BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball

Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time

Notorious but victorious: Hirofumi Daimatsu, who coached Japan's women's team to the gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, was noted for his excessive training techniques. | KYODO

By Robert Whiting
Special To The Japan Times

Jun 2, 2013

Second in a two-part series

The martial arts were the inspiration for the famous baseball team at the First Higher School of Tokyo, a late 19th century powerhouse that helped make yakyu, as baseball came to be known, the national sport of Japan.

Ichiko, as the First Higher School of Tokyo, was also known, was an elite prep school, with its students in the 18-22 age range. There were five such Higher Schools in Japan. Graduates went on to the Imperial University, from which the future movers and shakers of Japan emerged. The majority of the students in these school came from samurai families.

Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time

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