You may have heard the Japan Pro Baseball Players Union has voted to end participation in Nichi-Bei Yakyu, the series of post-season all-star games between the best players in Japan and their counterparts from Major League Baseball. The apparent final good will event is scheduled to be played in Japan this November, between the Japan Series and Konami Cup Asia Series.
NBY dates back almost a century to 1908 when a Reach All-America Team toured Japan 26 years prior to the forming of the Yomiuri Giants as this country's first professional club.
Players from John McGraw's New York Giants and Charles Comisky's Chicago White Sox came to Japan for a friendly series in 1913, and a guy named Herb Hunter brought MLB all-stars to Dai Nippon in 1920, 1922 and 1931, with Lou Gehrig and six other eventual Hall of Famers on that last trip.