Tadao Ichioka

Tadao Ichioka (市岡 忠男)

• School Waseda University
• High School Kyoto First Shogyo High School

• Born November 15, 1891 in Nagano Prefecture Japan
• Died June 23, 1964

Biographical Information

Tadao Ichioka was a key figure in the formation of Japanese professional baseball.

A catcher in college, Ichioka later managed Waseda (1926-1930). He worked for the Yomiuri Shimbun sports department and helped Matsutaro Shoriki work on bringing the MLB All-Americans to Japan (the team included Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx among other stars). This helped lead to the creation of the Japanese Professional Baseball League in 1936. Ichioka was the first director of the JPBL. He later was involved in cycling. In 1962, he and Yutaka Ikeda comprised the third class of inductees to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sources

• Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame
• Japanese Wikipedia entry