Masatake Matsuda, a former Vice President of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), died of liver cancer at the age of 84. The funeral was celebrated in Tokyo with a private function. Matsuda's eldest daughter Mieko Saito gave the mourning speech.
Matsuda was elected as an IBAF Vice President in 2005. During his term, he advocated the introduction of the tie-break rule, that was tested during the U-18 Baseball World Cup 2008 and officially introduced at the Beijing Olympics.
WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari led the tributes saying Matsuda's contribution to baseball "was instrumental to shaping the international game as we know it now".
An avid baseball fan, Matsuda led the Japan Amateur Baseball Association (JABA) for five years from 2005 to 2010 and helped Inter-city Baseball Championship to grow.
Matsuda is best known in Japan as the former president of the East Japan Railways Company. He promoted in April of 1987 the privatization of the state-owned Japanese National Railways. He told the story in his autobiography Making the impossible possible.
