system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why does Japan have such an affinity for baseball?
gpt
Baseball has been popular in Japan since the late nineteenth century. It certainly was not something first introduced only after World War II. Since the 1920s there's been regular baseball championship games among Japanese middle schools and universities. Babe Ruth visited Japan in the 1930s to great acclaim.  Even during World War II, colleges held farewell baseball games for students drafted into the military, right before they shipped out to fight Americans in the Pacific. Incidentally, baseball is also popular in Taiwan, mostly because it was introduced there by the Japanese during colonial times.