Broadside for First Japanese Documented to Play Baseball
They Are Here! Gangero's Royal Yeddo Japanese Troupe. To-night
Notes: A rare broadside (7 by 10-3/4 inches) for one of the first Japanese acrobatic acts to tour the United States. This generic poster, apparently printed for their 1872 tour, has "October 11th 1872—Friday" written in pencil across the bottom. While in Washington, DC, in June 1872, members of the Royal Yeddo troupe became the earliest documented Japanese to play baseball.
According to a story from the Washington Chronicle (Washington, DC), reprinted in the June 28, 1874, Jasper, Indiana, Weekly Courier, "The Royal Yeddo Japs, who are some as orange slingers, bottle holders, rope walkists, and pole climbers, played a royal game of baseball with the Olympic Club, of Washington." The story goes on to give a rather derogatory report on the game, during which, "through the courtesy of the Olympics, [they] were allowed to make seventeen runs in the five innings played."
According to the baseball historian Bill Staples, Jr., Takahiro Sekiguchi, curator of the Japanese baseball hall of fame said of the Yeddo-Olympics game, "without a doubt, it's the oldest record of Japanese playing the game." Other Japanese visitors likely played the game somewhat earlier, but no contemporary documentation survives. For an exhaustive look at the Royal Yeddos and early Japanese baseball, see Staples' blog, "International Pastime."
The Royal Yeddo troupe was led by Professor Gangero (Hayakawa Genjiro) and toured the United States regularly between 1871 and 1877. A few photographs of the group are known but this is the only broadside I have located; that it dates from the year they played baseball is particularly nice.
Edition + Condition: Small piece missing from one corner, with a bit of toning, else near fine. Date written in pencil at the base of the sheet. On the verso is another contemporary note in pencil, "Hair in a cue— / 'In Service (?) of the Japs'."
Publication: [1872].
Item No: #361623
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