The All Americans spent the morning of November 9 wandering about town and lunching with some of the city’s 60 American residents before heading to Yagiyama Ball Field.  Compared to the tiny park at Hakodate, Yagiyama Ball Field seemed cavernous with outfield walls over 400 feet from home plate.  Despite the size of the park, fans in the centerfield bleachers, remembering what happened during the 1931 tour, brought their gloves.

When the all stars arrived three years earlier on November 10, gale-force winds blew steadily all day.  Nevertheless, game went on as scheduled.  Fred Lieb noted in Baseball As I Knew It, “In all my years of attending ball games I have never seen a game attempted under such conditions.”  The Americans jumped all over the All Meiji pitcher and led 8-0 when catcher Mickey Cochrane came to the plate in the third inning.  Cochrane pounded a line drive upper the middle that kept going until it rocketed into the centerfield stands.  According to Lieb, “ordinarily it would take a canon to hit a home run into this bleacher, an estimated 450 feet away, and a monstrous swat against a gale.  Since I could follow the flight of the ball all the way, I would think any bleacherite could have done so also and ducked or scrambled aside when he saw the ball headed in his direction.  But this unwary fan was hit right in the mouth his lips were bloodied and three teeth were knocked out.”  After a brief pause, the game continued.  Twenty minutes later, a small ambulance drove on to the field, parking behind home plate.  A doctor and two nurses emerged, and seemingly unconcerned that they were interrupting a ballgame, “marched single file across the entire field from home plate to pitcher’s box, second base, and out to the distant bleacher,” only to find that the injured fans had already been removed to the stadium office and had received treatment.  “The man who tried to catch the ball with his mouth received 100 yen ($3 but nearly three months’ wages) from the management and apparently felt that he had put in a good day.”

                    
            


The fans also needed their mitts in 1934 as Babe Ruth went deep twice and Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, and Bing Miller each hit one in a 7-0 American victory.