1934 All American Tour 90th Anniversary - Shizuoka

2023 BBM Fusion #86

On November 20th, 1934 - 90 years ago today - the All American tour reached Kusanagi Baseball Stadium in Shizuoka.  The ballpark was just four years old, having opened in 1930.

17 year old Eiji Sawamura was the starting pitcher that day for All Nippon.  He was making his third appearance of the tour - the All Americans had hit him hard both times he had previously faced them and there was no reason to expect that this day's game would go any different.  The MLB All Stars were coming off of their most lopsided victory of the tour two days previously in Yokohama and had scored at least 14 runs in each of the previous three games.  And Babe Ruth had hit ten home runs in the previous six games.

But for whatever reason - maybe it was the afternoon sun over the right field stands that was glaring directly into the eyes of the batters - Sawamura pitched the best game that any All Nippon pitcher would throw on the tour.  He retired the first eleven batters including striking out future Hall Of Famers Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmy Foxx in succession in the first and second innings.

Unfortunately for Sawamura, his teammates were unable to generate any offense against All American starter Earl Whitehill.  The game remained scoreless into the bottom of the seventh inning when Gehrig hit a solo home run over the right field wall.  That would be the only run of the game and the All Americans would come away with a tight 1-0 victory.

Kusanagi Baseball Stadium still stands, although it went through some major renovations in the 1970's.  It has been used over the years for various high school, collegiate and corporate league baseball games as well as serving as a host for "countryside" games for several NPB teams as well as their farm teams.  This past year, the ballpark served as one of the home ballparks for the Kufu Hayate Ventures, the new independent farm team added to NPB's Western League.  It's usually left out when people list the ballparks that still exist that Babe Ruth once played in but it should be mentioned along with Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Meiji Jingu Stadium and Koshien Stadium.

In 1991, statues of Sawamura and Ruth were erected in the plaza outside the park.  I've visited this park twice - I stopped by in 2019 just to see the statues and in 2024 to see Hayate play.  Here are pictures I took of the statues during both visits:

Once again I heavily relied upon Rob Fitts' Banzai Babe Ruth for the information in this post.