Issei baseball : the story of the first Japanese American ballplayers / Robert K. Fitts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fitts, Robert K., 1965- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Green, Guy W.

Baseball players--Japan--Biography.

Baseball players.

Baseball teams--History--United States--20th century.

Baseball teams.

Baseball--History--Japan.

Baseball.

Japan--Emigration and immigration.

Japan.

United States--Emigration and immigration.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Lincoln, Nebraska : University of Nebraska, [2020]

Summary:

2021 SABR Baseball Research Award 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Silver Medal Winner 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.

Contents:

Introduction

Saisho the Dreamer

The national pastime in Japan

The New World

- Issei baseball

Waseda arrives

Waseda tour continues

The first professionals: Guy Green's 1906 Japanese base ball club

The 1906 Barnstorming Tour

The Mikado's Japanese base ball team

Nanka and the Japanese Base Ball Association

"Japanese Invasion"

Ballplayers and diplomats

Barnstorming across America

End of a dream

Japanese American baseball comes of age

Incarceration.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4962-2087-0

1-4962-2089-7

OCLC:

1139766074