Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan. Its popularity has a lot to do with the American occupation. Very special thanks to William Neal Dahlberg, who wrote an excellent and essential Masters thesis on this very topic and has allowed us to share it publicly with you all (it’s normally behind an academic paywall). If you want to learn more about democratization through sport in postwar Japan, here is the link! → https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aKPmb_FCYv2Y_V4yj7yjVSd4-wXNRpNv/view?usp=drive_link The rest of our sources and citations can be found below. — Citations here: https://www.spectacles.news/who-needs-an-empire-when-you-have-baseball/