Fitts to Give Virtual Talk about the 1934 Baseball Tour of Japan
Rob Fitts: Banzai Babe Ruth and Baseball in Japan
Wednesday, November 13 from 7:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.
Virtual Event on Zoom
Admission: Suggested donation: $15 | Free for Museum and SABR Members
The Babe Ruth Baseball Museum hosts this talk with noted author and Japanese baseball expert Rob Fitts. Fitts will speak about the 1934 All-American tour of Japan.
This is a virtual event, free to members of the Babe Ruth Baseball Museum and SABR. To register and to make a suggested donation of $15, please visit the Babe Ruth Baseball Museum’s website.
About Rob Fitts
A former archaeologist with a Ph.D. from Brown University, Robert K. Fitts left academics behind to follow his passion — Japanese baseball. An award-winning author and speaker, his articles have appeared numerous journals, magazines, and websites. He is also the author of ten books on Japanese baseball and Japanese baseball cards. Fitts is the founder of SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee and a recipient of the society’s 2013 Seymour Medal for the Best Baseball Book of 2012 (Banzai Babe Ruth); the 2019 and 2023 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Awards; the 2012 Doug Pappas Award for the best oral research presentation at the annual convention; and the 2006, 2021, 2023 and 2024 SABR Research Awards. He has twice been a finalist for the Casey Award and has received two silver medals at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. While living in Tokyo from 1993 until 1994, Fitts began collecting Japanese baseball cards and now runs Robs Japanese Cards LLC. For more information and to purchase Fitts’s books, please visit his website.
About Banzai Babe Ruth
In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of “Banzai! Banzai Babe Ruth!” The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan, and spreading goodwill. Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the amity generated by the tour—and the two nations’ shared love of the game—could help heal their growing political differences. But the Babe and baseball could not overcome Japan’s growing nationalism, as a bloody coup d’état by young army officers and an assassination attempt by the ultranationalist War Gods Society jeopardized the tour’s success. A tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder, and—of course—baseball, Banzai Babe Ruth is the first detailed account of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All-American baseball tour.
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