A Japanese Baseball First

    By Christmas of 1934, five countries had a professional baseball history and active leagues playing. Those countries were the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The small but growing club was about to grow by one. On December 26, 1934 the Toyko Kyogin Professional Baseball Club was formed.  Although there were not enough clubs formed in Japan between that time and the following spring, a year later there were and a six club league began play. A rough first decade ensued as World War 2 made growth a very big challedge for the league. The Kyogin Club later changed their name to the Yomiuri Giants and has gone on to great sucess in the league.
    In the last thirty years three other Asian countries have joined the group with leagues of their own, those countries being South Korea, the Peoples' Republic of China and Taiwan. Since the founding of the Japanese League, two European and five Latin countries have aalso joined the group as well as one from down under. The other countries being Australia, Columbia, Holland, Italy, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. All of the countries have had their struggles through the years, several countries are not fielding leagues at the moment. This collection of countries has done a very good job of promoting the game on a world wide basis allowing the baseballs version of the World Cup to be a great success.
   Tomorrow we look at first look at the December 27th history of college bowl games.