The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-08
JESSE WOODS
Die INVASION
The Crack Ball Nine to Journey
to Far East Next
Winter.

/ SAN FRANCISCO, June 20.-For the
first time since the great American
game of baseball became a reality the
stars of the diamond viii invade the
Orient next winter under the guidance
of Jesse Woods, the well known Homo
lulu sporting man, and Mike Fisher, the
jocular manager who ehaperoned so
many ball mines in various cities of the
Pacific coast during the last eight years.
If the trip proves suecess-and all
indications point that way-it viii I'M
doubtedly result in one of the greatest
triumphs that the pet pastime of Uncle
Sam has ever known, and the game has
managed to achieve new wonders every
year since it's birth half century ago.
Encouraged by the success of last
year s invasion of Honolulu with a nine
made up almost wholly of Pacific coast
league players, Woods and Fisher de.
eided at its conclusion to- undertake the
trip far across the broad Pacific. Care
fully they laid their plans and so eager
ly were they received by all who heard
their work with a zest until now they
are being doomed throughout the ORR
ent. ~
Little by little the famed tossers of
the National and American leagues
heard of the wonderful pilgrimage
planned by Woods and Fisher Appli-
cations for places on the tourist team
came pouring in daily, and now the
men engineering the deal can have their
pick of the nation s stars.
Woods sails for the Orient tomorrow
morning on the steamer Mongolia for
the purpose of making the final ar
rangements and booking the team at
the larger cities of Japan, China, Phil
ippines and the Hawaiian Islands His
trip will cover period of three months,
and upon his return on October ! Fisher
will have perfected the arrangements
at this end of the world and the party
viii be ready to invade the Far East.
The team will sail direct to Yoke
hama, where it plays series of games
with the leading Japanese mines of the
big city. From there it visits Toxic,
Kobe and Nagasaki. Finishing its tour
of Japan, the team goes next to the
Philippines and then through China On
their way home the stars will stop over
at Honolulu, where the natives will
again be waiting to greet them as they
were last year.
All Japan is agog over the coming
of the American stars. AS the baseball
fans in general know, the little brown
men of the Mikado : kingdom have fol-
lowed once more in the footsteps of
Uncle Sam and adopted his national
pastime as their own. So proficient have
the Japs become in handling the sphere
that their leading colleges are reputed
to play ball nearly as fast as our own
universities are capable of.
Every large school in the realm of
the Mikado boast: ball team, while
in all the big cities they have their in
dependent mines, grass leaguers and
sand lot performers, just as we have
under the Stars and Stripes. And the
japanese fans can root and make life
miserable for umpires, too. There is
not a feature of the great game which
they overlook, and the faster the games |
the better the little brown men like
them.
The coming of the American players
will do more for baseball in Japan than
anything else that has ever happened
in this line The doings of these great |
diamond stars are well known to the
japanese fans, who take nearly as
much interest in our national game as
we do ourselves They can tell you
the batting average of Hans Wagner
in jiffy, while they have Hal Chase S
stolen base record at their tongues
tips.
Japan is a. very populous country,l
and the population is all centralized.
For this reason Woods and Fisher hope
to break the world attendance record
at Toxic and Yokohama. This sounds
ridiculous on the face of it, but when
the matter is studied out carefully it
looks plausible enough
Both of these cities contain some
thing like 100000 people, and are,
therefore, nearly as large as Chicago.
Besides the ardent Japanese fans, the
is made up of thousands Of
and British subjects, who
viii flock to the games like so many
sheep. Then, the price Of admission
is small, so the hopes Of Woods that he
win draw from $4,000 to 10000 people
at his big games may be realized
Jack Bliss Of the St. Louis Nationals,
Claude Berry OF the Seals, and Pat |
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