Baseball has long been considered America’s national pastime, so it came as a surprise when North Korea, a country with a sworn hatred of the U.S., welcomed the head of the sport’s global governing body to Pyongyang this week, even organizing a demonstration game of the simplified variant Baseball5 featuring five players per team.

The visit highlighted North Korea’s complicated history with baseball, a sport that was popular in the undivided Korea during the colonial era but then fell out of favor under the post-World War II regime.

However, over the years the state has occasionally revived its interest in