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
Knuckleball knuckleballs is known as a knuckleballer. The origins of the knuckleball are unclear. Toad Ramsey of the Louisville Colonels in the old American Association—his pitch likely resembled the knuckle curve—and Eddie Cicotte of the major leagues' Chicago White Sox, who in 1908, was nicknamed "Knuckles", are two possible creators of the pitch. Other accounts attribute the pitch's creation to Charles H. Druery, a pitcher for the Blue Ridge League. In 1917, Druery taught the pitch to Eddie Rommel who became successful with the knuckleball for the Philadelphia Athletics. As used by Cicotte, the knuckleball was originally thrown by holding the