Baseball as Cultural Imperialism?

Historian Eric Hobsbawm seems to think baseball and cricket — but not football — are examples of cultural imperialism. Hobsbawm used the analogy while speaking on Thursday's BBC Newsnight programme about plans to introduce democracy in Iraq (RealAudio at 32:50):

I'd like to distinguish between importing and exporting [democracy]. I think it's importing that's the important thing; you can export, transfer institutions, but they have to be recieved. A an illustration of 'imposing' and 'importing' is in sport. Cricket and baseball were, if not imposed, then at least exported under the auspices of an occupying power. Wherever cricket is played, and wherever baseball is played, there were once British Tommies and American Marines — and I think it's fair to say nowhere else is it played. Whereas in football, whenever people watched British works teams wherever they were, they said "hey, this is an easy game to play, and it's a good one."

He's trying to make an important point, but I think the sports analogy is a bit weak. While it's certainly true that the regions of the world where baseball and cricket are popular coincide exactly with the spheres of influence of the Britain and United States in the late 19th century, I'm not sure his contrast between the imposed imperialist bat-and-ball games and the benign adoption of the working-class kickabout is accurate. Both are foreign cultural products brought in by the imperial adventurers of some sort. And both had to be enthusiastically adopted into the local culture in order to outlive the imperial encounter. The passion amongst ordinary people for cricket in the Indian subcontinent or baseball in Cuba is probably greater than among the originating cultures. You can't impose that sort of cultural resonance.

Moreover, Hobsbawm has his facts wrong: In Japan, baseball was not exported "under the auspices of an occupying power", but from less violent forms that the encounters of early globalisation took. Baseball was introduced by an American teacher working in Tokyo during the Meiji era, and "Yakyu" was well-established before the post-1945 U.S. Occupation. In Korea, baseball was introduced by a missionary in 1905. Japanese imperialism probably had as much to do with the development of Korean baseball as American.

In Europe, the presence of large numbers of American GIs after the Second World War certainly has a lot to do with the development of the minority sport as we know it today, even though the origins are actually much older. Hobsbawm's view would predict Germany to the hotbed of both cricket and baseball in Europe -- with cricket and baseball reflecting the post-1945 American and British zones of occupation. Of course we know that's not the case. A recent article illustrates the Italian case. But why the strength of the game in Holland? Anybody know the historical influences? I presume it has something to do with Curacao. But watch Afganistan: I think this is the sort of thing Hobsbawm was imagining!

I'll have to do some more reading on this subject:

• Allen Guttmann, Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism.
• Joseph Maguire, Global Sport: Identities, Societies, Civilizations
• Maarten Van Bottenburg, Global Games.