{"id":45788,"date":"2020-04-28T09:54:13","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T13:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=45788"},"modified":"2020-04-29T08:08:26","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T12:08:26","slug":"jq-magazine-book-review-issei-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2020\/04\/28\/jq-magazine-book-review-issei-baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: Book Review \u2014 \u2018Issei Baseball\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By <\/em><\/strong>Rashaad Jorden<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(<\/em><\/strong>Yamagata-ken<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, 2008-10; <\/em><\/strong>Kochi-ken<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, 2018-present) for<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong><\/a>JQ magazine<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. A former head of <\/em><\/strong>JETAA Philadelphia<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u2019s Sub-Chapter, Rashaad is a graduate of Leeds Beckett University with a master\u2019s degree in responsible tourism management. For more on his life abroad and enthusiasm for taiko drumming, visit his blog at <\/em><\/strong>www.gettingpounded.wordpress.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first professional baseball game involving a team of Japanese players took place in Frankfort, Kansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, you read that correctly. That fact\u2014and many other interesting tidbits\u2014appear in Mashi<\/a><\/em> author Robert K. Fitts<\/a>\u2019 new book Issei Baseball: The Story of the First Japanese American Ballplayers<\/a><\/em>, which chronicles the birth of Japanese American baseball as well as several key figures in its growth. Those figures color the early chapters, as Fitts doesn\u2019t jump right into the tours embarked upon by Japanese American teams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re treated to the stories of pioneers\nsuch as Harry Saisho, the creator of a club named the Japanese Base Ball\nAssociation (which canvassed the Midwest in 1911), Tozan Masko, the co-founder\nof the Mikado team (the world\u2019s first Japanese-run professional club), and Isoo\nAbe, the manager Waseda University\u2019s baseball club and organizer of its U.S.\ntour in 1905.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of the famous Tokyo university, Fitts devotes most of the book\u2019s fifth and sixth chapters to that cross-country jaunt.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Such a heavy emphasis on Waseda was a bit surprising considering that on first glance Issei Baseball<\/em> would focus mainly on Japanese American players in the early 20th century. It turns out their visit was a crucial part of Japanese American history, as Fitts writes: \u201cWaseda\u2019s visit helped establish baseball as an integral part of Japanese American culture,\u201d with those games serving as the \u201cfirst introduction to baseball for many in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A book like Issei Baseball<\/em> is packed with surprises. One of them is that a prominent character in the rise of Japanese American baseball was neither Japanese nor Japanese American, but a Caucasian businessman named Guy Green, a promoter of barnstorming tours featuring Native American players in 1897 and 1898 who was awed by the extensive press coverage of Waseda\u2019s 1905 tour and noticed the rising popularity of Japanese culture in the West. Detecting a lucrative business opportunity (many things Japanese were inexplicably trendy at that time), Green started recruiting Japanese players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, Issei Baseball<\/em> turns its focus to the whirlwind tours Green\u2019s team undertook.\nFitts does a solid job of providing accounts of memorable games played by his\n\u201cJapanese Base Ball Club\u201d (which was actually formed in Nebraska). Getting\ninformation about all the games today would be challenging since many of them\nwere played in small towns (they did win 122 of the 142 games of which results\nare known), but Fitts was able to illuminate the events with lively narratives\nthat appeared in newspapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, a team full of Japanese players\nwas a major attraction in many of the towns Green\u2019s team visited. A writer for Kansas\u2019\nJunction City Union<\/em> remarked that a\ngame between the Japanese nine and Fort Riley\u2019s team \u201cshould prove one of the\ngreatest baseball attractions that the vicinity has ever had the good fortune\nto witness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The information Fitts gathered from such\nsources is a highlight of Issei Baseball<\/em>.\nIn addition to the aforementioned quotes appearing in English-language\npublications, he was able to pull tidbits appearing in Japanese-language papers\nappearing in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Fitts dives into the lore of these pioneering\nfigures, it\u2019s clear that Issei Baseball<\/em>\nexamines issues beyond baseball. World War II upended the lives of most\nJapanese Americans, and those profiled in the book were no different. Although\nFitts spends too much space on the personalities instead of the games played by\nvarious Issei teams as well as Waseda and Keio universities, it\u2019s fascinating\nto learn that even embracing baseball couldn\u2019t help Japanese Americans overcome\nthe prejudice they faced in white society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issei\nBaseball <\/em>does\nnot shy away from addressing the racism that Issei ballplayers faced during\ntheir tours. Fitts mentions that the JBBA had to avoid playing in numerous\nIllinois locales due to many of them being \u201csundown towns<\/a>.\u201d His\nextensive research reveals that the Issei players were often reduced to racist\nstereotypes and caricatures in the media (an article in the Cincinnati Post<\/em> disparaged Waseda\nUniversity\u2019s players as \u201clittle yellow men.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who were those players exactly? Fitts is\na historian of Japanese baseball who digs deep to reveal fascinating\ninformation about Issei players, even including an appendix with a partial\nroster of selected teams. Issei Baseball<\/em>\nwould have been enhanced if he could have included more information about the\nlives of the elite players. Reading about Keio University pitcher Kazuma Sugase\n(who once struck out 16 batters over 18<\/em>\ninnings in a victory against the University of Wisconsin and, years later, was\nlauded by legendary New York Giants manager John McGraw as one of \u201cone of the\ngreatest all-around athletes in Japan,\u201d you can\u2019t help wanting to know more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nbaseball has a long history in Japan, the sport has just as rich of a pedigree\nin Japanese American communities. Issei\nBaseball<\/em> is an encyclopedic look into a game that brought pride to a wider\ngroup of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>more information\non <\/em><\/strong>Issei Baseball<\/strong>, click\nhere<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For<\/em><\/strong> more<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong><\/em>JQ<\/strong> <\/strong><\/em>magazine<\/em><\/strong> book<\/em><\/strong> reviews<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong><\/em>click<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>here<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rashaad Jorden\u00a0(Yamagata-ken, 2008-10; Kochi-ken, 2018-present) for JQ magazine. A former head of JETAA Philadelphia\u2019s Sub-Chapter, Rashaad is a graduate of Leeds Beckett University with a master\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,40,291,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-books","category-jq-magazine","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t