On November 2, 1934, the luxury liner Empress of Japan arrived in Yokohama carrying Babe Ruth and a roster of American baseball stars, including Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Gomez. The 39-year-old slugger was the main attraction of a monthlong exhibition tour that began with an extraordinary welcome: an estimated half-million people lined Tokyo’s streets to greet the visitors. Riding through the crowds in an open limousine, Ruth waved Japanese and American flags as cries of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” echoed around him.
The Americans won all eighteen games against their Japanese opponents, chiefly the specially assembled All-Nippon team, and Ruth delighted spectators with thirteen home runs. Organized by newspaper owner Matsutaro Shoriki to promote the Yomiuri Shimbun, the tour also became an exercise in unofficial diplomacy. Supporters on both sides of the Pacific hoped that a shared love of baseball could ease growing tensions between the United States and Japan.
Yet the celebrations unfolded against a backdrop of political extremism. On February 22, 1935, nearly three months after the players’ departure, an ultranationalist attacked Shoriki with a sword, accusing him of dishonoring Emperor Meiji by allowing the Americans to play at Meiji Jingu Stadium. Shoriki survived. The tour also produced an episode later enveloped in espionage legend: catcher Moe Berg secretly filmed Tokyo from the tower of St. Luke’s International Hospital. Berg would become a wartime intelligence operative, but there is no evidence that his 1934 filming was an assigned spy mission, and claims that the footage guided American bombing raids remain unsupported. The documented story is striking enough—a celebration of international friendship unfolding amid tensions that baseball could not resolve.
