P_BL-1968-01451-1016

A black-and-white photograph of a Japanese woman selling cardboard seat cushions outside of a professional baseball game at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo, Japan on April 27th, 1947. There are extensive captions on the reverse. The first caption reads: "BASEBALL IS STILL TOP IN JAPAN-TOKYO, JAPAN- Baseball is one of the few things lost in the war which the Japanese have been able to retrieve in its full pre-war measure. Professional players in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka comprise the Nippon Professional Baseball League of eight teams and slug through a schedule of more than 100 games in hot competition for the championship. The revived enthusiasm isn't merely a reaction against the bans of wartime; The Japanese love the game. The biggest boost toward popularity came in 1931 when all-star American team toured the country. The performances of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are still discussed with awe in the tea houses. As fans in the U.S. paid a tribute to Ruth on Babe Ruth Day, April 27th, Japanese honored him on the same day at memorial programs in Korakuen stadium in Tokyo and the Nishinomiya stadium in Osaka. These exclusive Acme photographs, by Richard C. Ferguson, Acme correspondent, were made recently in Tokyo's Korakuen stadium, which seats 30,000." The second caption reads: "For maximum enjoyment. A woman sells cushions made of corrugated cardboard, with a newspaper covering, to hardened baseball fans. Cushions sell for two yen for a single game. She would not say whether her business prospered."