Vol. 87 Special Issue Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Club's Founding 100 Years of the Hosei University Baseball Club, which has produced great players in the "Hosei Spiel".

In the Taisho era (1912-1926), as baseball fever increased due to the popularity of the Waseda-Keio game, students of the university began to gather in the schoolyard or at the nearby Yasukuni Shrine to enjoy baseball in the form of voluntary clubs. The University's baseball club was officially established in 1915, when 12 or 13 members approached the University and obtained a special field and baseball equipment in Kashiwagi (in today's Kita-Shinjuku area of Shinjuku Ward).

At the time, this was the era of the Three University League, which included Waseda University, Keio University, and the emerging powerhouse Meiji University. The baseball team competed well against the three universities from the year of its foundation to the following year, and was officially admitted to the league in the spring of 1917.

The team continued to make rapid progress, winning five league championships under the leadership of manager Nobuo Fujita and his younger brother Shozo Fujita, and entering a period known as the prewar golden era. Nobuo Fujita, who later became known as the "father of the Hosei baseball team," was also a pioneer in introducing cutting-edge theories and tactics from the United States, an advanced baseball nation at the time, to Japanese baseball.

In his search for an authentic baseball instruction book, Fujita had a fateful encounter with Carl L. Lundgren, manager of the University of Illinois baseball team, during a tour of the United States after the team's first league championship. The textbook, written by Lundgren himself, contained detailed explanations of game tactics as well as explanations of practical skills with photographs.

Impressed by the excellence of the book, Fujita published it as "Baseball Reader" with the cooperation of the club members. He also distributed the book to all the players and used it in actual coaching. The American baseball theory that Fujita adopted has remained the foundation of the Hosei Baseball Club to this day.

In the days when there were no professional leagues, the Rokugakusei University League games were highly popular among the public, and students cheered each other on in spectacular games at the stadiums. The enthusiasm of the students who cheered for the Hosei Baseball Club is well expressed in the word "Hosei-spiru" (meaning "spirit"), which appears in a cheer song written by the students themselves in 1929.

Due to the intensification of the Pacific War, the Six University League was forced to suspend the league after the 1942 Fall League. During the war, a total of 26 precious lives were lost, including both active baseball players and alumni who went off to war.

However, the long war ended in the spring of 1946, and league games resumed as early as the spring of 1946. Since Jingu Stadium was confiscated by the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ), the league initially used both Kamiigusa and Korakuen stadiums, with only one round-robin game, but many spectators flocked to the grounds where the sound of the ball had returned after a long absence.

The Hosei Baseball Hall of Fame has inducted nine Hosei alumni, including Nobuo Fujita and Tadashi Wakabayashi, Hidenosuke Shima, Hisanori Karita, Kazuto Tsuruoka, Junzo Sekine, Rikuo Nemoto, Reiichi Matsunaga, and Koji Yamamoto, the highest honor for a baseball player.

The team also produced professional baseball stars and representatives of the baseball world, such as Koichi Tabuchi, Koji Yamamoto, and Masaru Tomita, who were known as the "Three Crows of Hosei," Masatake Yamanaka, who still holds the record for the most wins in a single season with 48, and Taku Egawa, who was called "the monster. The Rokunin University League is the stage for the Rokugaku Daigaku (Six College) League.

The Hosei Baseball Club has won 44 championships in its 100-year history, second only to Waseda University (including three titles in four straight years), and eight All-Japan University Baseball Championships. The "Hosei spirit," which has been passed down through the generations for a century, is still firmly engraved in the hearts of 21st century baseball players.

The Hosei Baseball Hall of Fame has inducted nine Hosei alumni, including Nobuo Fujita and Tadashi Wakabayashi, Hidenosuke Shima, Hisanori Karita, Kazuto Tsuruoka, Junzo Sekine, Rikuo Nemoto, Reiichi Matsunaga, and Koji Yamamoto, the highest honor for a baseball player.

The team also produced professional baseball stars and representatives of the baseball world, such as Koichi Tabuchi, Koji Yamamoto, and Masaru Tomita, who were known as the "Three Crows of Hosei," Masatake Yamanaka, who still holds the record for the most wins in a single season with 48, and Taku Egawa, who was called "the monster. The Rokunin University League is the stage for the Rokugaku Daigaku (Six College) League.

The Hosei Baseball Club has won 44 championships in its 100-year history, second only to Waseda University (including three titles in four straight years), and eight All-Japan University Baseball Championships. The "Hosei spirit," which has been passed down through the generations for a century, is still firmly engraved in the hearts of 21st century baseball players.