>>15905762Because we brought it to them when the country opened up. Japanese baseball is only a couple of decades removed from the start of professional baseball in the US, it's not something we forced down there throat after WW2 like everyone seems to think for some reason. They've been playing it professionally since before Babe Ruth was even existed.
They took to it more than other foreign sports because despite it being a team sport, baseball is at it's core an individual matchup between the batter and the pitcher, which they thought was more reflective of their own national sports (martial arts, sumo).
