Professional baseball in Japan the first American to play professional baseball in Japan when he joined the Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu (Tokyo Giants) in December 1934, touring with them in 1935. Jimmy Bonna, Kiyomi "Slim" Hirakawa, Fumito "Jimmy" Horio, Kazuyoshi "George" Matsuura, Andrew "Bucky" Harris McGalliard (Japan's "Bucky Harris"), Herbert "Buster" North, Yoshio "Sam" Takahashi, and Tadashi "Bozo" Wakabayashi became the first Americans to play in Japan's professional baseball league in 1936. The American writer Robert Whiting wrote in his 1977 book "The Chrysanthemum and the Bat" that, While others have objected to characterizing the sport in these terms, many Japanese players and
Rugby league in the United States the Boston Braves. The Fairfax Eagles joined the competition in 2007, and the Boston Thirteens joined in 2009. Another founder member, the Bucks County Sharks, suspended operations in 2010, while the Pittsburgh Vipers were added. In 2009, a new professional rugby league competition, the National Rugby League USA (NRLUS), was announced. The new league was to include administrators and talent from the AMNRL, and was intended to begin play in 2010. However, the league had not gotten off the ground. That year officials announced their hopes that play would begin in 2011, citing the late 2000s recession as a factor