Baseball at the 1964 Tokyo Games: Hidden in Plain Sight

The baseball cards of Shaun Fitzmaurice and Chuck Dobson, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.
The baseball cards of Shaun Fitzmaurice and Chuck Dobson, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

Baseball has a long history in Japan, from the time in 1934 when Babe Ruth played in an exhibition series in Japan, to when Hideo Nomo and Ichiro Suzuki exploded on the scene in Major League Baseball, to the recent years of Japan’s success in the World Baseball Classic Series.

But baseball is not an Olympic sport. And it wasn’t in 1964 either.

While baseball was not an official event at the Tokyo Olympics, it was in fact a demonstration sport. On October 11, 1964, a team of 21 American college ball players played a team of Japanese amateur all stars. And the American team went on to win 6 to 2 in front of 50,000 fans at Meiji Stadium.

The baseball cards of Gary Sutherland and Ken Suarez, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.
The baseball cards of Gary Sutherland and Ken Suarez, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

That was the first of a series of exhibition games that the Americans would have with Japanese teams across the country, in cities like Numazu, Hamamatsu, Nagoya and Osaka. Japanese fans got to see future major leaguers like Chuck Dobson (Athletics), Gary Sutherland (a utility man who played for 7 major league teams), and Shaun Fitzmaurice (Mets), who hit the first pitch of the first exhibition game for a home run.

But the reality is, baseball was not an official event, and was thus given little attention by the press, which may have suited some of the players fine. As told in this interesting history, “Baseball in the Olympics“, by Peter Cava, the American players were not Olympians, and so did not live in the Olympic Village, or live by strict curfews.

The contingent wasn’t considered part of the official U.S. Olympic team. Instead of quarters in the Olympic village, the baseball players found themselves staying in an antiquated YMCA. Eventually the team moved to more suitable lodgings in a Tokyo hotel. They soon became the envy of the other American athletes. Unlike their brethren in the Olympic village, the baseball players weren’t subject to curfew. One team member recalls attending a party with sprinter Bob Hayes and Walt Hazzard of the basketball team. When Hayes and Hazzard had to leave early to make curfew, the baseball player continued to boogie to his heart’s content.

The overriding purpose

Continue reading →

Skateboarding: Can it Replicate the Snowboarding Magic?

Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett

I used to ride a skateboard that looked just like the blue one below, riding it up and down Daniels Street in front of my house, and then taking it up the steeper hill past Coolidge, and bringing it back down that 45 degree incline, wondering if a car was going to speed through the intersection.

It was the early 1970s, and I used to get my polyurethene wheels at a store on Austin Street, learned how to remove the wheels and ball bearings, oil it up and secure the new wheels on to my board.

skateboards

I never got good at all the fancy tricks, but back in the early 70s, that wasn’t the big thing. It was just about going from point A to point B and getting some speed down the hills.

But skateboarding has grown up since I was a kid, and it is serious business, not only in competition, but also in fashion and lifestyle. And it is a central element in the global youth culture. The Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee definitely recognized the trend towards youth, and picked skateboarding on September 28 as one of its five recommended new sports for the 2020 Olympics.

As skateboarding icon and entrepreneur, Tony Hawk, said in this interview with Larry King, “If you look at the success of snowboarding, and how that’s a brought a more youthful edge to the (Winter) Olympics in general…they don’t have that with the Summer Games. They don’t have anything that’s bringing in a younger viewership.”

So maybe it’s skateboarding. But it may have to triumph over a similar young generation sport – sport climbing, or a traditional and former Olympic sport, baseball. Can it convince IOC officials that it is worth the endorsement more than homegrown karate?

But as Hawk explained, it’s no biggie if the IOC fails to recognize the timing and importance of skateboarding as an Olympic sport. “Honestly, I think they need skateboarding than we need them because skateboarding’s popularity is solidified for the most part in a lot of countries.”

Continue reading →

Sport Climbing: One Step Closer

For those who were passionately supporting the inclusion of wushu or bowling into the 2020 Olympics, the decision of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee yesterday must have driven you up the wall.

The five new sports recommended for 2020 in Tokyo includes – sport climbing!

Ashima Shiraishi
Ashima Shiraishi

Sport climbing, which is a series of fixed anchors and bolts on a wall or a rock face, has become very popular over the past two decades. The International Federation of Sports Climbers (IFSC), the international governing body recognized by the IOC, decided to submit sport climbing as a triple challenge, which combines three climbing disciplines into one: bouldering, sport climbing, and speed climbing.

Watch this video for an explanation, and more.

Sport climbing has been embraced by the young, which is one of the major reasons why it is being recommended. The New York Times featured the then nine-year-old child of Japanese parents living in New York named Ashima Shiraishi. And according to her coach at the time, she was the best. She is 14 now and still a powerhouse. In 5 years, she could be an Olympic champion, in Tokyo, in 2020.

Continue reading →

Yokohama to host 2019 Rugby World Cup final | The Japan Times

Yokohama Stadium, new home of the 2019 Rugby World Cup
Yokohama Stadium, new home of the 2019 Rugby World Cup

Yokohama Stadium, which staged the 2002 soccer World Cup final, will replace Japan’s new National Stadium as the venue for the 2019 Rugby World Cup final,

Source: Yokohama to host 2019 Rugby World Cup final | The Japan Times

Continue reading →

Brothers Face Off in Water Polo at the Tokyo Olympics: Dutch Fred vs American Tony

Tony and Fred van Dorp_15 October, 1964_AP
Tony and Fred van Dorp_15 October, 1964_AP

They were born in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, which is modern-day Jakarta Indonesia. And these brothers of Dutch nationals played water polo together for the Dutch national team…until 1963. The elder brother, (Anton) Tony van Dorp, had moved to the United States in 1957 and became an American citizen in due course. The younger brother, (Alfred) Fred van Dorp, stayed in Holland and competed for the Dutch team at the Rome Olympic Games in 1960. Tony debuted in Olympic competition in Tokyo in 1964, but with the USA team.

And three days after the commencement of the Tokyo Games, the brothers found themselves immediately facing off as Holland took on America. Fred had the first laugh, as he was able to fire a goal past Tony in the first minute of the game. In the final quarter, Tony got the second laugh as he stuffed Fred on a penalty shot. As AP related of the game,

“Right-handed players like myself throw to the right side of the goal in such a situation,” Alfred explained. “But I thought I’d fool him so I threw the ball to the left side.”

Said Tony, “I figured he’d try to trick me, and I was ready. Maybe I know my brother too well.”

But Fred got the last laugh as Holland emerged victorious 6-4, a nice birthday present for the younger brother. Said Tony, “We hated to lose, but we’ll consider the win a sort of birthday present for Al. It’ll save me buying him something myself.”

Continue reading →

The Fastest Centenerians in the World: Don Pellmann and Hidekichi Miyazaki and Stanislaw Kowalski

Don Pellmann, picture by Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times
Don Pellmann, picture by Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times

Last Sunday at the San Diego Senior Games, a man named Don Pellmann set records in the 100-meter dash, the shot put, the discus and the long jump.

Yes, he ran the 100 in 26.99 seconds (which is over 17 seconds slower than Usain Bolt’s world record), but Pellmann set the record for the 100-and-over age group. In fact, Pellmann is exactly 100 years of age.

Successful athletes, scientists, businessmen, students know this. You need to set goals and targets, and sometimes to drive you to incredible heights, you need aspirational targets. According to this wonderful New York Times article, Pellmann targeted the world record for 100 and overs –  29.83 – which had been held by a Japanese man, Hidekichi Miyazaki, since 2010. So he marked off 100 meters at his home and ran it once a week.

Within a week of Pullmann’s record, Miyazaki set the world record for the 100 meter run for the over-105 category with a time of 42.22 seconds. That’s right. Miyazaki is 105 and still flying down the track. His quote in this Japan Times article is priceless: “I’m not happy with the time,” the pint-size Miyazaki said in an interview after catching his wind. “I started shedding tears during the race because I was going so slowly. Perhaps I’m getting old!”

Hidekichi Miyazaki, AFP-JIJI
Hidekichi Miyazaki, 105, imitates the pose of Usain Bolt after the 100-meter-dash in the Kyoto Masters Autumn Competiton in Kyoto on Wednesday. Miyazaki has been recognized as the oldest sprinter who competed in a 100-meter-dash by the Guinness World Records. | AFP-JIJI

But then again, as it was revealed in this NBC Sports blog report, Stanislaw Kowalski has the fastest time in the world for the 0ver-105 year old category, as he ran the 100 meters in 34.50 seconds. Despite the fact that Miyazaki’s time is officially recognized by Guinness World Record, Kowalski of Poland set that record in June.

At any rate, these gentleman can run.

Whether you’re an up-and-coming high schooler dreaming of winning your state conference championship, or a 75-year old with hopes of winning the decathlon at the World Masters’ Athletic Championships, you are often cut from the same cloth – a personality rooted in the need for competition, and a desire

Continue reading →

The Sneaker Wars Part 3: Abebe Bikila, Onitsuka vs Puma

Kihachiro Onitsuka with Abebe Bikila at that fateful meeting.
Kihachiro Onitsuka with Abebe Bikila at that fateful meeting.

After the Rome Olympics in 1960, there was probably no athlete more well known than Abebe Bikila, the barefoot marathon champion.

So when Bikila arrived in Japan in 1961 for the Mainichi Marathon in Osaka, he was treated like a rock star. Everyone wanted to take a picture of him. Everyone wanted to meet him. In particular, a businessman named Kihachiro Onitsuka, who ran a shoe company, wanted to meet Bikila, and more than anything, hold his feet in his hands.

Bikila’s coach, Onni Niskanen, was concerned as the roads in Osaka were in parts made of gravel and other parts poorly conditioned tarmac. He explained that “I didn’t dare take the risk of bruised feet. Wami (Biratu) had to run barefoot as he had never run with shoes on.”

So as fate has it, the desire of one met the needs of another, thanks to the introduction of Kohei Murakuso, 5 and 10 thousand runner in the Berlin Olympics, Kihachiro Onitsuka was brought to the room of Abebe Bikila. As related in the book, Bikila – Ethiopia’s Barefoot Olympian, by Tim Judah, Onitsuka really tried to impress Bikila with the possibility of injury, as well as the benefit of a shoe that grips the road. Here is how Onitsuka remembers the conversation:

Onitsuka: I am here to support you and supply you with shoes. I hope you will win this race with my shoes!
Bikila: I have always run barefoot and I have won many times. I don’t need shoes.
Onitsuka: The roads in Japan are very rough and that’s why you should wear shoes.
Bikila: The roads may be rough but I don’t need shoes.
Onitsuka: Your bare feet are excellent, they are like cat’s paws. But still, shoes could improve your records.

Despite Bikila’s resistance, Niskanen weighed in with the view that shoes might be a good idea on this terrain, and Bikila gave in to the word of his coach. Bikila did indeed win the marathon fairly handily, and it was reported that

Continue reading →

Ewa Klobukowska, the Joy of Victory, and the 4X100 M World Record That Was Not: The Impact of Gender Testing in the 1960s

One of my go-to books for great images from the Tokyo Olympics is the coffee table to me, “Tokyo Olympiad 1964” published by the Kyodo News Agency. On one page, the book tells a wonderful story about the joy of victory through three fantastic pictures.

Ewa Klobukowska anchored a Polish women’s team that won gold in the 4 X 100 relay race, and set a world record time of 43.0 seconds, defeating the American and British teams that took silver and bronze respectively. Klobukowska, who also took bronze in the women’s 100 meter compeition, was so happy in victory that when requested by an official to return the baton, she didn’t want to give it back. I’ve provided the captions from the book below.

“Hannah, we’ve made it.” Poland’s anchor Eva Klobukowska (center) embraces Teresa Barbara Ciepla (extreme right), excited over the world record their team set in the Women’s 400 M Relay.
“Say, young lady, you can’t take it with you!”
“But I want to. I love this baton.” – Poland’s Eva Klobukowska.

“Eva, give it to me.” Poland’s Teresa Barbara Ciepla takes the baton past the official into the dugout.

Five years later,

Continue reading →

The Walk: A Movie About One of the Most Amazing Athletic Feats of the 20th Century

Philippe Petit doing the impossible.
Philippe Petit doing the impossible.

This is the movie I want to see this year. Even more than the first of the J. J. Abrams Star Wars trilogy. I want to see the Robert Zemeckis film – The Walk.

On the morning of Tuesday, August 6, 1974, a Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out onto a wire that was suspended between the rooftops of World Trade Center Towers, and took a walk…a quarter of a mile in the air. He didn’t tip toe for a few seconds, or steady himself with shifts and drops against the winds that plied the space between the towers. No, he walked back and forth, for a total of 40 minutes, most certainly defying death. And he did it with joy. He danced, he jumped, he reclined and stared peacefully at the sky on his back on a steel wire about an inch in diameter.

He was happy.

We all aspire to something great, or at least something better than we currently experience. Olympic athletes are high-performance beasts who understand the power of visualizing achievement and victory, and using that as motivation to greater heights. But rarely would they be in a situation so off-the-charts unimaginable, so high in difficulty level, as the idea of walking on a tightrope between two towers so high they would often get lost in the clouds.

This act, or as Petit calls it, Le Coup, is so beyond the understanding of even the greatest of thrill seekers that the New York Times wrote an article describing it as art. The article quotes Colum McCann who wrote a novel called “let the Great World Spin” based on this act, and claimed that Petit “has the commitment and consciousness of an important artist.” His work “takes place primarily in the brain. The body follows the brain. He outthinks his body. And he takes over new spaces. He reappropriates public space. He turns our public spaces into things that we have to think about again.”

Was Petit’s Coup a piece of performance art? Was it an act of incredible athleticism? It doesn’t matter as it must inspire all who walk this planet.

Continue reading →