The Japanese have been playing baseball since the time of the samurai; the game was brought to Japan in 1872 by an English professor whose name escapes me, and I’m in the middle of a working shift so I can’t find out :-)
Back to work, slacker.
In Billy Martin’s autobiography, he wrote about a goodwill trip the Yankees made to Japan in the mid-1950s to play exhibition games against some of the Japanese teams. In one game, the home plate umpire particularly infuriated Mickey Mantle, and before he went to the plate he told Martin: “This time I’m going to tell him off.” After being called out looking at strike three, Mantle turned on the ump and figuring the ump didn’t know English proceeded to blast him in a profanity laced tirade.
The ump replied: “Gee, I’m sorry Mickey. I thought it was a strike.”