Exercises. IV. Here are five points that appear in the text

J-BALL

TEXT 2

IV. Here are five points that appear in the text. Put the points in order from 1 to 5.

(A) ___ The help Western musicians have given World Music artists

(B) ___ The origin of the World Music category

(C) ___ World Music's journey into outer space

(D) ___ The range and diversity of World Music

(E) ___ The contrast between two types of World Music

Baseball is one of the most widely watched and played sports in the world, ranking with football (soccer) and basketball in terms of the number of countries in which it is played and the number of people who take part in the game. The game – originally known as «townball» – developed in the early nineteenth century in the northeastern United States. It borrowed from the English games of cricket and rounders, and from children's games such as «one old cat». In the 1840s, Alexander Cartwright standardized the field dimensions in use today. In 1858, sportswriter Henry Chadwick wrote the first rule book. Union soldiers helped spread the popularity of the game during the Civil War (1861-1865). Then, in 1869, baseball's first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was organized. The National League was established in 1876, the rival American League in 1901. The first World Series was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates, the champions of the National League, and the Boston Pilgrims, American League champions, in 1903. Baseball had become «the national pastime» of the United States.

Although born in the United States, over the years baseball has become internationalized. Among Latin American countries, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela have strong baseball traditions and have contributed many players to the major leagues in the United States. Baseball has also taken root in East Asia: in Korea, Taiwan, and, especially, Japan.

Baseball has been part of the Japanese landscape since 1873. According to many sources, it was introduced in that year by an American teacher, Horace Wilson. It appeared on the heels of the social, political, and technological turmoil in Japan known as the Meiji Restoration. Some observers think that the game caught on in part because it embodies the spirit of wa, the principle of self-sacrifice for the good of the group. The sport was first played by schoolboys. Primarily used as a teaching tool, baseball was played quite rigidly in Japan, as if it were a martial art that players could use to strengthen themselves physically and mentally. The first professional team, the Shibaura Club, was formed in Tokyo in the early 1920s. The Dainippon Tokyo Baseball Club (which later became the famous Yomiuri Giants) was founded in 1935. In the next year, a six-team league was set up, and the first professional season was played. Most teams in this league were sponsored by newspapers hoping to increase sales or by railroads hoping to transport fans to their teams' ballparks. In 1939, the schedule changed from a split season (spring and fall) to a single fall season. Not long after this, World War II threw Japanese baseball into chaos. Fewer games were played, several teams disappeared, and the 1945 season was canceled entirely. Soon after the war, however, professional baseball was back in business.

Though teams have come and gone, since 1958 «J-ball», as Japanese professional baseball is sometimes called, has had twelve teams equally divided into two leagues, the Central League and the Pacific League. Champion teams from both leagues meet in the Japan Series. The Yomiuri Giants dominated J-ball for many years. Between 1964 and 1973, the Giants won nine consecutive Japan Series, just when Japan was becoming an economic superpower. The Giants became «Japan's team», and to cheer against the Giants was practically to cheer against prosperity. In 1973, a new form of player draft made teams more equal, but win or lose, the Giants have attracted the largest number of fans. The Giants have also featured the biggest names in J-ball. Their first superstar was Tetsuharu Kawakami, nicknamed "the God of Batting," who played from 1938-1958. Then, in 1965, he became the Giants' manager and led the team during their years of dominance. The next great Giants star was Shigeo Nagashima, still the most revered player in Japanese baseball history. Nagashima played with the Giants from 1958 to 1974, and then he also became a manager. Nagashima's contemporary, the slugger Sadaharu Oh, was the best known J-ball player worldwide, but was never as popular in Japan as his teammate Nagashimi.

Over the years, U.S. baseball and J-ball have become intertwined. Quite a few Japanese teams have toured the United States. The first was in 1935, when the Dainippon team visited the United States. After their tour, they adopted the nickname «Giants». Likewise, many U.S. teams have gone to Japan. One of the first goodwill visits by a U.S. all-star team took place in 1934 and featured the best known U.S. player of all time, Babe Ruth. Japanese crowds loved the Babe, as he was called, but he was struck out three times in one game by 17-year-old pitcher Eiji Sawamura, who became a national hero. Sawamura's performance was so impressive that the U.S. manager Connie Mack offered him a contract to play in the United States. He decided to stay in Japan, however, and became the first great pitcher there. The 1934 U.S. all-star team also included Lefty O'Doul, who made dozens of trips across the Pacific and helped organize the Japanese professional league in 1936. In 1946, after World War II, O'Doul brought his team, the San Francisco Seals, to Japan to help mend relations between the United States and Japan. General Douglas MacArthur called these exhibition games «one of the greatest diplomatic feats of all times». O'Doul is the only foreigner to be honored with a place in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. About every other year, from the 1950s until the early 1990s, one major league team would come to Japan and play against the Japanese major league all-star team. More recently, the United States has needed to send its own all-star teams to play against the Japanese teams. No longer is one single U.S. major league team competitive against an all-star team from Japan.

Quite a few gaijin, or foreign players, have played for at least part of their careers on Japanese teams, although the number of non-Japanese players has usually been limited to two players per team. Among the first was Russian-born pitcher Victor Starffin. He was the first 300-game winner in Japan. Beginning in the 1960s, players who had washed out in the Major Leagues in the United States or who were near retirement came to play in Japan. Some had respectable careers, but few were very popular, even those such as Leon Lees who learned Japanese and tried to follow Japanese customs. Recently, more successful players in the prime of their career, such as Dave Nilsson, have come to Japan. In turn, Japanese players have also had some impact on U.S. teams. This has been especially true in recent years, but a little known fact is that the first Japanese player won a spot on a U.S. team as long ago as 1914. This was Mikami Goro, who came to the United States to attend graduate school but ended up playing in the now defunct Federal League for two years. Because all of his countrymen were then amateur players, Goro therefore became the first Japanese professional baseball player. Pitcher Murakami Masanori spent 2 years playing for the San Francisco Giants in the early 1960s. However, more than 20 years passed before another player from Japan came to play. The next was Nomo Hideo, star pitcher of the Kintesu Buffalos, who joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995. Nicknamed «Tornado», he was voted Rookie of the Year in 1995. Attracted by Nomo's star status and lured by lucrative contracts, other players have followed Nomo across the Pacific. The most successful of these has been hitter Suzuki Ichiro, formerly of the Orix Blue Wave, who was drafted by the Seattle Mariners. In 2001, Ichiro was named not only Rookie of the Year but also Most Valuable Player of the American League. «Ichiro Fever» swept Japan, and his every move, on and off the field, was followed by millions of fans.

In the future, baseball – like so many other activities – will become more and more an international affair. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Dodgers, nicknamed the «United Nations» team, began scouting heavily all over the world. The Dodgers not only recruited Nomo Hideo from Japan but also Chan Ho Park (known as «the Korean Express») from Korea, Craig Shipley from Australia, and Chin Fung Chen from Taiwan. More and more teams will no doubt follow the Dodgers' lead and international players will be the rule, not the exception. Plans are underway to expand J-ball's audience. It may soon be appearing not only on U.S. cable television but also on the Internet, and with a growing international audience, the game of baseball may be well on the way to becoming «the world's pastime».

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