On June 1, 1942, 10,000 soldiers watched the Chicago Cubs lose an exciting game to an Army team at Camp Grant, Illinois. The “doughboys” pulled it out in the ninth inning on a single by their manager, Joe Skurski. At third base for the soldiers was a Japanese-American named Jack Kakuuchi (the Tribune refers to him as “Jake Kakuchi”), who walked in the fourth inning and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly.
(Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1942)
I learned about this from Bill Staples, who believes that this game represents “the first time a Japanese-American competed against and defeated a major league team.” To top it off, Kakuuchi’s family, including his wife and son, were (as you might have guessed) interned at Manzanar while he served in the military.Bill first emailed me about the Cubs’ Camp Grant game a week ago Friday (February 6). A few days later, Bill learned that Jack Kakuuchi had passed away that very day. “Perhaps he was waiting for someone to rediscover his 1942 box score,” said Bill.
Jack Kakuuchi, born Alexander Hideya Kakuuchi on May 5, 1920, in San Francisco, California, was, according to Bill, “an all-around athlete who excelled at baseball, football, basketball, sumo wrestling, and golf,” and later became a “legendary” golf and football coach at Citrus College. Bill will have much more detail on Kakuuchi in a book he’s working on about Kenichi Zenimura and Japanese-American baseball.
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