"Now its rootage and growth are even more vast. Not only do the major and minor leagues play to larger crowds than ever before, but baseball has spawned a lusty manchild- softball- that leads the nation in outdoor sports attendance. Other nations have adopted baseball. The Japanese player is learning fast. Already he is a skillful fielder and an alert base-runner. American teams touring Japan report that nearly everybody there is playing baseball. Japanese youngsters are on their way to the baseball grounds early in the morning and play all day. A game was played in the rain at Kokura in 1934 at which eleven thousand spectators knelt in the outfield in water up to their hips. Twenty thousand saw this game and some were at the gates as early as five o'clock in the morning."