The Earliest Japan-US Intercollegiate Baseball Games Held
　　　　　　　　　　　　　as Media Events in around 1910
　　　-Special Reference to the Games Held by Newspapers Based in Tokyo and Osaka-

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Shigeki NISHIHARA
　　　　　　　　　　　　(Graduate School of Ritsumeikan University)

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Abstract

 This paper sets out to review the earliest Japan-US intercollegiate baseball games held
by newspapers based in Tokyo and Osaka in around 1910, and thereby to clarify the actual
situations in the beginning of baseball games as media events in Japan. The following four
viewpoints could be pointed out as a result of studies in this paper.
(1) The baseball games as media events in Japan couldn't have been taken place until
    newspaper management policy changed course for thinking more and more seriously of
    business and advertisement activities or holding various events in the beginning of the 20th
    century.
(2) The first large-scale Japan-US intercollegiate baseball games were held by the Jiji
    Shinpo in Tokyo, and the Osaka Asahi and the Osaka Mainichi in Osaka. The following
    several differencies were noticed among them. @The games held by the Jiji Shinpo were
    independent events of baseball games, on the other hand those by the Osaka Asahi and the
    Osaka Mainichi were held with various related events. @The Jiji Shinpo's reports on its
    events were meant for readers who were familiar with baseball to some extent, but reports
    by the Osaka Asahi and the Osaka Mainichi were also meant for those who were just un-
    familiar with such baseball. @The former held its,events on the college sports ground, but
    the latter on the sports grounds owned by private railway companies in Kansai area.
(3) In the background of these differences, it seems to reflect that there were some notice-
    able differences of readership among these newspapers, and differences between Tokyo and
    Osaka in economic environment seen particularly in a rapid economic leap of newspapers
    and a rapid development of a network of private railway lines.
(4) In holding these Japan-US intercollegiate baseball games, the Jiji Shinpo and the Osaka
    Mainichi asserted repeatedly that baseball (sports) have diverse educational values. It
    seems that these assertions were maintained not as a mere theory but a firm objection to
    those who tried to insist that baseball was of little or no value(mainly those engaged in
    schoolteaching) , against the background of social environment in those days that various ill
    and harmful effects would arise by the absorption of students into baseball, and what's
    more, such ideologies as martial arts were much superior to baseball circulated among the
    public to some extent.