| Asahi | |
|---|---|
 1929 Asahi baseball team | |
| Information | |
| Location | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Ballpark | Powell Street Grounds |
| Founded | 1914 |
| Folded | 1941 |
The Asahi was a Japanese-Canadian baseball team of amateur and semi-professional players that was based in Vancouver from 1914 to 1941. [1] The team won many league championships, particularly in the 1930s. [2]
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The Asahi was established as a senior team in 1914, under its first manager and coach, Matsujiro Miyazaki. Team members included both issei and nisei. These include the notable players: Yo (Yoshitaro) Horii, Mickey (Hatsu) Kitagawa, and Tom Matoba. After 1918, Asahi was the sole Japanese Canadian team after the Vancouver Nippon team disbanded. Many of Vancouver Nippon's players joined the Asahi. [3] The team was based in Vancouver's Oppenheimer Park—originally known as the Powell Street Grounds—in the city's Japantown. [4]
Coach Miyazaki, who was raised in Japan, was largely influential to the team’s enduring success. He incorporated Japanese strategies into his coaching, which was dubbed “smartball” or “brainball” by the media, due to its reliance on speed and defense as opposed to power and heavy hitting. [4] This strategy was devised to capitalize on the player’s small frames. Bunting, cutoff and base-stealing were among their most popular strategies, and emphasized teamwork to create an impenetrable defense. [3]
Asahi was active during a time of harsh anti-Asian racism. [5] While players were praised in the media, they experienced racism in their everyday lives including limited employment opportunities and segregation in places like movie theatres. [6] The success of the Asahi, in spite of these hardships, made the team a symbol of Japanese Canadian perseverance and cultural participation. The team has contributed to closing off the intergenerational gap between the issei and the children born during the interwar period. The team helped to mediate the relationship between Japanese Canadians and the white community by creating a common interest that brought the two together. [4] During a time of prominent racial discrimination, Oppenheimer Park became a place where barriers fell as the Asahi and Occidental fans would support one another. [3] The Asahi's style of play and determination on the field gave them "grudging respect" from European-Canadian fans. [4]
After the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Canada invoked the 1914 War Measures Act and all Canadians of Japanese descent were registered as ‘enemy aliens’ and forcibly moved in internment camps. This resulted in the disbanding of the Asahi team. They never played as a team again. [6]
The team was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, [7] and the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. [8] The team was designated an Event of National Historic Significance on August 26, 2008. [9] A plaque honoring the team was unveiled in Oppenheimer Park on September 18, 2011, the 70th anniversary of the team's last game. [10] [11] On April 24, 2019, the team was honoured with a postage stamp issued by Canada Post. [12]
In December 2014, a Japanese studio released a period drama movie called The Vancouver Asahi starring Satoshi Tsumabuki and Kazuya Kamenashi. [13] The film premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, receiving the Top Audience Award, and was released in theatres on December 20. [14]
A 2003 documentary about the team, Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story, was directed by Jari Osborne. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, the documentary combines archival film and dramatic recreations, along with interviews with the last of the Asahi. The 50-minute film garnered four awards including a Rockie Award for Best Sports Program at the Banff Television Festival and a Golden Sheaf Award. [15] [16]
Heart of a Champion is a 2016 novel by Ellen Schwartz. [17] The story is about a boy named Kenji "Kenny" Sakamoto who aspires to be a baseball player for the Vancouver Asahi, but his dreams were crushed when the Canadian government issued an order for all Japanese Canadians to be placed in internment camps, then got permission to clear the land and make a baseball field. The novel has won a Silver Birch Award.
On February 19, 2019, a Heritage Minute was released, depicting an Asahi baseball game and the subsequent internment of a player alongside other Japanese Canadians. The short segment was narrated by the last surviving member of the team, Koichi Kaye Kaminishi, and novelist Joy Kogawa. [18]
Matsujiro Miyasaki was the team's first manager. He was known for his "Small Ball" strategy, which included their signature double steal. He emphasized speed and flawless defense. [3]
Roy Yamamura was a regular with the team from 1924-1941. He became the team's manager in 1938 while he continued to play for the club. He was a fan favourite due to his prolific base stealing and defensive ability, which earned him the nickname "the dancing shortstop". [19] He is the only Japanese Canadian to play for the Arrows team in Vancouver's top division for two years. [3]
Kaye Koichi Kaminishi is the last known survivor from the team. He played between 1939 and 1941. [20]
Kaz Suga was a star player during the team's last season in 1941. He had a batting average of 0.395 and was an expectation to the team's "smartball" playstyle. [19]
Junji Ito was one of the Asahi Baseball team's legendary players. He became known as the 'King of Bunting' as his batting average climbed to over 0.400 and on the bases, his reactions were almost instant. He modelled the "smartball" strategy to perfection.
Issei are Japanese immigrants to countries in North America and South America. The term is used mostly by ethnic Japanese. Issei are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are nisei ; and their grandchildren are sansei.
Sansei is a Japanese and North American English term used in parts of the world to refer to the children of children born to ethnically Japanese emigrants (Issei) in a new country of residence, outside of Japan. The nisei are considered the second generation, while grandchildren of the Japanese-born emigrants are called Sansei. The fourth generation is referred to as yonsei. The children of at least one nisei parent are called Sansei; they are usually the first generation of whom a high percentage are mixed-race, given that their parents were (usually), themselves, born and raised in America.
Joy Nozomi Kogawa is a Canadian poet and novelist of Japanese descent.
The Japanese Baseball League was a professional baseball league in Japan which operated from 1936 to 1949, before reorganizing in 1950 as Nippon Professional Baseball.
From 1942 to 1949, Canada forcibly relocated and incarcerated over 22,000 Japanese Canadians—comprising over 90% of the total Japanese Canadian population—from British Columbia in the name of "national security". The majority were Canadian citizens by birth and were targeted based on their ancestry. This decision followed the events of the Japanese Empire's war in the Pacific against the Western Allies, such as the invasion of Hong Kong, the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the Fall of Singapore which led to the Canadian declaration of war on Japan during World War II. Similar to the actions taken against Japanese Americans in neighbouring United States, this forced relocation subjected many Japanese Canadians to government-enforced curfews and interrogations, job and property losses, and forced repatriation to Japan.
Japantown, Little Tokyo or Paueru-gai is an old neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, located east of Gastown and north of Chinatown, that once had a concentration of Japanese immigrants.
Masajiro Miyazaki, CM was a Canadian osteopathic physician who practised in Vancouver prior to World War II. During World War II, he was appointed as a coroner by the British Columbia Provincial Police in the town of Lillooet, British Columbia. In addition to coroner's duties he also served as effective general practitioner in the Lillooet area, including for the area's four wartime "self-supporting centres". Miyazaki's practice also included the Japanese Canadian internment camp at Taylor Lake. Towards the end of his life, Miyazaki was recognized for his services to the community, which included founding the local ambulance service and instigating a proper hospital for Lillooet, by being enrolled in the Order of Canada.
Tsuyoshi Shinjo, also known as BIGBOSS, is a former Japanese professional baseball outfielder and the current manager for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
Oppenheimer Park is a park located in the historic Japantown (Paueru-Gai) in the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Japanese Canadians are Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Canadians are mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially in the province of British Columbia, which hosts the largest Japanese community in the country with the majority of them living in and around Vancouver. In 2016, there were 121,485 Japanese Canadians throughout Canada.
Hisaye Yamamoto was an American author known for the short story collection Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, first published in 1988. Her work confronts issues of the Japanese immigrant experience in America, the disconnect between first and second-generation immigrants, as well as the difficult role of women in society.
Nisei is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants. The Nisei are considered the second generation and the grandchildren of the Japanese-born immigrants are called Sansei, or third generation. Though nisei means "second-generation immigrant", it often refers to the children of the initial diaspora, occurring in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and overlapping with the G.I. and silent generations.
Hitoshi "Mel" Wakabayashi was a Canadian-Japanese ice hockey player, a right-handed center, who played for the 1964 NCAA champion Michigan Wolverines hockey team. He was also named Player of the Year in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association in 1966. He went on to play 11 seasons in the Japan Ice Hockey League and to coach the Japan men's national ice hockey team at international competitions, including the 1980 Winter Olympics. After his hockey career ended, Wakabayashi became the President of Seibu Canada. In 2001, Wakabayashi was selected by the WCHA as one of the Top 50 Players in 50-year history of the conference. He was also inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 2006.
The Vancouver Asahi is a 2014 Japanese-Canadian coproduced baseball drama film directed by Yuya Ishii, based on the true story of a Vancouver-based baseball team called the Vancouver Asahi which existed before the Second World War. It was released to Japanese theaters on December 20.
Koichi Sekikawa is a Japanese former Nippon Professional Baseball Catcher, Outfielder, and current the field player coordinator for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
Issei Takazaki is a Japanese professional shogi player ranked 7-dan.
The history of Japanese people in British Columbia began with the arrival of Manzo Nagano in New Westminster in 1877. Prior to 1942, British Columbia was home to 90% of all Japanese in Canada. In 2001, 44% of all Japanese Canadians lived in British Columbia, or about 1% of the province's total population.
Les Maruo is a Japanese professional gridiron football linebacker for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
The TashmeIncarceration Camp was a purpose-built incarceration camp constructed to forcibly detain people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of Canada during World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Located at the current unincorporated community of Sunshine Valley, east of Hope in British Columbia, Canada, Tashme was operational between 1942 and 1946 and had a peak population of 2,624 people to 2,636 people. Tashme was constructed on 600 acres of leased land for $500/year on the A.B. Trites Farm.
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