Haiku

Masaoka Shiki is an esteemed member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. A baseball field in Ueno, Japan bears his name in his honor; however, he wasn't inducted to the hall based on the talent he showed on the field.

Shiki was introduced to baseball at his preparatory school in 1884, just 12 years after American teacher Horace Wilson first introduced it to his students at Tokyo University. Shiki was a writer, and he composed nine baseball haiku, beginning in 1890, making him the first Japanese writer to use the game as a literary subject:

spring breeze
this grassy field makes me
want to play catch

--- 

the trick
to ball catching
the willow in a breeze 

---

under a faraway sky
the people of America
began baseball
I can watch it
forever

Throughout his career Shiki wrote many different literary works about baseball, and he made translations of baseball terms that are still in use today.