Yesterday I found a box on my porch containing five advance copies of my book "The League of Outsider Baseball". With shaking hands I cut open the box and started peeling back the cardboard packaging. Peering inside I hesitantly eyed the culmination of five years of work, the actual hard-bound realization of the most pleasurable project of my long career as an illustrator and writer. Next week I'll write a post with some nice photos (not lousy iPhone shots) of the book which I hope you find as incredibly rewarding and interesting as I do! 

Shumza Sugimoto.

He's a footnote to a footnote of baseball history, a ballplayer known not for what he did on the field, but for how he was kept off that field by the white powers that be. You can find Shumza Sugimoto mentioned in books and articles on Japanese baseball, New York Giants histories and scholarly studies of racism in the game. Some writers elevate Sugimoto to a Jackie Robinson before his time, one of the game's great "what-if?" questions. Some more creative historians draw a direct line linking Sugimoto with baseball's most favored "what-if" character, Moonlight Graham.

Who was Shumza Sugimoto?

First mention of the man comes in the Spring of 1905. The mighty New York Giants were beginning their pre-spring training in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Manager John McGraw, always on the prowl for fresh talent, spotted a Japanese ballplayer who happened to be in Hot Springs. As most blackball aficionados know, at the turn-of-the-century Hot Springs was the winter base for the best black baseball talent in the country. The opulent resorts in town fielded virtual outsider baseball all-star teams made up of some of the best black ballplayers in the land who doubled as hotel employees. In the days before radio, television and movies, taking in a ballgame was first-rate daytime entertainment for their guests.

A February 10, 1905 newspaper story reported that John McGraw discovered Shumza Sugimoto in his hotel's massage parlor where he was working as a masseuse. A New York Times article lists Sugimoto as being a 23 year-old outfielder weighing in at 118 pounds. Described as a "jiu jitsu expert", Sugimoto revealed that he had played the previous season with the Cuban Giants. At the time the Cuban Giants were one of the best outfits playing outside the white major leagues. To suit up with them you had to have some serious chops. The story goes on to say that McGraw had the masseuse/ballplayer/jui jitsu expert practice with the Giants who pronounced him as having "all the goods". It was reported that Sugimoto was "as good with the willow as with the wrestling art". Articles claimed that the Japanese outfielder could field, hit and run in "first class style". John McGraw told the sports writers that when the Giants broke training camp and went south on their spring exhibition tour he was taking the Japanese ballplayer with them. Some papers chose to leave off the part where the manager stated that he didn't think Sugimoto would eventually make the team. Follow up stories became a touch more fanciful, playing up Sugimoto's Jiu Jitsu. One story even claimed that Sugimoto came close breaking Turkey Mike Donlin's neck in a club house martial arts exhibition!

Then, as soon as it began, the story ends. Before the Giants left Hot Springs, Sugimoto declared in the February 25th edition of Sporting Life Magazine that he "does not like the drawing of the color line in his case, and says he will remain a semi-professional with the Creole Stars of New Orleans if his engagement by the Giants will be resented by the players of other clubs.”

Sugimoto's semi-voluntary retirement was picked up by a few newspapers who spun it into a broader discussion on race and sports. The above quote is interesting in that it is one of the earliest use of the phrase "color line" in conjunction with baseball. Articles appeared in the sporting press questioning why Japanese were excluded when American Indians were welcomed. One article has Cincinnati Reds managers Frank Bancroft and Ned Hanlon and the team's owner Garry Herrmann going on record as having no objections to a Japanese ballplayer and notes that there appeared to be no rule or by-law prohibiting Sugimoto from joining the Giants. Interestingly, Black athletes were not mentioned in the race discussion. At any rate, the Giants headed south to play their way into shape and Shumza Sugimoto disappears.

Or did he? I think the better question is: "Did Shumza Sugimoto  even exist in the first place?"

I'm really not sure. 

The Sugimoto story brought together two of the finest Blackball and Japanese baseball historians you could assemble: Rob Fitts and Ryan Whirty. However, this research dream team could unearth no previous or subsequent record on Shumza Sugimoto. Fitts, probably the fore-most American expert on Japanese baseball history, could find no trace of a ball playing Sugimoto in Japanese archives. Whirty is a specialist in Louisiana blackball and he could not verify even the existence of the Creole Stars of New Orleans team Sugimoto was to play for in 1905. Over the years Negro League historians like Gary Ashwill and Phil Dixon have successfully mined newspaper archives for information and box scores for the 1905-era Cuban Giants. Although the Cuban Giants played on the fringes of organized baseball, the team was very successful and left a trail of box scores and stories from wherever their barnstorming took them. Sugimoto doe not appear in any photograph of the team nor does his name appear in any box score or game recap.

But Bill Staples, the go-to man on Japanese ball players in America and head of SABR's Asian Baseball Committee has another take on the Cuban Giants/Creole Stars link. Bill suggests we take a step back from taking team names mentioned in the newspaper articles literally - "Cuban Giants" might have referred to one of the many barnstorming teams that used the name "Cubans" back at the turn-of-the-century. In Bill's own words: "It's not out of line to think that as an Issei, Sugimoto's English was not perfect, so perhaps he tried to explain his playing experience and a reporter misinterpreted what he said? I've seen many articles where a reporter gets a fact wrong, and then it is repeated by others. If we explore this possibility then maybe this would point us to more clues about Sugimoto the real person."

Also Bill brings to our attention that the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis brought many foreign ball players to the States. Again, I'll let Bill explain: "That year baseball was an exhibition sport there (perhaps with the Olympics too, which was held in conjunction with the fair), and teams and players came from all over to compete." Bill emailed me an example of a 1904 immigration record of a Cuban ball player arriving at the Port of New Orleans with the intention of attending the World's Fair. "With that it mind, I suspect there were other Cubans playing ball in St. Louis in 1904, and maybe this is where Sugimoto played briefly with a team that might have called themselves the Giants (Giants was a popular team name in the early 1900s). In Ancestry.com we see that on March 8, 1904. S. Sugimoto arrived in New Orleans from Cuba. Perhaps he learned about the Cuban baseball plans in St. Louis World's Fair when he was in Cuba?" 

Very interesting stuff.

My own research uncovered that if you opened a newspaper in the spring of 1905 you'd find a few mentions of men and women named "Sugimoto", just none who played ball. There was a troupe of female Japanese jugglers and acrobats called the "Sugimoto's Score of Japanese" who toured the country from 1904 through 1906. These geisha-clad ladies played every vaudeville and opera house from California to Denver to Baltimore. A Mr. Sugimoto could be found touring the east coast giving intellectual talks on Buddhism to packed houses. Another man named Sugimoto was a prominent businessman in Cincinnati, Ohio and was touring the Midwest giving lectures on Japan. In the spring of 1905 it was announced that Waseda University's baseball team was scheduled to tour the eastern United States for the first ever Japanese-American Intercollegiate games.

Besides the name Sugimoto and Japanese baseball being readily found in newspapers across the United States, you have to take a broader look at the time period during which this McGraw story takes place. 

During 1904 and 1905 the Japan and Russia were fighting a savage war in Manchuria. While this conflict is all but forgotten today, back in '04 and '05 this was big news. Russia was a creaky superpower on the way to revolution and Japan was a brand-new nation that fascinated the West. The war began with Japan's sneak attack on the Russian port of Port Arthur. The complete defeat of the Russian Pacific Fleet was the first time an Asian nation inflicted a military defeat on a Western power. The subsequent Russo-Japanese War was the first modern conflict to be fought on a large scale using machine guns, observation balloons and all-steel and steam warships. This clash of modern arms attracted newspaper correspondents and military observers from every nation. Since the Japanese were on the offensive, most of the newspaper correspondents were attached to the Japanese army and the majority of newspaper articles on the war were Japan-centric. 

America loves an underdog and the majority of the country was pulling for little Japan. Plus the United States was in the middle of a surge of immigrants from Poland, Ukraine and other countries that were under the oppressive thumb of the Czar. All these newly minted Americans were rooting for Japan to kick the hell out of Russia.

If you were a bored and mildly playful sportswriter in the spring of 1905 with a hankering to file a phony dispatch about a foreign ballplayer, you'd most likely conjure up a Japanese one.

It's isn't like this hadn't happened before: as far back as 1887 the story of a Chinese ballplayer signed by the White Sox made the rounds. (Please the wild tale on Teang Wong Foo HERE). It is very interesting to note another, more well known incident that took place just a four years earlier featuring the exact same elements of the Sugimoto story: John McGraw, Hot Springs, Arkansas and an ethnic ball player. In the spring of '01, McGraw was the manager of the Baltimore Orioles and he tried unsuccessfully to pass off blackball star Charlie Grant as an American Indian named "Chief Tokohama". (For the whole story please see my post on Chief Tokohama HERE). The story made all the papers and the incident became an early baseball legend. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine a bored sports writer conjuring a fake story to sell a few more newspapers. 

Bill Staples enters again to offer his take on whether or not a sports writer would fake this story. The February 25th Sporting Life article in which Sugimoto reveals he will remain a semi-pro was written by William F. H. Koelsch. Back at the turn-of-the-century Koelsch was a highly respected sports writer who closely followed the New York Giants before, during and after spring training. McGraw and his club were Koelsch's beat and he was the go-to man for anything Giants. Bill raises a good point: Would a guy like Koelsch risk his reputation by spreading false information?

As another side-note to this tangled tale is a story originating from Chicago in the winter of 1911. According to Chicago Cubs president Charles Webb Murphy an infielder named Ito Sugimoto wrote asking for a tryout with the club. The article mentions that this Sugimoto played semi-pro ball in Hawaii and San Francisco where he was a resident. The letter was forwarded to manager Frank Chance and just like Shumza six years before, this Sugimoto conveniently disappears...

Well, that's my take on the whole Sugimoto - first Japanese ballplayer - Cuban Giants story. On one hand, I would like to see the whole yarn proven true. The stories it provoked sparked a dialogue on racism and baseball's color line like never before. Like I wrote in the introduction, I've even seen it writen quite matter-of-factly that when Sugimoto left the Giants his place was taken by - wait for it - Archibald "Moonlight" Graham! Now that would be one heck of a story. (As Bill Staples points out, this comes from both men being mentioned in the same half page Sporting Life article by William F. H. Koelsch). On the other  hand, when put into a broader historical context, it not only reveals a long forgotten war but also demonstrates how Americans and the west in general were fascinated with the world's mysterious new superpower, Japan.

Special thanks goes out to Bill Staples who adds a great counter-point to my original story. You may remember Bill from a story and illustration we collaborated on just after the publication of his book "Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer”. This excellent piece of research not only recounts the life of a pioneering ball player but also tells the story of Japanese-American baseball in America, one of the great untold chapters of baseball history.

Here's a ball player I've been wanting to do a card of for a long time. Actually, I illustrated the thing long ago, I just hadn't felt I completed enough research on the guy to tell the story the way I wanted to. Back when I was in college in Baltimore, I got to asking many of the old timers about the Negro League stars, and when catcher came up, most of the oldsters said Biz Mackey was The Man. I asked about Josh Gibson, the great Homestead Grays slugger and sure enough most said that yeah, that Josh could hit the ball a mile, but Biz was the better all-around ball player. 

Strong words, and contradictory to most blackball history you read, but me, I'll side with people who were there every time. So, who was Biz Mackey?

Heard of Roy Campanella? The Tokyo Giants? Well, without Biz Mackey both might not have existed...

He grew up playing town ball with his brothers Ray and Ernest before going pro with the San Antonio Black Aces in 1918. When the team folded C.I. Taylor's Indianapolis ABC's bought his contract. The ABC's were among the elite black teams at the time and for a young kid like Mackey to be picked up by them was saying a lot about his raw talent. Serving his big league internship on a team filled with stars such as Oscar Charleston, Dizzy Dismukes, Crush Holloway and Ben Taylor benefited the burly young catcher and he batted .312, 329 and .365. 

In 1923 he moved to the Hilldale Club out of Darby, Pennsylvania. Hilldale was the classiest of the eastern blackball outfits and were about to embark on a tear of three pennants once the Eastern Colored League was founded the year Mackey joined them.Because Hilldale already had slugger Louis Santop behind he plate, Mackey often played in the infield so both his and Santop's bats could be in the lineup. It says a lot that a man of Mackey's size, about 6' and over 200 pounds, could play shortstop and third base with the same ease as he could catcher. When he did displace Santop behind the plate, Mackey's mastery of the position became legendary. His arm was so strong and accurate that he didn't have to stand up to throw a base runner out at second. No one had seen that before and soon Mackey was getting compared to Major League baseball's best catcher, Mickey Cochrane, who played across town with the Philadelphia Athletics. Oldtimers who saw both men play usually give Cochrane the slight edge with a bat, but overwhelmingly give Mackey the nod when it came to defence and calling a game.

Mackey was gregarious and jolly; his nickname "Biz" actually derives from his propensity to give batters "the business" as they tried to concentrate at the plate. Mackey would ask them questions, try to get the ump to examine their bat, anything to distract them. He loved the nightlife, too. Blackball players were royalty in the still segregated cities and Mackey took full advantage of all it had to offer. Extremely fond of the sauce, the big catcher was known for his epic nights on the town, but while other ball players eventually succumbed to its debilitating effects, Mackey avoided the slippery slope to alcoholism. While known to show up at a ball game still showing the effects of the night before, once he put on that uniform and crouched behind the plate he was all business.

Because Mackey was renown as one of the best players outside the majors he was much in demand to play during the winter months. Besides the Caribbean, which was a popular destination for black ball players since the early 1900's, by the 20's Southern California had a burgeoning winter baseball season as well. The California Winter League usually featured a few white teams made up of major leaguers and Pacific Coast League stars and a single black ball club stocked with the best the Negro Leagues had to offer. In the winter of 1926-1927, promoter Lonnie Goodwin assembled the Philadelphia Royal Giants, what may have been the greatest single-season team of black players ever to take the field. Joining Mackey was the Kansas City Monarchs' ace Bullet Rogan, Turkey Stearnes, Willie Wells, Andy Cooper and Bill Foster, all Hall of Famers. The Royal Giants buzz-sawed their way through the winter league and took the pennant with a 26-11-1 record against the white teams. In a few more seasons Commissioner Landis would put a stop to the major leaguers playing in the Winter League, but for a few years it was possible to see how black ball players could do against their white counterparts. 

After the Winter League season ended, the Royal Giants split up. Bullet Rogan and the other Kansas City Monarchs headed back east to start the 1927 Negro National League season, but Biz Mackey, Frank Duncan, Rap Dixon, Andy Cooper and a handful of others boarded a ship to Japan. Touring baseball teams were not all that uncommon in Japan; American college, Japanese-American semi-pro and white professional teams had been doing it since the turn of the century, but this was the first major tour of black ball players.

Like every other American ball club that toured Japan, The Royal Giants won nearly every game; 47 out of 48 games. Their single loss to the Daimai Club serves as an example of what made the Japanese appreciate the black players so much. In a close game against the
Daimai Club, a bad call by the local umpire gave the game to the Japanese: with one out and two on base, a Royal Giant hit a long fly ball to sacrifice score a run, but the second runner was doubled off first and tagged out. The umpire refused to allow the run to count and Daimai won. The Royal Giants took the loss in stride, something the Japanese deeply appreciated.

While other visiting teams came to the island and beat the hell out of the inexperienced Japanese, the Royal Giants subtly kept their scores low to not insult the locals. The blackball players knew how to play "the game", they'd done it countless times back in the states against white semi-pro and town teams where to run up the score and embarrass the locals could cost them their part of the gate receipts, or worse, a beating. The black ballplayers also knew that by keeping the score close, the possibility to see a win would keep fans interested and coming to the park. The 1922 Major League tour realized this too late and gate receipts greatly diminished by the time their tour ended. When the big leaguers did let the Japanese win a game, it was such a farce that it only embarrassed the locals even more.

The Royal Giants also brought some good old barnstorming entertainment to the island, driving the fans nuts with their shadow ball routines. The Japanese watched in amazement as the Royal Giants whipped the invisible ball around the field. The team also shared their knowledge of the game with the Japanese, Mackey's exhibition on how to throw to second base from a crouch especially drew eager students.

When the Royal Giants played in Tokyo's brand new Meiji Shrine Stadium, Mackey became the first man to hit a ball out of its massive environs. The blast was estimated at 427 feet and before the tour ended he'd hit two more out of the ball park, each to a different field.

The Japanese deeply appreciated the kindness of the Royal Giants and the tour did much to spread the game's popularity. Many of the college players who faced the Royal Giants in 1927 went on to have roles in the founding of the Japanese Baseball League in 1936. By keeping the scores low and not embarrassing the locals, the Americans played to the Japanese sense of honor and dignity, something no other team of Americans had in the past. The gesture helped bolster the Japanese player's confidence, which when dealing with a game as complex as baseball, becomes very important.

Mackey returned to Hilldale half-way through the 1927 season. In his absence, the team had finished dead-last in the league's first half, but climbed back to 3rd place in the second half with him behind the plate. If the catcher had been a major leaguer who abandoned his team to barnstorm for half a season, he'd have been banned from the game. But, Mackey was in the Negro Leagues, and it speaks volumes of the precarious nature of the league that his only punishment amounted to little more than a scolding. Biz Mackey was a superstar of black baseball and the Negro Leagues need him.

For the rest of his long career, Mackey continued to be among the best ball players in outsider ball. When the Negro Leagues had their first East-West All-Star Game in 1933, it was Mackey, not Josh Gibson, who received the most fan votes and was the game's starting catcher. When Mackey was playing for the Philadelphia Stars in 1935, there was a chubby local kid who kept hanging around the star catcher. Through persistence, a little raw talent and Mackey's mentoring, the kid showed promise. By 1938 Mackey was in Baltimore with the Elite Giants and had the kid take the train down to Charm City on weekends to play in exhibition games under his watchful eye. Over the course of a summer the boy transformed into Mackey's "mini me". Veterans said that unless the kid took the mask off, you swore it was the ol' Biz himself behind the plate. When Mackey went to the Newark Eagles in 1939, the Elite Giants' catching was left in the able hands of that kid: Roy Campanella.
In Newark Mackey found a whole new crew of youngsters to mentor and over the next decade brought Larry Doby, Monte Irvin and Don Newcombe's skills up to major league standards. With collapse of the black teams in the early 1950's, Mackey drove a forklift but was brought into the national spotlight when on May 7, 1959, Roy Campanella introduced his old mentor before a crowd of over 90,000 Dodgers fans as the man who made him who he was. It was a tremendous compliment to a man whose generosity and kindness helped influence ballplayers of many colors and nationalities.

And that's who Biz Mackey was.

• Holway, John B., Blackball Stars (Meckler Books, 1988)
• Fitts, Robert K., Banzai Babe Ruth (University of Nebraska, 2012)
• Lanctot, Neil, Fair Dealing and Clean Play (Syracuse University, 2007)
• Gary Ashwill, Agate Type Website

Every so often I get requests for ballplayers to feature on the site. This week's player was suggested by a reader over a year ago and not only did he ask me to feature this particular player, but he also took the time to write out a nice outline of his career to get me started. It took me quite a long time to assemble everything, research, drawing and actually writing it all down, but finally, here it is...

Now the first thing you think about when you here that a ballplayer's nickname is "Rap" is a massive slugger, right? Rap has got to be derived from the sound the ball makes when it "raps" into the outfield wall. Well, in Herbert Albert Dixon's case, "Rap" was short for the Rappahannock River. Why was he named after a river in Virginia? I have no idea. He was born in Kingston, Georgia and grew up in Steelton, Pennsylvania. I'll make an educated guess and throw it out there that perhaps Dixon's family, after leaving Georgia, briefly settled in Virginia, somewhere along the banks of that river. Moving to urban Pennsylvania it was probably just natural his nickname reflected the place he'd come from. But, like I said, it's all just a guess. What is known for sure is that by his teens Dixon was living in Steelton where his Pop was a steelworker.

Colonel Strothers, the owner and manager of the semi-pro Harrisburg Giants, spied the 20 year-old "Rap" Dixon playing sandlot ball in Steelton, Pennsylvania and snatched him up for his own ball club. Strothers was in the process of turning his semi-pro Giants into a big league quality team and the was Dixon played the outfield Strothers knew this kid would be an integral part of what he envisioned for his club. 

By 1924 the Harrisburg Giants had become that pro club the Colonel envisioned. To compliment his young left fielder, Struthers signed Oscar Charleston to play center and brought in Fats Jenkins to anchor right field. The Dixon-Charleston-Jenkins combo became what may have been the greatest outfield of all-time. 

The Giants joined the Eastern Colored League in 1924 and Dixon began what should be a hall of fame career. In 47 games he hit a .265 but did slug 4 homers and demonstrated solid skills on the base paths. His fielding out in left field was so impressive that there was no question he would be in that same place the next season. Playing full time in 1925 Dixon responded by knocking the ball around for a  .344 average. After the regular season, Dixon was invited to go to the West Coast and play in the winter league around Los Angeles. Off-season baseball work was scarce and only the best ballplayers were offered slots in the winter league so it speaks highly of Dixon's talent at the age of 23 that he was granted a berth on one of those all-star teams. 

Back east with Harrisburg again in 1926 he's credited with a .310 average and many Negro teams tried to get Dixon to jump the Giants and join their clubs, to no avail. The left fielder was tall and bony, just over 6 feet tall. His legs were stripped down and built for speed and his arms were the only thing on him that could be called muscular, which was the source of his cannon arm and the reason he could scatter booming line drives all over a ball field. By 1927 no one remembered that "Rap" had anything to do with a river. To blackball fans, "Rap" was what he did to a baseball, and that was that.

Instead of heading out west in the winter of 1927 and stopping at Los Angeles, Dixon was recruited by famed catcher Biz Mackey to join his team which was headed to the Orient to play ball. The team, dubbed the Philadelphia Royal Giants, stopped off in many exotic locations including the Philippines and Japan, spreading the brand of ball playing they played in the Negro leagues. Japan particularly embraced the American visitors and Dixon in particular. The fans were captivated by his "shadowball" pantomime routine before games and one of his home runs was so impressive that a plaque was erected to commemorate it. His batting performance in Japan was so impressive that it earned him a special trophy from the Emperor Hirohito. 

When the tour ended Dixon took his brand of ball playing to the Baltimore Black Sox. Baltimore had consistently fielded a competitive team but always seemed to fall short at the end of the season. The addition of Rap Dixon to the lineup was that missing part of the machine. After batting .382 in 1928, the Black Sox finally put it all together the next season and they won the league championship, Dixon's .369 tally adding considerably to a well-balanced ball club. Unfortunately the league disbanded after that and while the 1930 Black Sox were considered even better than the previous edition, they were an independent club and it's not easy to gauge in retrospect how good they were. 

One thing is for certain however, and that is that Rap Dixon was a superstar. In July of 1930 Yankee Stadium was officially opened up to black teams and the Black Sox were there to play the hometown Lincoln Giants in the House that Ruth Built. By the time the game ended that afternoon Dixon had gone down in the history books as not only the first black ball player to hit a home run in Yankee Stadium, but he hit three of them that day. It was a monstrous demonstration of power in front of a huge crowd in the largest city in the nation. If anyone didn't know about Rap Dixon by the morning before that game, they sure did afterwards. 

Unfortunately along with fame comes a whole cart full of unwanted baggage and Dixon fell victim to two of the most common ones - booze and ego. That drinking went along with the transient lifestyle of a ballplayer is not sup prizing. Black or white, many great careers were damaged by the sauce and Dixon was no different. Alcohol combined with a swollen head made for an unpleasant teammate. But, just like his white counterparts, as long as you performed on the field such unpleasantness's were overlooked.

Like many stars of blackball, Dixon now began the life of ball player for hire, frequently switching teams and showing up bat in hand to whichever team offered him the most money. One thing everyone who followed Negro baseball was that when Rap Dixon came to join your team, he was bringing speed, power and the the best fielding skills around. Dixon's appearance in the lineup was like money in the bank. In 1931 he was roaming left field in a Hilldale uniform. 1932 found him on the Pittsburgh Crawfords, one of the best ball clubs ever assembled, black, white, brown or any other color. The next season he was recruited by the Philadelphia Stars and creamed the ball for a .370 average. When the voting for the very first All-Star Game was tallied in July of that year, Rap Dixon was the East's starting left fielder of course. He promptly stole the first base in All-Star history.

When he went south to Puerto Rico in the winter of 1933-34, Dixon was at the top of his game. Then it all ended. Sliding into second base, Dixon severely injured his spine. The all-star spent almost half a season in the hospital and when he finally returned to the game he wasn't even half the player he was before. Philadelphia cut Dixon loose but Baltimore took a chance on their old star and hired him as manager of the Black Sox. While he was one of the best ballplayers to ever step on a ball field, he wasn't a skilled enough manager to make a difference with the lack-luster club Baltimore saddled him with and the club folded. The Brooklyn Eagles picked up his contract the next season bu he didn't stick and he bumped around a series of teams in quick succession before hanging up his spikes after the 1937 season. He stayed in the game as a manager of a few low-level teams including a reconstituted Harrisburg Giants in the 1940's. Though Harrisburg's level of play wasn't one the same level as a Negro National League team, it was notable for another reason - it was an integrated ball club - a rarity back then and perhaps one of the many reasons which proved why Jackie Robinson should be given a shot at professional ball in 1946.

After a good 15 years of heavy drinking, Rap Dixon succumbed to tuberculosis in July of 1944. His heath had been declining steadily since his hospitalization ten years earlier and his death wasn't much of a surprise to those who knew him. When Oscar Charleston was creating his all-time dream lineup of Negro league players in 1949 he chose his old Harrisburg teammate to be the starting left fielder. Quite a compliment considering the source and the vast pool of talent he had to choose from. The Hall of Fame had Dixon on their ballot in 2006 but he failed to garner enough votes. Perhaps one day when guys like Gil Hodges and Sammy T. Hughes get their just rewards, the name Herbert Albert "Rap" Dixon will be right along with them.

When my buddy Charlie Vascellaro and I were taking the Babe Ruth Museum Traveling Exhibit around the country back in '02, one of the best things about the job was the personal stories people were constantly telling us about their own, or someone they knew, had with The Babe. Most of the stories culminated in getting the cherished autograph of the big man. I don't think anyone else in the history of the world signed their own name as much as The Babe. In a day and age where guys like Barry Bond will deliberately ignore young children politely asking for a signature (I witnessed it myself, it was an episode that still turns my stomach), the stories of The Babe delaying the departure of the Yankees' team bus on a humid summer afternoon because he couldn't bring himself to leave until every scrap of paper handed to him by little children and blushing adults had his signature on it. I often wondered what went through The Babe's mind as he signed ball after ball, had his meals interrupted by a request to sign a cocktail napkin or confronted a typical day's mail delivery that held countless requests for that most famous of autographs.

I think The Babe looked on it as his obligation to the people who made him famous, a small price to pay for the love, money and adulation he now received and that his childhood so tragically lacked. We've all seen the newsreel footage of him standing on a ledge in New York, tossing brand-new baseballs with his signature to hundreds of screaming fans in the street. He's laughing so hard at the joy his autograph gave the people below. After re-watching this footage once, I realized how many hours he must have sat in a room and signed ball after ball.

Earlier this week, as I was devouring Rob Fitts' new book "Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball Espionage & Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan", I read a great passage about how The Babe was relaxing one night in his suite at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo when there was a knock at the door. An old Japanese man in a kimono bowed and handed a ball to The Babe: "sign please". The old man didn't have a pen so The Babe went back into his suite and got his own which he used to sign the ball and returned it to the old man. The old man bowed in thanks and out from his kimono sleeve rolled another ball. "Sign please" said the old man and The Babe signed the second ball. The old man bowed again and out rolled a third ball: "sign please" and The Babe did again. As Ruth's wife and daughter watched laughing, The Babe and the old man repeated the same drill more than a dozen times until there were no more balls to sign and the old man bowed and left. As Fitts writes "the amused Ruth took it in stride."

So this week I just wanted to pay tribute to Babe Ruth and how something so simple and free as his signature could bring so much happiness to so many people, as well as introduce you to a really spectacular book, the aforementioned "Banzai Babe Ruth." I've written about the 1934 Tour of Japan in my stories on Moe Berg, Eiji Sawamura and Victor Starffin and Fitt's book brings them all together in a great tale of baseball, spying and murder. I haven't read a baseball book this good in a very long time I can't recommend it enough. Here is what Rob has to say about his new book:

Nearly 500,000 screaming fans lined the streets of Tokyo on November 2, 1934, to welcome Babe Ruth and his team of American all stars to Japan. The line of open limousines held one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled. Joining the Bambino were future Hall of Famer members Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Lefty Gomez, and Connie Mack as well as stars Lefty O’Doul, Bing Miller, and Earl Whitehill. Only one player didn’t seem to belong—a journeyman catcher with a .238 career batting average named Moe Berg. Berg would eventually become an operative for the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, and many believe that this trip was his first mission as a spy.

As the motorcade paraded through Ginza rows of fans, often ten to twenty deep, crowded into the road to catch a glimpse of the Americans. The pressing crowd reduced the broad streets to narrow paths just wide enough for the limousines to pass. Confetti and streamers fluttered down from well-wishers leaning out of windows of the avenues’ multi-storied office buildings. Thousands waived Japanese and American flags and cheered wildly. Cries of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” echoed through the neighborhood. Reveling in the attention, the Bambino plucked flags from the crowd and stood in the back of the car waving a Japanese flag in his left hand and an American in his right. Finally, the crowd couldn’t contain itself and rushed into the street to be closer to the Babe. Downtown traffic stood still for hours as he shook hands with the multitude.

Ruth and his teammates stayed in Japan for a month, playing 18 exhibition games against Japanese opponents in 12 cities. But there was more at stake than sport. Japan and the United States were slipping towards war as the two nations vied for control over China and naval supremacy in the Pacific. Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the goodwill generated by the tour and the two nations’ shared love of the game could help heal their growing political differences. Many observers, therefore, considered the all stars’ joyous reception significant. The New York Times, for example, wrote: “The Babe’s big bulk today blotted out such unimportant things as international squabbles over oil and navies.” Connie Mack added that the tour was “one of the greatest peace measures in the history of nations.”
But the shared love for a sport would not be enough to overcome Japan’s growing nationalism. Just two miles to the northwest of the parade at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Ichigaya, a group known as the Young Officers was planning a coup d’etat against the government, an upheaval that would jeopardize the tour’s success and put the players’ lives at risk. In another section of Tokyo, the ultra-nationalist War Gods Society met at their dojo. Their actions would tarnish the tour with bloodshed.

Banzai Babe Ruth! is the story of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the tour of Major League all stars in 1934. It will reveal how two groups of men from different cultures, temporarily united by their love for baseball, became tragically divided as their countries rushed towards war. It is a tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder and, of course, baseball.

We shall see how Babe Ruth, the jovial demigod of baseball, brought the two nations together and forestalled talks of war, before becoming a symbol in Japan of American decadence, cursed by imperial troops charging to their certain deaths. We shall also see how a 17-year-old pitcher named Eiji Sawamura became a national hero by playing against the Americans in friendship but died in the South Pacific as their bitter enemy. We will follow Moe Berg’s forays into espionage; the Young Officers attempt to overthrow the Japanese government; the ultra-nationalist War Gods Society attempt to murder tour organizer Matsutaro Shoriki; and the birth of Japanese professional baseball. It will introduce the lesser-known tales of Victor Starffin, the Russian immigrant and player for Japan whose father was a convicted murderer; and Jimmy Horio, a Japanese-American who played for the All Nippon team in an effort to gain a Major League contract. The 1934 All American tour of Japan was more than just a series of exhibition baseball games. It was an event that changed lives and influenced Japanese-American relations, for better and worse, for decades.

Robert K. Fitts is the author of three books and a number of articles on Japanese baseball and baseball cards. A former historical archaeologist, Rob left academics to write about baseball in 2000. His articles have appeared in The National Pastime, Baseball Research Journal, Journal of American Culture, Tuff Stuff and on MLB.com. His first book, Remembering Japanese Baseball won the 2005 Society of American Baseball Research & The Sporting News Award for Best Baseball Research. His second book, Wally Yonamine: The Man who Changed Japanese Baseball tells the story of the "Jackie Robinson of Japan." Learn more about his projects at www.RobFitts.com

Please excuse the lack of updated for the past 2 weeks, I have been in the process of moving from California to Kentucky and the past weeks have been filled with packing, moving and storing capped off with a severely injured back due to a freak accident when I tried to stop a file cabinet from tipping over while standing one one foot. Live and learn I suppose. Also, if you are interested, on my Facebook page I just posted a card of a certain 1970's Red Sox relief pitcher named Sam "Mayday" Malone and I'm soliciting writers to come up with the story that will accompany it...

This week's card and story is about Fujio Nagasawa and the 1935 Tokyo Giants. You can get the back story on the tour in the story I did about the team's star outfielder Jimmy Horio.

Hailing from the island of Hokkaido in the northern-most part of Japan, first baseman Fujio Nagasawa was the star of his college team from Hakodate Commercial School. After graduating he continued to play ball for the Hakodate Oceania Baseball Club. His talent was such that at the “advanced” age of 30 was recruited to represent Japan against the Major League All-Stars in the winter of 1934.

Led by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the All-Stars wiped the floor with the Japanese team but the Americans came away with the impression that the Japanese players they faced were at a AA level. Nagasawa himself hit .226 in 11 games against major league pitching. With practice against good, professional competition, American sportswriters speculated they would improve quickly. Major Leaguer Lefty O'Doul was on that 1934 team and had previously played on tours that stopped in Japan earlier in the decade. Through his friendships with influential businessmen eager to start a Japanese league, O'Doul suggested sending the Dai-Nippon team to the United States in the spring to play against the American professional teams that held spring training on the west coast. O'Doul was newly named manager of the San Francisco Seals and offered to act as intermediary in arranging other ball clubs to play against the Japanese.

Besides acting as middle-man for the Japanese, the publicity-savvy O'Doul made a few suggestions to the Dai-Nippons - the first of which was to change their name: The Dai-Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Club was just too much of a mouthful for the American public to digest. O'Doul suggested the "Tokyo Giants" and the name has held to this day. Other suggestions by O'Doul was for the Japanese to capitalize on national customs that would be unique to their team when they toured America. Despite the fact that Japanese baseball teams all used English words and numbers on their uniforms, for the tour jerseys would sport the player's number in traditional Japanese kanji characters on their backs and the kanji characters for "Tokyo" would appear on their sleeve. O'Doul instructed them to continue the tradition of tipping their caps and bowing as a group to the crowd before and after a game. Each batter was told to also tip their cap and bow to the umpire before each at bat and even after being thrown out on the base paths runners were to do the same. Another unique aspect of a Tokyo Giants game was their football-like huddle before each inning. Newspaper scribes in America were kept busy debating just what was being discussed during these mysterious huddles. Curious little things like that really made a difference to the American public and the team was awarded with decent-sized crowds and much newspaper publicity.

Among the photographs that accompanied the Tokyo Giants press kit was a much-reproduced photo of Fujio Nagasawa tipping his cap to the home plate umpire. American sportswriters commented favorably on his fielding skills and he batted right around .300 on the 6 month tour. The success of the tour back in Japan led to the formation of the nation’s first professional league and Nagasawa was signed to be the Tokyo Giants first baseman. As the Giants lead off hitter, Nagasawa became the very first batter in the Japanese Baseball League when play began in 1936. Now in his early 30's, Fujio Nagasawa's playing days were coming to an end and the arrival of first baseman Tetsuji Kawakami, soon to be known as "The God of Batting" led to his retirement in 1943. Nagasawa then switched gears and became a successful reporter for the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, dying at the age of 80 in 1985.

This card and story stems from the large file of research I have been slowly accumulating on the 1935 Tokyo Giants. Often a footnote in other baseball history books, no volume of its own has ever been published in English. In Japan, baseball writer and historian Yoichi Nagata has written the definitive study of this tour - unfortunately it is in Japanese and no translation has been done of this interesting work. Through a speech he gave at a SABR convention a few years ago, Nagata related how his research uncovered Lefty O'Doul's part in helping the Tokyo Giants create a unique persona through the continued use of the "football huddle" and the bowing and tipping of their caps. I am planning to release the drawings I have done of the 1935 team along with the story of their tour in a future edition of "21".

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May) our current feature is on Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, Kenichi Zenimura (1900-1968). While Jackie Robinson and the Negro Leagues have been well documented, few baseball fans know about the Japanese American Nisei Leagues, or of Zenimura, their most influential figure. A phenomenal player who excelled at all nine positions, Zenimura possessed a gift for using the game to transcend the ignorance and intolerance of his era. As a player, captain, and manager, he worked tirelessly to promote Japanese American baseball, leading goodwill trips to Asia, helping to negotiate tours of Japan by Negro League all-stars and Babe Ruth, and establishing a 32-team league behind the barbed wire of Arizona’s Gila River Internment Camp during World War II.

“Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer” (McFarland 2011) is a new book by SABR member Bill Staples, Jr. With a foreword by Don Wakamatsu, the first Asian-American manager in MLB history, this biography of the "Father of Japanese-American Baseball" delivers a thorough and fascinating account of Zenimura’s life. In anticipation of the book’s release in June, Staples shares a summary of one of the most under-appreciated aspect of Zenimura’s career, and that of Japanese American baseball in general – the important role played in pre-war U.S.-Japanese baseball relations.

The 1922 MLB Tour to Japan: A Blow to American Sportsmanship
In the fall of 1922 Major League Baseball announced that it was sending a team of all-stars to tour Japan. Among the stars selected were Luke Sewell (Indians, c), Waite Hoyt (Yankees, p), Irish Meusel (Giants, of), George “High-Pockets” Kelley (Giants, 1b) and Casey Stengel (Giants, of).[1] The tour was led by Herb Hunter and was the brainchild of American League Commissioner Ban Johnson, who said, “Perhaps someday we will have the Champions of America meeting the winners of the Japanese series in a real world’s series. This may be my dream, but it is a dream I shall cherish until it materializes.”[2]

On October 14, 1922, Herb Hunter’s all-star club and a young Kenichi Zenimura were literally two ships passing in the night. At that same time that the all-stars were heading West across the Pacific, young Zenimura was returning from Japan where he spent several months coaching baseball at Koryo High School. The Koryo team roster included his cousin Tatsumi Zenimura, outfielder and future Meiji University team captain, and Kisaku Kato, future player and manager for Nankai of the Nippon Professional Baseball league.[3]

Zenimura was born in Hiroshima in 1900, moved to Honolulu in 1907, and as a young man moved to the U.S. mainland after visiting relatives in Fresno. He arrived in 1920 and immediately assumed a leadership role with the nascent Fresno Athletic Club. While he was away coaching at Koryo, the Seattle Asahi won the 1922 West Coast Japanese baseball championship and the rights to represent the U.S. during a tour of Japan in 1923. Zeni had devised a plan to bolster the talent of his club to claim the West Coast Japanese Baseball championship from Seattle. The plan required another trip back to Japan and then on to Hawaii to recruit his former Island teammates to join him on the mainland in California.

Back in Japan, the 1922 MLB All-Stars took on and defeated every college, industrial and amateur team the country had to offer – except one. On November 23, Herb Hunter’s men lost 9 to 3 to the amateur Mita Club, led by pitcher Michimaro Ono.[4] On the surface, one would think that the Mita Club and fans would be happy with the victory over the Americans, but they were not. Reports out of Japan explained why:

America's reputation for sportsmanship suffered a severe blow when the American baseballers threw away Sunday's came to the Mita local nine, which is strong nationally, but obviously no match for the American professionals … The general opinion was frankly expressed that the Americans dropped the frame for advertising purposes, anticipating increased gate receipts later at Osaka and other parts … The Tokio Asahi expressed the disappointment, “We welcomed the American team because we thought they were gentlemanly and sportsmanlike. They have now shown themselves to be full of the mean professional spirit. Japanese baseball followers are not foolish enough to believe they tried to beat Mita … they disappointed our hopes and left an unpleasant impression upon us.”[5]

Losing pitcher Waite Hoyt would later explain that he and his teammates were just “foolin’ around” on the field and meant no disrespect to their Japanese hosts. Nonetheless, the damage was done. As a result of the All-Stars thrown-game fiasco – and perhaps other factors such as the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake in Japan, and restrictive post-season play policies established by Commissioner Landis – no major league team would tour Japan for another eight years. (Note: Ty Cobb did tour Japan in 1928, however it was as an individual and not as a member of an MLB team tour.)

Filling the MLB Void: The Nisei and Negro Leagues Step Up to the Plate
This eight-year (1923-1931) major league void was proudly filled by Zenimura and his West Coast Nisei League peers. Ironically though, just as Zenimura and his teammates were about to enter the role of goodwill baseball ambassadors to Japan, on November 13, 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ozawa v. U.S. to reaffirm the ban on Japanese immigrants becoming naturalized U.S. citizens.[6] First-generation Japanese Americans, or Isseis like Zenimura, would have to wait another 30 years for the opportunity to call the United States of America their true home. Despite the ruling, Issei proudly represented their adopted country during several tours back to Japan. Specifically, during the eight year MLB-team void, Japanese American teams barnstormed the land of their ancestors approximately ten times, with Zenimura involved in four of the tours (1924, 1927, 1931 and 1937). The following is a comparison of pre-WWII tours to Japan by major leaguers and that of Nisei and Negro Leaguers:

MLB Tours to Japan, Pre-WWII
1908 Reach All-Americans
1913 MLB Giants-White Sox
1920 MLB All-Stars
1922 MLB All-Stars
1928 Ty Cobb (MLB exhibition)
1931 MLB All-Stars (Gehrig, O'Doul)
1934 MLB All-Stars (Ruth, Gehrig)


Nisei-Negro Leagues Baseball Tours to Japan, Pre-WWII
1907 St. Louis-Hawaii
1914 Seattle Asahi
1915 Honolulu Asahi
1915 Seattle Asahi
1918 Seattle Asahi
1920 Honolulu Asahi
1920 Seattle Asahi
1921 Hawaii All-Stars
1921 Seattle Asahi
1921 Vancouver Asahi
1923 Seattle Asahi
1924 Fresno Athletic Club*
1925 San Jose Asahi
1925 Sacramento Nippons
1926 Honolulu Asahi
1927 Aratani Guadalupe Packers
1927 Fresno Athletic Club*
1927 Philadelphia Royal Giants (Negro Leagues)
1928 Stockton Yamato
1931 Kono Alameda All-Stars*
1931 Los Angeles Nippon
1931-32 Philadelphia Royal Giants (Negro Leagues)
1933 Seattle Taiyos
1935 Nipponese All-Stars
1937 Kono Alameda All-Stars*
1940 Honolulu Asahi

*Note: Zenimura participated in the 1924, 1927 and 1937 tours, and coached the 1931 Kono Alameda All-Star players prior to their tour.

Debating the Birth of Pro Ball in Japan
The Nippon Professional Baseball league was established in 1936. Many baseball historians credit the famous 1934 MLB tour with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as the primary inspiration for the start of the first professional league in Japan. However, knowing what we know now about the role of Nisei and Negro Leagues ball clubs and their tireless efforts to export the American style of play before WWII, we now see that the 1934 MLB tour was simply the capstone for building professional baseball in Japan, and not the foundation.

In fact, in the book Gentle Black Giants, Japanese author and historian Kazuo Sayama credits the 1927 tour, especially Mackey and his Philadelphia Royal Giants teammates, as the inspiration for the start of professional baseball in Japan in 1936.[7] Sayama states that Japanese players and spectators knew about the racial segregation in professional sports in America and understood that, although they could not play in the Major League, they were as good as, or even better than, the major league players. Sabur Yokozawa, a Japanese player, later said how the Royal Giants played each game gentlemanly, with warm pedagogical thoughtfulness to the inexperienced Japanese players, while the All-American teams (of 1931 and 1934) sometimes treated the Japanese players with entertaining contempt during the actual games.[8]

Not all researchers agree with Sayama's strong sentiment, but the consensus is this – the 1927 Goodwill Tours of the Philadelphia Royal Giants and Fresno Athletic Club are much more significant than the footnote status they receive in baseball history books. During the 80th anniversary of the 1927 tours, the Nisei Baseball Research Project (niseibaseball.com) told MLB.com that the intent in showcasing the role of Japanese Americans and the Negro League all-stars was not to take credit away from the major league tours but instead to “broaden the understanding that there are more ambassadors who built that (U.S.-Japan baseball) bridge.”[9]

After the end of WWII, Zenimura offered advice to his players that reflects a key lesson he learned during his goodwill tours to Japan during the 1920s and 30s. “Try to speed up the mutual feeling between the Americans and Japanese,” Zenimura said. “It is much easier to make efforts of starting a better understanding between us in the field of sports than trying to talk your way through the rough spots." Spoken like a true diplomat.

To learn more about Zenimura’s role as a global baseball pioneer and passionate U.S.-Japan ambassador, visit www.zenimura.com.

Praise for the book:

Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer by Bill Staples, Jr. Foreword by Don Wakamatsu

Bill Staples, Jr. is a dedicated baseball historian, author and a meticulous researcher who utilizes twenty-first century technology to root out the most obscure facts about his subjects. His work on Kenichi Zenimura is a groundbreaking effort. –William F. McNeil, baseball historian, author, Sporting News-SABR Research Award Winner (2007), Five-time recipient of the Robert Peterson Award

Staples’ tireless research and love for the game has resulted in "Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer,” one of the great untold stories of our American pastime and an essential for any baseball faithful. –Kerry Yo Nakagawa, historian, author, filmmaker, founder/director of the Nisei Baseball Research Project

Hopefully (this book) helps transform a long-neglected chapter of baseball history – Nisei baseball history – into a well-chronicled saga for all fans of all races, creeds and colors to appreciate. –Don Wakamatsu, First Asian-American Manager in MLB History

Bill Staples, Jr., is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), a board member of the Nisei Baseball Research Project, and a past speaker at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He lives in Chandler, Arizona. Learn more online at www.zenimura.com.

This week's story was written by award-winning author Rob Fitts. You'd be hard- pressed to find another American who knows as much about Japanese baseball history and cards. I made Rob's acquaintance while doing research on pre-war baseball in Japan and came across his website that offers a great overview on the 1934 tour of Japan by a group of Major League All-Stars. Besides featuring the American team, he also equally focuses on the Japanese team, something that I have never found in English. Rob has a book about that tour coming out this year which I for one can't wait to get my hands on. After finding his website I became fascinated by early Japanese baseball, especially the 1935 barnstorming tour that the Japanese team took all across North America. After returning to Japan that team became the Tokyo Giants and members of the first professional league in Japan. While researching the 1935 team Rob not only shared his research but translated a few things for me and did a great service in identifying player photographs. He also wrote a well-received biography on Japanese-American trail blazer Wally Yonamine...
Often called the Nisei Jackie Robinson, Wally Yonamine was the first ethnic Japanese to play professional football in the United States and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. Yonamine was born in 1925 on a Maui sugar plantation to poor Japanese immigrants. His success on the gridiron allowed him to escape the plantation and eventually sign with the San Francisco 49ers in 1947. After an injury ended his football career, Yonamine turned to baseball. In 1951, the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants chose him to become the first American to play in Japan during the Allied occupation. Yonamine adopted his football skills to baseball and played hard-stealing bases, sliding hard, and knocking down opponents. Opposing fans hurled insults and rocks at him, but he quickly became one of the most dominant players in the league, winning batting titles in 1954, '56 and '57 as well as the 1957 MVP Award. His success changed the way the Japanese played the game and opened the door for other Americans to come to Japan. Yonamine adapted to Japanese culture and stayed in Japan as a player, coach, and manager for 37 years. He was elected to the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

Robert K. Fitts is the author of two books and a number of articles on Japanese baseball and baseball cards. A former historical archaeologist, Rob left academics to write about baseball in 2000. His articles have appeared in The National Pastime, Baseball Research Journal, Journal of American Culture, Tuff Stuff and on MLB.com. His first book, Remembering Japanese Baseball won the 2005 Society of American Baseball Research & The Sporting News Award for Best Baseball Research. His second book, Wally Yonamine: The Man who Changed Japanese Baseball tells the story of the "Jackie Robinson of Japan." His forthcoming book, Banzai Babe Ruth!, which focuses on the 1934 tour of Japan will be available in 2012. Learn more about his projects at www.RobFitts.com

While learning about the negro leagues years ago, I became interested in the various teams they competed against when not playing against other black teams. Back before the Second World War there was a whole parallel universe of baseball operating just out of bounds of the recognized leagues affiliated with major league baseball. Researchers Scott Simkus and Gary Ashwill seem to have coined the perfect phrase for these teams and the games they played: "Outsider Baseball". As a young amateur historian I found out about the bearded House Of David religious colony from Michigan which sent out as many as 3 different traveling teams a season to play all over the country. I heard about the Nebraska Indians, made up of, you guessed it, Native Americans. I read about barnstorming teams made up of major league stars angling to make a buck. All-Girl teams. Teams of washed up players sponsored by a shoe company. Prison teams. The F.B.I. had a team which J. Edgar Hoover never failed to come out and support. And I also came across the Japanese All-Stars which toured North America in 1935.

The team that toured North America in 1935 was an off-shoot of the Japanese "All-Nippon" Team that was assembled in the fall of 1934 to challenge the American All-Star Team that visited the island nation that year. I briefly talked about this tour in my Moe Berg post back in July. Although stocked with the best college ballplayers on the island, the Japanese lost all 17 games against the Americans. While it was looked upon as a national embarrassment, it inspired the formation of a regular professional team sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper. In the Spring of 1935 the team, now called "The Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu" (Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club), embarked on a tour of the United States and Canada. Among it's players was a 28 year-old Hawaiian named Jimmy Horio.

Jimmy Horio was born in Maui, Hawaii in 1907. Like most Americans, he learned baseball at an early age and was fortunate in growing up in Hawaii as the island was a hotbed of very talented teams made up of Japanese-Americans. He lived in Japan for a few years with his grandparents and later returned to Maui. He dropped out of high school with the ambition to become the first Japanese-American to play in the Major Leagues. The speedy Horio was signed by the Sioux Falls Canaries of the Class D Nebraska State League in the Spring of 1934. Jimmy batted .264 in 110 games. After the season ended he learned of the up-coming tour of Japan by the Major League All-Stars and wrote to the Japanese National Team's manager sending his semi-pro and minor league records and asked to be a part of the team.

Horio became the team's centerfielder but against the Big Leaguers didn't do too well, batting a lowly .196. But hey, he was batting against Lefty Gomez and Earl Whitehall, winners of 26 and 14 games that season. Jimmy's biggest contribution to the team however was not his bat, but the practical experience he brought with him as a bona-fide American Minor League player, which he readily shared with his teammates.

When the Dia Nippon team was formed, Jimmy Horio was again selected as it's centerfielder. In February of 1935, Japan's first all-professional baseball team sailed out of Yokohama Harbor, destination North America to try their lot against a full schedule real baseball competition. The Dia Nippon's toured extensively playing all-levels of ballclubs from small town factory teams to AAA level minor league teams. Gauging their success and talent is not an easy thing to do as they did extremely well against amateur teams and very good against minor league opposition, however the games against minor league teams were during spring training and many of the teams did not field their best players. None-the-less, the tour was very successful and huge crowds packed the ballpark when the Japanese came to town. American audiences were fascinated by their cultural differences such as tipping their caps and bowing deeply to the umpire when coming to bat or being thrown out steeling. Particularly noted during the tour was Jimmy Horio's excellent fielding and newspaper accounts are filled with mentions of the Japanese-American's exploits in the centerfield. His fluency in Japanese and English made it much easier for the tour to navigate it's way through the back roads of North America. It is reported that the Dia Nippon team's record for the 1935 tour stands at 74 wins and 34 losses.

After the Japanese players went home, Horio stayed in the United States where he was signed by the Sacramento Senators of the Pacific Coast League. The opportunity to play in the PCL might have come from a recommendation from Frank "Lefty" O'Doul who was part of the U.S. team in 1934 and now playing manager of the San Francisco Seals. Jimmy hit .250 in 20 games for Sacramento which at that time was part of the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system. The following year the Japanese team was back in the States, this time as the Tokyo Giants, now part of the first Japanese Baseball League. And this wasn't an exhibition tour, it was a serious spring training to get the team ready for the inaugural 1936 Nippon Professional Baseball League season.

Horio returned to Japan and joined the Hankyu Ball Club where he batted .233 for the first half of the slit season and .217 for the second. Again, although his averages were low, his influence on the game in Japan well out-weighed his offensive output. Horio steadily increased his batting average, batting over or close to .300 for the 1937-41 seasons. Horio starred for the Hanshin Tigers from 1939 to 1941 when he and Tadashi Kameda, the other American player in Japan, left the island due to the deteriorating political situation between the two countries. Jimmy continued to play semi-pro ball in Hawaii during the war, playing until he was 39 years-old. Jimmy Horio died from bone cancer in 1949 and although he never reached his goal of becoming the first Japanese-American in the majors, his influence on the game in Japan is still felt, forever known as "The Ty Cobb of Japan".

I'd like to thank two historians whose grateful sharing of their research made this post possible. Scott Simkus, co-proprietor of The Outsider Baseball Bulletin (www.outsiderbaseball.com) lent me his newspaper files on the 1935 tour as well as his painstakingly compiled statistics culled from available box scores. Robert Fitts, Japanese baseball card expert and author of two major books on Japanese baseball history: "Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball" and "Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History Of The Game", helped me out with identifying and translating Japanese photo captions and generally sharing his knowledge of early professional baseball in Japan. I am also anxiously awaiting his book on the 1935 U.S. Tour of Japan, "Banzai Babe Ruth!" which is due to be released next year. (www.robfitts.com)