Star pitcher Eiji Sawamura – killed in action 1944   (Wikimedia Commons)

In a January 1942 “green light” letter to the baseball commissioner, FDR said “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going (during the war).”  

In Japan, baseball, jazz and other western customs were discouraged by the military government in 1940.  But the sport (played in the country since 1870) was so popular that Japanese Baseball League games continued until the firebombing of Japanese cities in 1945.  One of the first things authorized by General MacArthur during the occupation was the resumption of professional baseball games.