JQ Magazine: Book Review — ‘Issei Baseball’
By Rashaad Jorden (Yamagata-ken, 2008-10; Kochi-ken, 2018-present) for JQ magazine. A former head of JETAA Philadelphia’s Sub-Chapter, Rashaad is a graduate of Leeds Beckett University with a master’s degree in responsible tourism management. For more on his life abroad and enthusiasm for taiko drumming, visit his blog at www.gettingpounded.wordpress.com.
The first professional baseball game involving a team of Japanese players took place in Frankfort, Kansas.
Yes, you read that correctly. Thatfact—and many other interesting tidbits—appear in Mashiauthor Robert K. Fitts’ new book IsseiBaseball: The Story of the First Japanese American Ballplayers, which chroniclesthe birth of Japanese American baseball as well as several key figures in itsgrowth. Those figures color the early chapters, as Fitts doesn’t jump rightinto the tours embarked upon by Japanese American teams.
We’re treated to the stories of pioneerssuch as Harry Saisho, the creator of a club named the Japanese Base BallAssociation (which canvassed the Midwest in 1911), Tozan Masko, the co-founderof the Mikado team (the world’s first Japanese-run professional club), and IsooAbe, the manager Waseda University’s baseball club and organizer of its U.S.tour in 1905.
Speaking of the famous Tokyo university,Fitts devotes most of the book’s fifth and sixth chapters to that cross-countryjaunt. Such a heavy emphasis on Waseda was a bit surprising considering that onfirst glance Issei Baseball wouldfocus mainly on Japanese American players in the early 20th century. It turnsout their visit was a crucial part of Japanese American history, as Fitts writes:“Waseda’s visit helped establish baseball as an integral part of JapaneseAmerican culture,” with those games serving as the “first introduction tobaseball for many in the community.”
A book like Issei Baseball is packed with surprises. One of them is that aprominent character in the rise of Japanese American baseball was neitherJapanese nor Japanese American, but a Caucasian businessman named Guy Green, apromoter of barnstorming tours featuring Native American players in 1897 and 1898who was awed by the extensive press coverage of Waseda’s 1905 tour and noticedthe rising popularity of Japanese culture in the West. Detecting a lucrativebusiness opportunity (many things Japanese were inexplicably trendy at thattime), Green started recruiting Japanese players.
Eventually, Issei Baseball turns its focus to the whirlwind tours Green’s team undertook.Fitts does a solid job of providing accounts of memorable games played by his“Japanese Base Ball Club” (which was actually formed in Nebraska). Gettinginformation about all the games today would be challenging since many of themwere played in small towns (they did win 122 of the 142 games of which resultsare known), but Fitts was able to illuminate the events with lively narrativesthat appeared in newspapers.
Indeed, a team full of Japanese playerswas a major attraction in many of the towns Green’s team visited. A writer for Kansas’Junction City Union remarked that agame between the Japanese nine and Fort Riley’s team “should prove one of thegreatest baseball attractions that the vicinity has ever had the good fortuneto witness.”
The information Fitts gathered from suchsources is a highlight of Issei Baseball.In addition to the aforementioned quotes appearing in English-languagepublications, he was able to pull tidbits appearing in Japanese-language papersappearing in the early 20th century.
As Fitts dives into the lore of these pioneeringfigures, it’s clear that Issei Baseballexamines issues beyond baseball. World War II upended the lives of mostJapanese Americans, and those profiled in the book were no different. AlthoughFitts spends too much space on the personalities instead of the games played byvarious Issei teams as well as Waseda and Keio universities, it’s fascinatingto learn that even embracing baseball couldn’t help Japanese Americans overcomethe prejudice they faced in white society.
IsseiBaseball doesnot shy away from addressing the racism that Issei ballplayers faced duringtheir tours. Fitts mentions that the JBBA had to avoid playing in numerousIllinois locales due to many of them being “sundown towns.” Hisextensive research reveals that the Issei players were often reduced to raciststereotypes and caricatures in the media (an article in the Cincinnati Post disparaged WasedaUniversity’s players as “little yellow men.”)
Who were those players exactly? Fitts isa historian of Japanese baseball who digs deep to reveal fascinatinginformation about Issei players, even including an appendix with a partialroster of selected teams. Issei Baseballwould have been enhanced if he could have included more information about thelives of the elite players. Reading about Keio University pitcher Kazuma Sugase(who once struck out 16 batters over 18innings in a victory against the University of Wisconsin and, years later, waslauded by legendary New York Giants manager John McGraw as one of “one of thegreatest all-around athletes in Japan,” you can’t help wanting to know more.
Whilebaseball has a long history in Japan, the sport has just as rich of a pedigreein Japanese American communities. IsseiBaseball is an encyclopedic look into a game that brought pride to a widergroup of people.
For more informationon Issei Baseball, clickhere.
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