Hello, and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 13, Take Me Out to the Shiye.

This week we're going to do our first ever thematic podcast.

I've thought a lot about what story I wanted to tell, whether it should be a sweeping

political drama, or a more intimate story of a specific time or place.

In the end, I thought this story combined the best of both options.

Today, I want to take a brief moment out of our death march to the end of modern history

and talk about a topic near and dear to my heart.

Baseball.

No wait, all you people who hate sports, don't tune out immediately.

It's true I grew up watching the game with my family,

and while I don't follow it like I used to, after all being a Mariners fan would just be way too depressing,

I do still enjoy the games.

But this story isn't just about baseball, it's about nationalism, it's about international relations,

and it's about

a heartwarming story of high schoolers working together to overcome the odds that I think would make a

great movie someday for any Hollywood talent agents who happen to be listening. Back when I was still

in undergrad doing research for my thesis, I came across an all but forgotten story from the

middle Meiji period, which I thought would make an excellent episode for a podcast one day, and which I've been saving until this moment.

Our story begins in Japan in the 1870s when the government was striving to establish a modern educational system.

One of the only things that all the different Japanese leaders agreed on was the need

for a Western-style national education system in order to promote meritocracy and put an end

...