. 

The State Department’s Tokyo Embassy approved of the project, awarding the team a $100,000 grant, which helped to further research and pay for travel expenses for players, coaches and William & Mary professors and undergraduate researchers.

The rigorous effort was made possible by bringing distinguished William & Mary professors from across disciplines together with students to collaborate on research.

“Baseball diplomacy is part of a broader phenomenon of thinking about the ways in which people-to-people exchanges between different countries can help improve relations,” Holmes said.

‘We’re all communicating through baseball’ 

The exchange, which took place Aug. 4-14, embodied a diplomatic function – one of the first things the Little League team did was visit Kamakura City Hall, where they met with Vice Mayor Shoichiro Chida, presenting him with a team jersey. 

Kamakura is not unlike Williamsburg in its significance to Japan’s history. One of Japan’s ancient capitals, it was the country’s first military government, with the period marking a time of significant transformation in Japanese politics, society and culture.

Players visited significant cultural landmarks like The Great Buddha statue, went sightseeing in Asakusa and practiced Zen meditations in the Engakuji Temple.

“If you ever want a challenge, try to get 12 and 11-year-olds to sit still,” joked Holmes.

Additionally, the team went to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, where they spent time with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, who later tweeted about the significance of the visit.

“Since the game of baseball was introduced to Japan more than 150 years ago, America’s national pastime has become our shared passion,” Emanuel tweeted on his official account. “Whether it’s a Little League team from Williamsburg visiting Japan or a Japanese ace playing in the majors, baseball continues to foster deep friendships and inspire big dreams on both sides of the Pacific.”

WYBL played three games over three days against a collection of little league teams coordinated by the Kamakura Youth Baseball Federation – which Kitamura described as the Williamsburg All Stars versus the Kamakura All Stars. Eventually, the teams and coaches mixed, blurring the lines between nations and applying diplomacy to the home plate.

With language limited, words lost their value and strategy took over.

“We’re all communicating through baseball,” said one Williamsburg player. “We all know a lot about baseball so (saying things like) ‘number,’ ‘position,’ stuff like that, that’s how we communicate with each other.”

Kitamura echoed this sentiment, saying that even if you don’t know the language, “you can really build friendships.”

Friendship was paramount throughout the visit both on and off the field, with American players and their families building their bonds through homestays with Japanese families. One American player, the son of Physics Professor Justin Stevens, learned some Japanese on Duolingo to prepare for the trip and was able to practice having minimal conversation with his host family.

“Even over the course of a couple of days, (he) bonded with the family,” Stevens said.

Overall, William & Mary gained significant attention from the trip, not just from the U.S. Embassy, but from Japanese news outlets, with four newspapers and a television crew reporting on team happenings. The excursion also allowed alumni living and working in Japan to reconnect with their alma mater, with some even coming to the games.

From Kitamura and Holmes’ perspective, the trip was a massive success not just in the short-term, but proving the baseball diplomacy hypothesis in how this may impact players’ lives and future international opportunities.

“I would put money on the proposition that one of these kids, either on the Japanese side or American side, will do something with the other (country) down the road,” Holmes said. “Whether it’s study abroad, open a business … while difficult to measure, this has a snowball effect.”

Preserving the past for the future

The trip is just one of the many strides the project has made over the past year. Last October, they held a symposium at the Sadler Center Commonwealth Auditorium, where various journalists, scholars, educators and former baseball professionals spoke about baseball in Japan, the sport’s relationship to international relations and more.  In addition, oral interviews have been conducted over the past year and are continuing to be done to capture first-person accounts of the impact baseball has had over the last 150 years. 

“If we’re not capturing these stories, I’m afraid they’re just going to go away. … (We must) capture these stories and make sure that they are preserved for the future.”

Marcus Holmes, Government Department Chair

The Baseball Diplomacy Project has focused on interviewing pivotal figures in U.S.-Japan history, including Masanori “Mashi” Murakami, the first Japanese player for a Major League Baseball team.

“A lot of these players are getting older,” Holmes said. “If we’re not capturing these stories, I’m afraid they’re just going to go away. … (We must) capture these stories and make sure that they are preserved for the future.”

Holmes and Kitamura will continue their research on baseball diplomacy, with another symposium planned for early 2025 in Japan. The research is especially timely, with Kitamura recently interviewed for The Athletic and The World on Shohei Ohanti and how he represents Japanese customs abroad.

There are hopes to potentially bring the Japanese All-Star team to Williamsburg, with the further goal of increasing trip consistency, dependent on grants and donations.

“There’s a transcendent element in the sport, where baseball actually can bring people close together,” Kitamura said. “It is a common language.”