Wally Yonamine

Wally Yonamine
Author: Robert K. Fitts
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 080321782X

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

Wally Yonamine
Author: Robert K. Fitts
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0803213816

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. ø 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.

Hawai'i Sports

Hawai'i Sports
Author: Dan Cisco
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 684
Release: 1999-01-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780824821210

Traces the history of Hawaiian sports and lists local records

Issei Baseball

Issei Baseball
Author: Robert K. Fitts
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2020-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1496220870

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.

Banzai Babe Ruth

Banzai Babe Ruth
Author: Robert K. Fitts
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0803240244

Presents a detailed account of the attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All American baseball tour which included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack.

Mashi

Mashi
Author: Robert K. Fitts
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2020-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1496219511

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 caught up in an American and Japanese baseball dispute and forced to choose between his dreams in the United States and his duty in Japan.

Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures

Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures
Author: Joel Franks
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2009-12-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0761847456

Since Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures was originally published in 2000, new findings in Asian Pacific American sports have come to light. Moreover, Americans of Asian Pacific ancestry have made the sports world incredibly more exciting than before. Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures tells intriguing tales of athletes, now often forgotten-such as aquatic legend Duke Kahanamoku, diving gold medalist Vicki Manalo, courageous female golfer Jackie Liwai Pung, and baseball pioneer Buck Lai. It explores how Asian Pacific Americans have asserted a vibrant, joyful sense of community through sports, while encountering racism and nativism. Since 2000, talented athletes of Asian Pacific ancestry have emerged-athletes such as the great Tiger Woods, but also Tim Lincicum, Troy Polamalu, Bryan Clay, Natasha Kai, and Logan Tom. These athletes have chipped away at prevailing stereotypes, and their stories, too, will be told in this second edition of Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures.

Japanese Baseball

Japanese Baseball
Author: Daniel E. Johnson
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2015-08-13
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 147660410X

This book--the first in the English language to contain an exhaustive collection of Japanese baseball data--presents basic statistical information and listings for every Japanese professional baseball season from 1936 through 1997. The first part contains yearly breakdowns of team standings; qualifiers for batting and earned run championships; leaders in home runs, runs batted in, wins and strikeouts; all-star game results; Japan Series results; Best Nine selections; Gold Glove selections; and award winners. Sections on career records and single-season records are provided in the second part of this work. Appendices list no-hit, no-run games, Japanese Hall of Famers, and records of foreign tours of Japan by professional teams.

San Francisco 49ers

San Francisco 49ers
Author: Matt Maiocco
Publisher: MBI Pub. LLC and MVP Books
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2013-09-17
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0760344736

This fully illustrated celebration of the San Francisco 49ers highlights the great players, coaches, teams, and moments that have made the Niners one of the most successful franchises in football history.