Wally Yonamine was both the first Japanese American to play for an NFL franchise and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. This is the unlikely story of how a shy young man from the sugar plantations of Maui overcame prejudice to integrate two professional sports in two countries. In 1951 the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants chose Yonamine as the first American to play in Japan during the Allied occupation. He entered Japanese baseball when mistrust of Americans was high—and higher still for Japanese Americans whose parents had left the country a generation earlier. Without speaking the language, he helped introduce a hustling style of base running, shaking up the game for both Japanese players and fans. Along the way, Yonamine endured insults, dodged rocks thrown by fans, initiated riots, and was threatened by yakuza (the Japanese mafia). He also won batting titles, was named the 1957 MVP, coached and managed for twenty-five years, and was honored by the emperor of Japan. Overcoming bigotry and hardship on and off the field, Yonamine became a true national hero and a member of Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame.

Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball

Biographies & Memoirs

Fitts, Robert K.

Historical

University Of Nebraska Press

Wally Yonamine was both the first Japanese American to play for an NFL franchise and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. This is the unlikely story of how a shy young man from the sugar plantations of Maui overcame prejudice to integrate two professional sports in two countries. In 1951 the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants chose Yonamine as the first American to play in Japan during the Allied occupation. He entered Japanese baseball when mistrust of Americans was high—and higher still for Japanese Americans whose parents had left the country a generation earlier. Without speaking the language, he helped introduce a hustling style of base running, shaking up the game for both Japanese players and fans. Along the way, Yonamine endured insults, dodged rocks thrown by fans, initiated riots, and was threatened by yakuza (the Japanese mafia). He also won batting titles, was named the 1957 MVP, coached and managed for twenty-five years, and was honored by the emperor of Japan. Overcoming bigotry and hardship on and off the field, Yonamine became a true national hero and a member of Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame. In addition to the foreword by Hawaiian senator Daniel K. Inouye, this Nebraska Paperback edition features a new preface by the author, commemorating Yonamine at his death in early 2011.

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan, and spreading goodwill. Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the amity generated by the tour—and the two nations’ shared love of the game—could help heal their growing political differences. But the Babe and baseball could not overcome Japan’s growing nationalism, as a bloody coup d’état by young army officers and an assassination attempt by the ultranationalist War Gods Society jeopardized the tour’s success. A tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball, Banzai Babe Ruth is the first detailed account of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All American baseball tour. Robert K. Fitts provides a wonderful story about baseball, nationalism, and American and Japanese cultural history.

Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan

History

Americas

Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major Leaguer

In the spring of 1964, the Nankai Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League sent nineteen-year-old Masanori Murakami to the Class A Fresno Giants to improve his skills. To nearly everyone’s surprise, Murakami, known as Mashi, dominated the American hitters. With the San Francisco Giants caught in a close pennant race and desperate for a left-handed reliever, Masanori was called up to join the big league club, becoming the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues.
Featuring pinpoint control, a devastating curveball, and a friendly smile, Mashi became the Giants’ top lefty reliever and one of the team’s most popular players—as well as a national hero in Japan. Not surprisingly, the Giants offered him a contract for the 1965 season. Murakami signed, announcing that he would be thrilled to stay in San Francisco. There was just one problem: the Nankai Hawks still owned his contract.
The dispute over Murakami’s contract would ignite an international incident that ultimately prevented other Japanese players from joining the Majors for thirty years. Mashi is the story of an unlikely hero who gets caught up in an American and Japanese baseball dispute and is forced to choose between his dreams in the United States and his duty in Japan.

(Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1995; revised with new preface)

Inventing New England's Slave Paradise : Master/Slave Relations in Eighteenth Century Narragansett, Rhode Island (Studies in African American History and Culture)

Africa

Routledge

2021 SABR Baseball Research Award 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Silver Medal Winner&nbsp; Baseball has been called America's true melting pot, a game that unites us as a people. Issei Baseball is the story of the pioneers of Japanese American baseball, Harry Saisho, Ken Kitsuse, Tom Uyeda, Tozan Masko, Kiichi Suzuki, and others--young men who came to the United States to start a new life but found bigotry and discrimination. In 1905 they formed a baseball club in Los Angeles and began playing local amateur teams. Inspired by the Waseda University baseball team's 1905 visit to the West Coast, they became the first Japanese professional baseball club on either side of the Pacific and barnstormed across the American Midwest in 1906 and 1911. Tens of thousands came to see "how the minions of the Mikado played the national pastime." As they played, the Japanese earned the respect of their opponents and fans, breaking down racial stereotypes. Baseball became a bridge between the two cultures, bringing Japanese and Americans together through the shared love of the game. Issei Baseball focuses on the small group of men who formed the first professional and semiprofessional Japanese baseball clubs. These players' story tells the history of early Japanese American baseball, including the placement of Saisho, Kitsuse, and their families in relocation camps during World War II and the Japanese immigrant experience. &nbsp;

Issei Baseball: The Story of the First Japanese American Ballplayers

Community & Culture

In the spring of 1964, the Nankai Hawks of Japan's Pacific League sent nineteen-year-old Masanori Murakami to the Class A Fresno Giants to improve his skills. To nearly everyone's surprise, Murakami, known as Mashi, dominated the American hitters. With the San Francisco Giants caught in a close pennant race and desperate for a left-handed reliever, Masanori was called up to join the big league club, becoming the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Featuring pinpoint control, a devastating curveball, and a friendly smile, Mashi became the Giants' top lefty reliever and one of the team's most popular players--as well as a national hero in Japan. Not surprisingly, the Giants offered him a contract for the 1965 season. Murakami signed, announcing that he would be thrilled to stay in San Francisco. There was just one problem: the Nankai Hawks still owned his contract. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The dispute over Murakami's contract would ignite an international incident that ultimately prevented other Japanese players from joining the Majors for thirty years. Mashi is the story of an unlikely hero caught up in an American and Japanese baseball dispute and forced to choose between his dreams in the United States and&nbsp;his duty in Japan. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;

Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan, Volume II: 1960-2019 (Nichibei Yakyu: Baseball Tours of Japan)

Newman, Roberta J.

Tran, Henry

Shadlow, Robert Kiyoshi

Cromwel, Carter

McCormac, Susan Miyagi

Raichura, Trevor

Kanter, Mark

Asia

Society for American Baseball Research

Over 100 baseball teams from the United States and Hawaii have crossed the Pacific to play baseball in Japan. Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan is the first book written in English that focuses on these international tours. 
Discover in this book, how: 
The female Philadelphia Bobbies team tour ended in tragedy 
Babe Ruth tried to prevent World War II 
Lefty O’Doul helped reunite the US and Japan through baseball 
A Native American baseball team was cheated and stranded 5000 miles from home 
A Negro League team helped start Japanese professional baseball 
Japanese Americans used baseball to build a bridge between the two cultures 
Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson finished their careers in Japan 
These, and many other stories, introduce readers to the fascinating world of Japanese baseball. 
Volume One focuses on tours between 1907 and 1958. During this time period, many of the sport’s greatest stars—including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson—played in the Land of the Rising Sun. These tours helped spread the game across the globe, spawned thousands of individual friendships, and helped bring nations together through the mutual love of baseball. 
Volume One contains individual chapters written by leading members of the Society for American Baseball Research on all 15 professional squads that traveled to Japan before 1960 as well as four collegiate and eight amateur/semipro teams. Each chapter is accompanied by game results and, when available, player statistics. 
Robert K. Fitts is the author of seven books on Japanese baseball and Japanese baseball cards. Fitts is the founder of SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee and a recipient of the society’s 2013 Seymour Medal for Best Baseball Book of 2012, the 2019 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, the 2012 Doug Pappas Award for best research presentation at the SABR convention, and the 2006 and 2021 SABR Research Awards. He has twice been a finalist for the Casey Award and has received two silver medals at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. While living in Tokyo in 1993-94, Fitts began collecting Japanese baseball cards and now runs Robs Japanese Cards LLC. Information on Rob’s work is available at RobFitts.com.

Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan Volume 1, 1907 - 1958 (Nichibei Yakyu: Baseball Tours of Japan)

Sports & Outdoors

Snelling, Dennis

Berenbak, Adam

Williams, Kat D.

Nagata, Yoichi

Pearce, Ralph M.

Baseball

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