21 Facts About Matsutaro Shoriki

Matsutaro Shoriki was a Japanese media mogul and politician.

Matsutaro Shoriki owned the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, the main mouthpiece for the military dictatorship during the war, after the war it gained Japan's highest readership while openly distributing nationalistic and pro-American agendas.

Matsutaro Shoriki founded Japan's first commercial television station, Nippon Television Network Corporation in 1952.

Matsutaro Shoriki graduated from Tokyo Imperial University Law School, where he was a competitive judoka in the Nanatei league.

Matsutaro Shoriki was one of the most successful judo masters, receiving the extremely rare rank of 10th Dan after his death.

Matsutaro Shoriki's innovations included improved news coverage and a full-page radio program guide.

Matsutaro Shoriki is known as the father of Japanese professional baseball.

Matsutaro Shoriki organized a Japanese baseball All-Star team in 1934 that matched up against an American All-Star team.

Matsutaro Shoriki survived an assassination attempt by right-wing nationalists for allowing foreigners to play baseball in Jingu Stadium.

Matsutaro Shoriki received a 16-inch-long scar from a broadsword during the assassination attempt.

Matsutaro Shoriki became Nippon Professional Baseball's unofficial first commissioner in 1949.

In 1950, Matsutaro Shoriki oversaw the realignment of the Japanese Baseball League into its present two-league structure and the establishment of the Japan Series.

One goal Matsutaro Shoriki did not accomplish was a true world series.

Matsutaro Shoriki was classified as a "Class A" war criminal after the Second World War, serving 21 months in the Sugamo Prison in the outskirts of Tokyo.

Matsutaro Shoriki later stated that his stay at "Sugamo University" was an ideal networking opportunity.

Right-wingers would, with Matsutaro Shoriki's help, come back to rule Japan just four years after America signed a peace treaty with Japan in 1951.

In July 1952, just three months after the US occupation bureaucracy had formally ended, Matsutaro Shoriki was granted a broadcasting license for the new Nippon Television Network by Japanese media regulators.

In January 1956, Matsutaro Shoriki became chairman of the newly created Japanese Atomic Energy Commission, and in May of that year was appointed head of the brand-new Science and Technology Agency, both under the cabinet of Ichiro Hatoyama with strong support behind the scenes from the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In 2006, Tetsuo Arima, a professor specialising in media studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, published an article that proved Matsutaro Shoriki acted as an agent under the codenames of "podam" and "pojackpot-1" for the CIA to establish a pro-US nationwide commercial television network and to introduce nuclear power plants using US technologies across Japan.

In 1959, Matsutaro Shoriki was the first inductee into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

The Matsutaro Shoriki Award is given annually to the person who contributes the most to Japanese baseball.