The History And Development Of Baseball Sports As A Popular Culture In Japan

Abstract

In this thesis, the writer does a research about baseball history and
popularity in Japanese society. The reason why writer took this title is to know
about baseball history and why baseball become one of the popular cultures in
Japan. This study aims to describe the baseball history and its development until
becoming one of the popular cultures in Japan.
Baseball or better known by Japanese people as Yakyuu （野球） . First
introduced in Japan 1873. Baseball is very well known to Japanese people both as
professional and amateur levels. This can be seen in baseball euphoria among
high school students also not inferior to professional baseball.
The methodology used in this research is descriptive methodology which
is done by: (a) data collection, (b) data reduction, (c) data presentation, (d)
conclude data. To analyze data, the writer uses cultural theory and the theory of
popular culture. The writer gets data from the results of questionnaires distributed
to Japanese society and various other sources such as books and the internet.
From the result of the study, the writer found that baseball sports are very
popular and liked by all people from young children to adults. They like baseball
because it’s fun and can make people happy. The reason why they like baseball is
that it’s fun and can make people's happiness. A professional baseball game or
koushien tournament, always held every year and aired by Japanese national
television stations. Koushien tournament is a tournament that dreamed by most of
the high school kids in Japan, in the koushien tournament, there is a tradition
carried out by the players, they take the koushien land to take home and become a
motivation, memories, and room decoration or club room.
Keywords: Baseball, Koushien, Culture, Popular