Sumner La Croix
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Akihiko Kawaura
Doshisha University

Abstract

During the 1950s and early 1960s, there were few foreign players on teams in Japan's two professional baseball leagues. Central and Pacific League teams began to add Caucasian players to their rosters in the 1960s and African-American players in the 1970s. The Japan Professional Baseball League responded by imposing quotas on the number of foreign players allowed on each team's roster. We investigate the factors that prompted Japanese teams to add Caucasian and African-American players and consider how their presence altered competitive balance in Japanese baseball.