Agate Type

jimmy bonner

In the comments to this post Rob Fitts mentioned that “Jimmy Bonna” (right) was the first African American to play professionally for a Japanese baseball team, at the very dawn of the Japanese league, in 1936. At that point, according to Rob, the expert on pre-WWII gaijin (foreign players in Japan), Ralph Pearce, didn’t know anything about “Bonna”  other than his brief record in Japan. Ever since then I’ve been curious about this Bonna, not least because he didn’t seem to correspond to any known Negro leaguer. Who was he? Where did he come from, and how did he get to Japan? Why was he signed by a Japanese club, and not one of the several Negro leaguers who had toured Japan dating back to 1927?

Thanks to Rod Nelson, the other day I read this piece by Dexter Thomas, Jr., part of his “Negroes in Tokyo” series.  As it turns out, Jimmy Bonna was really James E. Bonner, a 5’10”, right-handed submarine pitcher who was signed by the Dai Tokyo club of the new Japanese professional league with a great deal of fanfare. He was said in the Japanese press to have gone pro immediately after graduating from middle school, and to have played for the Oakland Oaks of the PCL (though this couldn’t be correct—the Oaks certainly weren’t hiring black players in the 1930s). He had supposedly once struck out 46 batters in three games played over two days, whiffing 22 in one game.

Unfortunately, Bonner didn’t live up to the hype. He was wild, walking 13 batters in four games, while striking out only two. His final record was 0-1, with a 10.24 ERA—although he did bat .458, 11 for 24 (as a left-handed hitter). Dai Tokyo finished in the cellar, 5-21. He last time up in Japan he tripled but got thrown out at home. He was released on November 18, and left for the United States on the same day. Bonner would never appear in Japan again. The next black American players to join the Japanese league were Johnny Britton and Jimmie Newberry in 1952.

Dexter’s post sparked a little impromptu research hangout on Rod’s Facebook page, wherein John Thorn turned up the basic biographical information on Bonner, via passenger lists and census records: James Everett Bonner, born September 18, 1906, in Mansfield, Louisiana. (In 1936, when he signed for Dai Tokyo, he evidently used a baseball age; he appears as 24 years old in Japanese baseball records and as 25 on the passenger list returning from Japan. Given his real age at the time of 29, he was actually the oldest player on the Dai Tokyo roster.) He can be found in the 1920 and 1930 census still living in Louisiana, and in the 1940 census living in Oakland, California. He was still living in Oakland in 1943, when he enlisted in the United States Army. Bonner passed away in Alameda County on May 10, 1963.

(By the way: I’m assuming that “Bonner” became “Bonna” as a result of being written in Japanese, ボンナ, and then rendered back into English—but I don’t speak Japanese, so don’t take my word for it!)

When Rod was asking me about Negro league researchers specializing in the Bay Area, I thought of Ryan Whirty, who had just published an article in the SF Weekly on the Berkeley International League, a racially integrated semipro circuit that operated in the 1930s. (Ryan has also written about the league on his blog.) The promoter/journalist/radio host Byron “Speed” Reilly had founded the Berkeley Colored League in the 1920s; at some point it mutated into the Berkeley International League, which featured teams of various ethnic origins (Latino, white, African American, Chinese American).

I checked in Oakland and Berkeley newspapers for 1936, and sure enough, here was “Satchel Jim Bonner” pitching for one of the black teams in the BIL, the Berkeley Grays. On May 18, 1936, he beat Negro League veteran Harold “Yellowhorse” Morris and the Athens Elks 9 to 0.

(Oakland Tribune, May 19, 1936, p. 30)

On April 19 Bonner struck out 17 batters in a game against the (white) Berkeley Cardinals, breaking the old BIL record of 14. Bonner’s Grays, for years the doormat of the BIL, were co-champions (with the Athens Elks) in 1936. Bonner was named to the BIL all-star team, which was entered in the Oakland Tribune’s annual California Semi-Pro Baseball Tournament. The International All-Stars were knocked out in the second round on September 2, after which Bonner pitched the San Pablo Dam team to victory in a local Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) tournament. During this tournament Bonner pitched three complete games in two days.

(Berkeley Daily Gazette, October 1, 1936, p. 12)

Bonner left for Japan on September 18, 1936 (his 29th birthday). (Incidentally, though Bonner never played for the Oaks as it was claimed in Japan, both the BIL and the Tribune tournament played games in the Oaks’ stadium.)

After returning from Japan, Bonner hooked up with the Berkeley Grays again the following spring; but I couldn’t find anything beyond that.

Of course, there have been researchers working on Bonner all along. Bill Staples wrote to help flesh out Bonner’s U. S. career. Including what I found with the Berkeley International League, here’s what his career looks like so far:

1935 Oakland Black Sox (black independent)
1936 Berkeley Grays (black; Berkeley International League)
1936 Dai Tokyo (Japanese Baseball League)
1937 Berkeley Grays (black; Berkeley International League)
1937 California Yellow Jackets (black independent)
1939 California Negro Giants (black independent)

Bill notes that the 1940 census has Bonner completing an 8th grade education, which is not inconsistent with a claim in the Japanese press that he started playing professional baseball immediately upon graduating from middle school. (He’s listed in the 1920 census as a delivery boy for a drug store in Mansfield; in 1930 he’s listed as a tailor.) If he started playing professionally (or semi-professionally) that young, we might be able to pick him up with Louisiana or Texas teams from the 1920s into the early 1930s. Bill has also located a Bonner playing off and on in the Oakland industrial leagues (though not for any all-black teams, as far as I can tell) from 1928 to 1934, mostly pitching and playing right field; it wouldn’t be particularly unusual for him to be listed on the census in Louisiana, living with his mother, while actually living in California.

While we’re still working on reconstructing Bonner’s baseball career in the U.S., it does look like he played at a largely local, semipro level, and never progressed to the black big leagues. How good was the Berkeley International League? Well, as mentioned, it featured Yellowhorse Morris, a journeyman pitcher at the very end of his career. Wilson “Stack” Martin, a journeyman utility player in the Negro leagues in the 1920s and early 1930s, also at the end of his career, was in the league. Another BIL star was a pitcher for the Wa Sung Athletic Club named Al Bowen, a Chinese American who had performed briefly for the Oakland Oaks in 1932 under the name “Lee Gum Hong.” He was signed specifically to pitch against the Japanese American Kenso Nushida of the Sacramento Senators, in a weird sort of publicity stunt pegged to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

So the Berkeley International League was not at the level of the black big leagues back east or the winter season black teams on the west such as the Philadelphia Royal Giants (actually based in Los Angeles), made up of Negro league stars. Even though Jimmy Bonner was one of the league’s best players in 1936, clearly there were plenty of better black players in the United States. Why didn’t any of them make their way to the Japanese league?

They had, after all, made their way to Japan. The Philadelphia Royal Giants travelled to Japan in 1927, 1932, and the winter of 1933-34. Those trips were organized by Lonnie Goodwin of the Royal Giants and Kenichi Zenimura. But none of the stars on those teams—Biz Mackey, Andy Cooper, Bullet Rogan, Chet Brewer, Rap Dixon—were enticed to play in Japan in the late 1930s. And when Dai Tokyo was desperate for reinforcement, they didn’t go to Goodwin or Zenimura, who had contacts with those players. Instead they went to Harry Kono, a promoter of Nisei (Japanese-American) baseball on the west coast. It’s Kono who appears on Bonner’s contract as the agent for Dai Tokyo.

My feeling is that geography and money both played a role in giving Jimmy Bonner, rather than, say, Chet Brewer, the chance to join the Japanese league. The west coast was obviously a closer and more convenient place for a Japanese team to try to recruit baseball talent on relatively short notice in September, 1936; the best black players in the United States were all well east of the Rocky Mountains at that point.

Moreover: if this exchange-rate chart is accurate, then Bonner’s pay, at 400 yen a month, a princely sum for ballplayers in Japan (Dexter Thomas says Eiji Sawamura, the biggest star in Japan, was only getting 170 yen a month at the time), amounted to about $116 a month ($1,959 in 2014 dollars). According to Neil Lanctot, the average salary for Negro National League players from 1936 to 1941 was “roughly $100 to $150 per month” (Negro League Baseball, p. 163), with scrubs and bench players getting as little as $50 or $60 a month, and superstars like Gibson and Paige earning up to $500. Dai Tokyo was in effect offering average or below average Negro league wages. For Bonner this might have been great pay, but for Negro league stars this seems unlikely to have been particularly tempting, considering the geographical and cultural distance.

Japanese baseball would eventually become much more competitive financially; but, given the small matter of World War II, it would be sixteen years before African American players returned to Japanese professional baseball.

So that’s the story of the first African American player to sign for a Japanese professional team. We will eventually get much more on Jimmy Bonner when Ralph Pearce publishes his upcoming book on Harris McGalliard (known in Japan as “Bucky Harris”), an American star in the pre-war Japanese league.

 

“Jimmy Bonna,” 1936. Both newspaper photos of Bonna from 1936 are from Dexter Thomas’s post; he got them from Chunichi Sports, December 27, 2013, p. 5.

goro mikami, 1914 & 1915 all nations

Goro Mikami, from Donaldson Network newsletter, July 2011 (pdf)

Continuing my series on early Japanese and Japanese-American ball players on African American teams, we turn today to Goro Mikami.  I’ve written about him before, and Brian McKenna has a SABR biography of Mikami that covers most of the basics.  But I wanted to make a couple of key correction/additions:

In my previous post I noted that “Mikami” appeared in a 1916 box score playing for an  “All Nations baseball nine from New York City” (Chicago Defender, August 5, 1916) that had no apparent connection to the “genuine” All Nations of J. L. Wilkinson, John Donaldson, and José Méndez, a team that at that time was based in Kansas City.  I want to point out that “Mikama, a Japanese outfielder” was reported to be with the Wilkinson All Nations in 1914 (Omaha World Herald, June 4, 1914, p. 11), and “Makami” or “Makomi” played shortstop for the same team in 1915.  Here’s a box score, selected more or less at random:

 (Omaha World Herald, June 1, 1915, 12)

So Goro Mikami appeared, at least briefly, with Wilkinson’s All Nations in both 1914 (as an outfielder) and 1915 (as a shortstop), as well as the All Nations of New York in 1916 (as a second baseman).

And, despite what has been frequently said (including by me), I don’t think I have actually seen him billed as “Jap Mikado” anywhere.

Moreover: it is commonly stated (again, including by me) that Goro Mikami was the first Japanese ballplayer to play professionally in the United States. This, it turns out, may not be true. More about this in a few days.

Waseda University baseball team, 1911, with Goro Mikami in the middle row, far left (From Deep Right Field, October 26, 2011)

sanji sakamoto, “the japanese wonder”

Since I wrote a few months ago about the earliest black American players in the Japanese league, I’m going to do a few pieces about early Japanese and Japanese-American players in the United States, all on black teams, or teams that had black players (the various “All Nations” clubs). 

First up is Sanji Sakamoto, a second baseman for the Los Angeles White Sox in 1920.  He was born in 1896 (or possibly 1899) in Kokubu, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, and emigrated with his parents to Los Angeles in 1906.  He began playing baseball in the sixth grade at Custer Intermediate School, then became one of the best high school pitchers in the area at L. A. High, where he also competed in gymnastics.  At the age of 18 he measured five feet tall and 125 pounds, but the Los Angeles Times wrote that he “has as much zip on the ball as any of the big fellows and his control is perfect.”  While in high school he also began playing for local Japanese teams. 

Sanji Sakamoto, Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1915.

In 1920 Sanji Sakamoto was reported to have joined the Los Angeles White Sox, the local black professional team, which had in recent seasons featured the likes of George Carr, John Donaldson, José Méndez, and Edgar Washington.

(Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1920)

(“Hawkins” is Lemuel Hawkins, future Kansas City Monarch and former 25th Infantry teammate of Bullet Rogan and Dobie Moore.  Hawkins would join the Negro National League in 1921.)

Unfortunately, we haven’t found any box scores showing that Sakamoto actually appeared for the Los Angeles White Sox, but the team was not particularly well-covered in the local press.  

Sanji Sakamoto’s baseball career probably ended sometime in the early 1920s.  He went on to a long career as a dentist, and passed away in Los Angeles in 1971.  His sons were also avid gymnasts.  (Here’s a photo of one of them, Isamu, competing on the rings.)  In 1963 future Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, then a city councilman, introduced a resolution honoring the Sakamoto family for their contributions to gymnastics. 

(California Eagle, June 20, 1963)

Sanji’s youngest son, Makoto, would achieve the fame in sports that eluded Sanji: he was the AAU all-around champion three times, and went to the Olympics twice.  In 1968 Sports Illustrated called him “the finest American gymnast of all time.” 

Makoto Sakamoto

Thanks to Bill Staples, who first told me about Sanji Sakamoto and sent me the article linking him to the L. A. White Sox.

 

o’neal pullen & shinji hamazaki, 1927

Before Jimmie Newberry and Johnny Britton, and even before the mysterious Jimmy Bonna, the earliest African Americans to play professionally in Japan (though not in the Japanese leagues) were the Philadelphia Royal Giants, a Los Angeles-based team that made several winter-season trips to Japan, the Philippines, and elsewhere in East Asia in the late 1920s and early 1930s.  A number of Negro league stars appeared for the Royal Giants over the years, including Rap Dixon, Andy Cooper, Frank Duncan, and Biz Mackey.

Probably the most iconic image from these tours is this, from 1927, usually identified as Biz Mackey with an unnamed Japanese player:


I should have known this, but as this article explains, the photo actually shows Japanese player and manager Shinji Hamazaki, a member of Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame, standing alongside a different Royal Giants catcher—O’Neal Pullen.  (The 1927 team, by the way, took three catchers with them—Mackey, Pullen, and Duncan.  I’m thinking Mackey probably spent a lot of time as an infielder.) 

Here’s a detail of a Royal Giants panoramic photo, showing both Pullen and Mackey, along with Ajay Johnson standing between them, and Lon Goodwin, organizer of both the Royal Giants and the Los Angeles White Sox:

early black ballplayers in japan

Johnny Britton, Abe Saperstein, and Jimmie Newberry (Jet, May 15, 1952, p. 51)

In 1898 Cuban independence fighters, allied with the U.S., ended Spanish sovereignty over Cuba; in 1900 the Cuban X Giants became the first African American team to play professional baseball in Cuba, inaugurating a long tradition of Negro league visits to the island.  The U.S. lifted its occupation of Cuba in 1902, and by the winter of 1906/07, black American players were being signed by Cuban League teams.

A half-century later a similar dynamic played itself out in Japan.  The U.S. occupation formally ended on April 28, 1952; shortly thereafter minor leaguers (and former Negro leaguers) Johnny Britton and Jimmie Newberry joined the Hankyu Braves, becoming the first African Americans to play for a Japanese professional baseball team.

Although this is mostly an excuse to post the above photo (which I just ran across recently), I’ve also noticed that reference sources online don’t seem to have Jimmie Newberry’s death date.  I’ve got his death certificate (which still lists him, at the age of 64, as a “Baseball Player”), which shows that he passed away at Oak Forest Hospital, Bremen Township, Cook County, Illinois, on June 23, 1983.  His remains were cremated at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.  And for what it’s worth, both his death certificate and his Social Security record give “Jimmie,” spelled “ie,” as his formal name.

Also, here’s another update to that old post on “Negro Leaguers in Japan”: “Rufus Gaines” was in fact Jonas Gaines, full name Jonas George Gaines, born January 9, 1915, in New Roads, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.  He died on August 6, 1998, in Baker, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.  He’s buried at Port Hudson National Cemetery in Zachary, Louisiana.  (Biographical Information from Social Security and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs records.)

Thanks to James Tate, who wrote to ask about these guys and motivated me to get up to speed on them.

Jonas Gaines, from Kyle McNary’s Pitch Black Baseball.

UPDATE 3:10 pm Thanks to Mark. A. in the comments: Jet also published a picture of Jonas Gaines and Larry Raines inspecting a globe with Abe Saperstein in 1953 as they prepared to follow Newberry and Britton to the Hankyu Braves.  Looks like they got the names a little mixed up, understandably I guess.

(Jet, March 19, 1953, p. 64)

ruth meets dean

There are many versions of Babe Ruth’s meeting with Dixie Dean, some of them pretty obvious exaggerations.  The most important, I’d say, is Dean’s own account, given in an interview with the journalist John Roberts in 1977 or 1978, just a couple of years before Dean’s death.  (You can listen to it here.  Also see transcripts of other parts of the interview, here, here, here, and here.)  He recalled meeting Ruth in 1934 after a game at White Hart Lane, the home grounds of Tottenham Hotspur.  Ruth came down to the dressing room.  “You’re that Dixie Dean guy,” he said.  “Jeez, you’ll get some cash today.”  (The crowd was huge.)  When Dean said he’d get just £8, Ruth exclaimed, “Jesus Christ—I’d demand two thirds of this gate.” 

In fact, Ruth visited England in 1935.  It was part of his 1934/35 off-season world tour, which started with the visit of a major league all-star team led by Connie Mack and featuring Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons, Lefty Gomez, Earl Averill, and many others to Japan and the Philippines in the fall. The Japanese portion of the tour was the most significant.  Seven hundred thousand fans turned out for the 18 games to watch Ruth hit .408, smash 13 home runs, and play first base holding an umbrella, while Gehrig took to the field wearing rubber galoshes and Simmons reclined in the outfield grass between hitters.  Moe Berg, the catcher/spy, lurked about Tokyo with a camera under his kimono.  For some reason this crew managed to inspire the founding of Japanese professional baseball.

After the All-Stars played in Manila in December, the team split up, all the players going their separate ways.  Ruth went on to Java, then to Europe via the Suez Canal, visiting Switzerland and Paris in January before arriving in England on February 7, 1935.  He stayed less than a week.  It was a hectic few days, though, packed full of events.

Most intriguingly, on February 8 he strapped on leg pads, picked up a cricket bat, and faced off against two fast bowlers.  Needless to say he smashed their offerings all over the field.  “Sure, I could smack that ball all right,” he said later.  “How could I help it when you have a great wide board to swing?”  His coach, the former Australian star Alan Fairfax, gushed about his star pupil.  “I wish I could have him a fortnight.  I could make one of the world’s greatest batsmen out of him.”  Ruth tried bowling, less successfully.  The afternoon ended with an argument about whether baseball pitchers were faster than cricket bowlers.  There was a plan to bring Harold Larwood, one of the top bowlers of the day, down to London to undertake a test against Ruth, but it didn’t come off.


The matchup that never happened.

Of cricket, Ruth said, “I guess it’s a better game than I thought but I think I will stick to baseball.  They tell me $40 a week [£8 a week, same as football’s maximum wage] is top pay for cricket.  I believe I had rather be a club owner than a player.” There was subsequent speculation in the press that Ruth’s remarks would bolster the case for a rise in players’ pay in England, though that didn’t happen until after World War II.

The next day, February 9, Ruth was to go out to see “his first British soccer match.”  Dixie Dean said he met Ruth at Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane.  Unfortunately Everton did not play Tottenham that day.  Everton’s league match at Tottenham that season had already been played on August 25, 1934, when Ruth was still in the United States.  On February 9  Everton were playing a game 200 miles northwest of London at their own home grounds, Goodison Park in Liverpool, thrashing Wolverhampton Wanderers 5-2.  The match at White Hart Lane that day was between Tottenham and Derby County.

My access to British newspapers of the period is pretty limited, and I haven’t been able to find any contemporary mentions of exactly which match Ruth attended on February 9, 1935. This website, though, claims it was the Tottenham/Derby County game at White Hart Lane: “Jimmy McCormick scored both Tottenham goals in this match at White Hart Lane, but Derby took a point in front of baseball star Babe Ruth courtesy of goals from Scots Hughie Gallagher and Dally Duncan.”

February 9 was the only day during Ruth’s stay in England on which Football League games were played.  There weren’t any F.A. Cup ties during this period either.  He departed for the U.S. on February 13, six days after he arrived; within two weeks he had signed with the Boston Braves for what was to be his major league swan song.

Now, it’s also true that I have no way of knowing whether or not Dixie Dean was actually in the lineup for Everton up in Liverpool that day.  (He didn’t score, at any rate.)  So it’s theoretically possible that he was not playing and made his way to London to meet Ruth at White Hart Lane—though that certainly doesn’t match his story that the two met in the locker room after a game in which Dean played.

So Babe Ruth did, apparently, attend a game at White Hart Lane, and he did make public comments about the paltry pay of English athletes (though cricketers instead of footballers).  But I can’t establish that he saw a game in which Dixie Dean played, and can’t even place them in the same city at the same time. 

This was Ruth’s only trip to England as far as I know, certainly the only one made during his active playing career.  So it would seem to be the only chance for the fabled meeting to have happened in just the way Dean described it.

UPDATE 12:22 pm  I should add that of course it’s possible that Babe Ruth visited England another time, though I haven’t seen any reference to such a trip.  And the press in 1935 certainly made it sound as though Ruth had never been there before.

besuboru bromides

Check out these Japanese bromides from the collection of John Gall, co-author of Sayonara Home Run: The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card.  Gall describes the approach of Japanese card artists from the 1900s until the late 1960s in his article, “Cut Through the Roaring Thunder with Your Swing!” at AIGA:

Like other delightful mutations that have come as a result of foreign artisans dipping into the American popular culture trough (i.e., contemporary, West African, hand-painted barber shop signs that depict hairstyles last seen on the ‘80s R&B stars, Boys II Men; or the surf guitar that pops up in the middle of a Bollywood musical), Japanese baseball cards take the basic idea of a baseball card and turn it into something new and uniquely Japanese.

Unfortunately from about 1970 it seems that Japanese cards increasingly imitated their blander American cousins.  I wonder if there is any chance of a revival...

h/t A Journey Round My Skull

goro mikami

The first Japanese to play baseball professionally in the United States had to register for the draft, too:

In August 1916 he was with an All-Nations team in the New York/New Jersey area; by June 1917 he was permanently based in Paterson, working as an importer.

charlie luis

Reader Robert Klevens, who specializes in Japanese baseball cards, has sent in some information about “Charlie Lewis,” an early American player in Japan mentioned in this post.  I didn’t think “Lewis” was a Negro Leaguer, as I couldn’t find reference to anyone remotely like him in Riley or other sources; and Robert confirms this. 

Robert, who has been in touch with the player’s daughter, reports that his name was actually Charlie Luis (not “Lewis”), that he was Portuguese (or Portuguese American, I’m assuming), and that he was from Hawaii.  According to Robert, “He played AA ball in Hawaii with the Honolulu Braves prior to going to Japan and playing with the Mainichi Orions in the early 1950s.”

Thanks to Robert.  If anyone else has additional or better information about anything I talk about here, let me know!

negro leaguers in japan

I wanted to outline a couple of connections between the Negro Leagues and Japanese baseball that aren’t (I think) all that well-known.

First: for decades, the standard story about the rise of professional baseball in Japan has credited a 1934 tour of Japan by major league all stars, including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, for sparking interest in the sport and leading to the first professional league two years later.  But the Japanese baseball historian Kazuo Sayama, in the 1987 Baseball Research Journal, told a somewhat different story.  He argued that much of the credit should go to Negro League teams that toured Japan in 1920s and 30s, particularly the 1927 Philadelphia Royal Giants, featuring HOFers Biz Mackey and Andy Cooper, along with Rap Dixon and Frank Duncan, among others.

While the 1934 white major league visit has gotten all the attention (and credit), cause-and-effect might actually have been reversed: Sayama noted that the tour was sponsored by the Yomiuri newspaper company, which was already planning to found a professional team (which would become the Giants). So rather than being the catalyst for Japanese pro baseball, maybe it would be more accurately viewed as publicity for a venture that was already in the works.

The white players, Sayama said, treated their opponents and the fans with contempt, running up scores against inexperienced opponents and insulting their hosts, both on the field and off.  On one rainy day, Ruth played first base holding a parasol.  Gehrig wore rubber boots.  Al Simmons lay down in the outfield grass while a game was in progress.

The Negro Leaguers, by contrast, were said to have appreciated their hosts’ generosity, and enjoyed a respite from prejudice and discrimination.  In Sayama’s view, the Negro Leaguers’ courtesy, professionalism, and sincerity may have impressed Japanese fans more than the boorish and arrogant behavior of the white big leaguers.  Plus, the Royal Giants refrained from running up the score, a practice they probably picked up while barnstorming against white teams in small towns.

Most intriguing are certain parallels between Japanese and Negro League baseball, including a shared emphasis on teamwork, finesse pitching, and the sacrifice bunt, which suggest an even more substantial influence.  Robert Whiting’s description of the tactics of Japanese managers in his book You Gotta Have Wa makes them sound a little like Rube Foster: Japanese managers have always emphasized avoiding mistakes while pressuring opponents to make them, and seem to put great stock in scoring first to demoralize the other side.  Sayama quoted from an open letter sent by the Royal Giants to Japanese fans in 1927.  In it the Negro Leaguers averred that “Japanese baseball has already got the very essence of the game,” and singled out for praise the Japanese teams’ “inside baseball,” “crafty pitching,” and “team play,” all hallmarks of the Negro League style. (Of course, as Sayama pointed out, he was translating the letter from Japanese back into English, without access to the English original.)

In 1927, the Royal Giants won 47 of 48 games.  The single loss was to the amateur Daimai Club, with Michimaro Ono the winning pitcher for Daimai (giving him the first two Japanese victories over American professionals, having beaten Waite Hoyt and a major-minor league team back in 1922).  Sayama has reportedly written a whole book on the Philadelphia Royal Giants—in Japanese, presumably.  I’ll say it again—it would be really nice to get some Japanese baseball books translated into English.

The second connection between the Negro Leagues and Japan hasn’t been mentioned anywhere, to my knowledge.  It turns out that when the Japanese leagues begin bringing in westerners to play in the early 1950s, ex-Negro Leaguers predominated.

Aside from Harrison McGaillard, an American catcher who for some reason played in Japan under the name of “Bucky Harris” in the late 1930s, and a few Japanese-Americans like former San Francisco 49er Wally Yonamine, the earliest group of U.S. players in Japan I can find is this quartet of Negro Leaguers:

John Britton (Hankyu Braves, 1952-53), 3b, a 33-year-old veteran of the Birmingham Black Barons (1940-50).

Jimmy Newberry (Hankyu Braves, 1952), a 30-year-old righthanded pitcher, also a veteran of the Black Barons.

Larry Raines (Hankyu Braves, 1953-54), who came to Japan as a 23-year-old shortstop, had played for the Chicago American Giants in 1951-52.  He led the Pacific League with 61 steals in 1953, then won the batting title in ’54 with .337.  Raines would later play for the Cleveland Indians, and returned to Japan to close out his career in 1962. 

Rufus Gaines (Hankyu Braves, 1953).  This ID is a little iffy.  Japanese Baseball Daily’s encyclopedia says he was a Negro Leaguer.  Riley’s Encyclopedia has no Rufus Gaines, but does list a Jonas Gaines, who played most prominently with the Baltimore Elite Giants.  Listed in Japanese Baseball Daily’s encyclopedia as born January 9, 1921, whereas Riley lists Jonas Gaines’s birthdate as January 9, 1914.  Both Rufus and Jonas are listed as batting righthanded and throwing lefty.  Riley says Jonas was 5’9”, 158 lbs; while Rufus was supposed to have been 5’8” 156.  A lot of little coincidences there. 

It certainly makes sense that blacks would be among the first Americans in Japan, given the drastically reduced employment opportunities for them (especially older players) in the post-integration baseball world. 

In 1954, two more Americans appeared in Japan:

Charlie Lewis (Mainichi Orions, 1954-55), born in Missouri May 30, 1925, a pitcher/catcher who set the Pacific League record for catcher’s errors in a season (22).  Not a Negro Leaguer, as far as I can tell.  I also haven’t yet been able to place him in the upper minors in the U.S.

Sal Recca (Takahashi Unions, 1954), born November 8, 1923, in New Jersey.  Didn’t play in the majors; played for the “Hawaii Red Sox,” presumably an independent or semi pro team.  He  appeared in five games for the International League’s Newark Bears in 1946.

Then, in 1955, came infielder Roberto “Chico” Barbon, (Hankyu Braves, 1955-65) who played more games in Japan (1353) than any other foreigner.  Barbon  (born March 13, 1933) was the first Cuban to play baseball in Japan, brought there by the promoter Abe Saperstein (of Harlem Globetrotters’ fame).  Barbon was said to have played for Negro League and Cuban teams, though I haven’t found any record of him yet.  Figueredo does list an infielder named Humberto Barbón, born in Cárdenas on August 23, 1928, who played for Marianao in the 1953/54 season.

After this, the first American players in Japan I found, aside from Japanese-Americans, are Jack Ladra of the 1958 Toie Flyers, who was of Mexican and Hawaiian parentage; Glenn Mickens in 1959; Joe Stanka in 1960; and, of course, many more after that (including, briefly, ex-Negro Leaguers Larry Doby and Don Newcombe, the first famous American flops in Japan).

Aside from Japanese Baseball Daily, my source for much of the above is Daniel Johnson’s Japanese Baseball, which only lists batting and e.r.a. title qualifiers—so there may be other early American players in Japan.  Feel free to add any you know about!