Many Japanese people probably have the impression that Brazil is synonymous with soccer (called futibola in Brazil). It is believed that every Brazilian plays soccer, without exception, and the image of children chasing a tattered ball in the backstreets naturally comes to mind. Of course, in reality, other sports are popular in Brazil, and volleyball and handball are also quite popular.

It seems that Japanese people are not a group that plays soccer very much. There are even some nasty expressions such as "Don't let the Japones play soccer or samba," but now that I think about it, I don't see many Japanese people kicking a soccer ball around. So what sports are popular among Japanese people? Although it seems to have diversified quite a bit recently, baseball still seems to be the sport that is most closely associated with Japanese people.

In the early Showa period when the settlement was established, college baseball was very popular in Japan. For people who came directly from Japan to the settlement, baseball must have been an attractive sport. The question was whether they had the time to play, and what to do about the grounds and equipment. As for the former, it seems that they had more time than they expected. Apparently, to the eyes of Brazilians who worked for Japanese people before the war, it was only the women who seemed busy, so the men must have had too much energy. It was the settlement office that prepared the grounds and provided gloves and bats (although these were almost all handmade). The office's main job was to provide guidance on life and agriculture, but in settlements developed with the intention of settling down, support for sports and cultural activities was also positioned as one of the measures to encourage the settlers to settle down.

Later, baseball teams from all over the state came to São Paulo to hold large tournaments, but before that, games were played between regional teams within the colony (at one time there were more than 10 teams) and with neighboring colonies that had been developed using the same method. Many memorable matches were played on land that had just been cleared from the wilderness, and many famous players were born.

In a settlement two or three hours away by car today, there was a strong team with a legendary fastball pitcher. In those days, it took a full half day to travel, but they would sometimes go that far. In those days, the postal system was not so good (there were not many people living in the area yet), so they went without even making any arrangements for a practice game, which was quite reckless. Because of this, there is an anecdote in that settlement that one day, while working in the fields, a group of uniformed people suddenly appeared through the bushes and challenged them to a game. It has become a legend as the "surprise attack of the XX army." Of course, they immediately accepted. It would be impossible to turn away a group that came from such a faraway place, but it is a fun story that combines a strange seriousness and carefreeness in the use of exaggerated words such as a surprise attack.

On the other hand, there were also times when a team with a fastball pitcher would come to the game. The hosting settlement even had a cheer song prepared to be sung only when they played against that team. I can imagine the excitement being on par with the Waseda-Keio game in Japan at the time (although I didn't experience it myself).

The fastball pitcher in question was such a talented player that he would have gone to Koshien if he had stayed in Japan, but for a long time the teams in the resettlement area were unable to match him.

"I wonder how many consecutive losses we had." It must have been very frustrating at the time, but now it seems that only nostalgia remains. KY, who was a fielder at the time, recalled the details of this event 70 years ago with a pleasant, but slightly bitter smile.

This is how the long-awaited first victory came.

There were two games that day. In the first game, the fastball pitcher was hit by a pitch. There are many types of hit by pitch, but this one was a direct hit to the face. The game continued, and the team was unable to break down the fastball and continued to lose, but by the end of the game, the fastball pitcher's face was so swollen that it changed shape. Then came the second game. The fastball pitcher, who has an incredible passion for baseball, took the mound, but it seemed that he couldn't pitch as usual. In fact, the team, which relied heavily on a single pitcher, was surprisingly fragile when they lost their pitcher, and they ended up conceding victory a few games after their first match.

The baseball teams from the two settlements, who competed and helped each other in many ways, continued to compete as rivals for a long time afterwards.

Although the prewar Japanese settlements were not the birthplace of Brazilian baseball, there is no doubt that they produced many talented people who would go on to develop Brazilian baseball. Thanks to their efforts, baseball in the Japanese community in Brazil has risen to a level where players can be sent to play in Japanese professional and high school baseball leagues.

In this primitive landscape, there was a sports field built from cleared land, handmade gloves, players in uniforms with the name of their hometown sewn on the chest, and life-or-death battles (?) with rivals.

© 2007 Shigeo Nakamura