Unit 1 J-Ball

The first lesson from this English level was J-Ball

In this opportunity I am going to talk about the Origins of Baseball. This lesson was not my favorite unit because I don’t feel passion for this sport.

This game was originally known as ´town-ball¨ developed in the early nineteenth century in the northeastern United States. Henry Chadwick was an English-born American sportswriter, baseball statistician and historian, often called the "Father of Baseball" for his early reporting on and contributions to the development of the game. He wrote the first rule book.

In this unit I learned that the baseball has been part of the Japanese landscape since 1873, it was introduced in that year by an American teacher, Horace Wilson.

This sport was first played by schoolboys. Primarily used as a teaching tool, baseball was played quite rigidly in Japan, as if it were a martial art that players could use to strengthen themselves physically and mentally.

The Yomiuri Giants have also featured the biggest names in J-ball.

Their first superstar was Tetsuharu Kawkami, nickname ¨the God of Batting¨.

The next great Giants star was Shigeo Nagashima.

The baseball was born in the United States, over the years baseball has become internationalized. Among Latin America countries, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela have strong baseball traditions and have contributed many players to the major leagues in the United States. Baseball has also taken root in East Asia: in Korea, Taiwan, and, especially, Japan.