Ahead of Its Time: The 1950 Inter-Hemisphere Playoff in Japan

August 27, 2025 ⋅ History

by Jim Kobbe

After nearly a century of Japanese “goodwill tours,” it was not until 2000 that Major League Baseball played a regular season game in Japan. In 2025 in Tokyo, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of wins over Seiya Suzuki, Shota Imanaga and the Chicago Cubs. The games signaled a new height of Japanese interest and influence of MLB.

Incredibly, 75 years before the Dodgers and Cubs met in Tokyo – and 56 years before the World Baseball Classic – Hap Dumont orchestrated an “Inter-Hemisphere Playoff” in Japan. The event matched the National Baseball Congress World Series champion against players from the two teams who played for the Japanese national, non-professional championship.

Since the inception of the NBC in 1935, Dumont seemed to have a global vision for baseball. Following the 1939 and 1940 NBC World Series, the champions went to San Juan to play the Puerto Rican national champion. The 1948 and 1949 champions from Fort Wayne, Indiana played in Kitchener, Ontario against the Canadian national champion.

Sending a team to Japan, however, had issues.

Dumont first presented the idea in August of 1945, immediately after Japan’s surrender to the United States to effectively end World War II. He was flooded with mail from all over the country, opposed to the idea. “Are you a German, a Jap or just an s.o.b?” asked one letter, quoted by the Wichita Eagle. U.S. representative Emanuel Celler of New York publicly called the idea “asinine.”

Dumont no doubt realized that he needed time to cool the emotions of war and a different approach. He gathered support in the form of three influential figures, beginning with J.G. Taylor Spink, publisher of The Sporting News. At the time, The Sporting News was “the Bible of Baseball” and Dumont was an advertiser. Spink became the Commissioner of the NBC’s Global Program, which already consisted of 20 nations.

Next, Dumont turned to the U.S. Army. Not only did they like the idea of a Japan series, Major General William F. Marquat, a member of Douglas MacArthur’s staff, was appointed the NBC’s Commissioner for Japan.

A third commissioner was already in place. Dumont leveraged his relationship with Albert B. “Happy” Chandler, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

These men helped Dumont realize his vision in 1950. The Army provided $50,000 for expenses for the NBC World Series champion to go to Japan. Chandler called it “the first actual World’s Series in baseball history.” East would meet West in the Inter-Hemisphere Playoff for the world’s non-professional championship.

* * * * * *

Fort Wayne, Indiana was an NBC dynasty. A racially integrated team with former Negro Leagues players and other professionals, they won championships in 1947, 1948 and 1949 as the Fort Wayne General Electric team. In 1950, they came to Wichita as the Fort Wayne Capeharts, sponsored by the Capehart Farnsworth Corporation, a manufacturer of televisions and phonograph-radios.

The new name produced the same result. Fort Wayne swept through the tournament, winning seven games, including a controversial championship against Elk City, Oklahoma. Capehart’s Sal Madrid, who had briefly played for the Chicago Cubs, hit a ball down the left field line of Lawrence Stadium called fair for a home run by umpire Russ Tielker. Elk City leftfielder Bill Strumborg did not agree and punched Tielker, breaking his nose.

After Strumborg and his manager were thrown out of the game, the Capeharts went on to a 5-2 victory.

Fort Wayne became the first – and remains the only – team to win four straight NBC World Series championships. After celebrating, they were whisked to Wichita Municipal Airport to board a Continental flight to Seattle, then to Tokyo. No doubt the players discussed how the Japanese might receive them. After all, they were only five years removed from World War II and would play games in Osaka, a four-hour drive from Nagasaki, still rebuilding from the devastation of an American atomic bomb.

Thirty-six hours later, the Capeharts landed in Tokyo to be greeted by Geisha girls with flowers, Japanese dignitaries, General Marquat and other U.S. military officials. The players were sworn in to active military duty during their eight day stay.

Newspapers, radio and newsreel cameras covered their every move, especially when one million people turned out for a parade through the city’s glamorous Ginza district.

Ten thousand attended a rally for the team. Manager John Braden was given a key to the city. He and the players also went to tea parties and signed autographs. “We signed at least 5,000 one day,” Braden told the Eagle.

Baseball awaited them and so did the Japanese team, All-Kanebo, a collection of mostly college aged players plucked from the Tokyo and Osaka teams who played for the national championship, the Black Lion Pennant.

The opening game in the best of seven series was played on Sunday, September 10, before 50,000 fans. The start was delayed as a brief earthquake shook Korakuen Stadium. General MacArthur’s wife, Jean, delivered the first pitch alongside Marquat and other military brass.

Madrid, who hit the disputed homer a week earlier in Wichita, homered twice and NBC World Series MVP Pat Scantlebury limited the Japanese to three hits in a 6-1 Fort Wayne victory. The next day, the Capeharts broke open a 4-3 game in the eighth inning to win 11-3. Another 45,000 were in attendance.

The series shifted locations, as the teams traveled 300 miles by train to Osaka. Manager Braden was again presented with a key to the city and the game was played before 30,000 at Koshien Stadium. Just before darkness was to halt play, All-Kanebo’s Hidekazu Iwanaka’s double in the 13th inning drove home the only run. Pitcher Shonai Yonekuba held Fort Wayne to six hits in a complete game victory.

Game four was played at Nishinomiya Stadium, also in Osaka. Through rain and mud, the Capeharts won 8-4 to send the series back to Tokyo with a three games to one lead.

In game five, Scantlebury scattered five hits to win 6-1, giving the Inter-Hemisphere Championship to Fort Wayne. Scantlebury, a Panamanian who pitched in the Negro Leagues and would later pitch in the majors, was named the best pitcher of the series. Named best hitter was Herschel Held, who had four hits in the final game.

Before the Capeharts returned to Indiana, they played three exhibition games in Japan. Attendance for the exhibitions and the five-game series totaled 317,000 – an average of 39,625 per game.

Despite its success, the Inter-Hemisphere Playoff was not held the following year but was again staged in 1952. The NBC champion was the Fort Myer Colonials, representing a military base near Washington, DC. They defeated the All-Kanebo team three games to two, again playing in both Tokyo and Osaka. That was the final Inter-Hemisphere Playoff, replaced three years later by the Global World Series.

Jim Kobbe is a former Wichita sportscaster who serves on the board of advisors of the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame.

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