Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues

7. Catching Up

7 Catching Up It would be great to see an Asian American get an opportunity to manage in the major leagues. But frankly, I don’t know if anyone really gives a damn. —Lenn Sakata, September 20071 If I’m seen as a stepping stone for JapaneseAmericans and equality in baseball, I’m glad to carry that torch. —Don Wakamatsu, November 2009, upon being named manager of the Seattle Mariners2 Throughout much of 1945, residents from the ten concentration camps slowly packed their belongings in preparation to leave their imprisonment. Their releasecameasaresultoftheU .S.SupremeCourtinthecasecalled Endo,ExParte. Thoughinpreviouscases,suchasHirabayashiv.U.S.(1943)andKorematsuv.U.S. (1944), the plaintiffs, who had challenged the constitutionality of their curfew and incarceration, failed to win their freedom, Mitsuye Endo’s legal argument did the trick. A California state worker before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Endo in July 1942 filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court challenging the government’s detention based on the question of her loyalty. Not until November1944didthecasereachitsconclusion .However,whenitdid,thejustices viewed the internment of the Japanese less favorably. “Whatever power the War Relocation Authority may have to detain other classes of citizens, it has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave regulations,” read Justice William O. Douglas, for the majority.3 With that January 2, 1945, decision, the process of release began. Regalado_Text.indd 115 10/24/12 4:54 PM 116 chapter 7 In consideration of their trials, tribulations, and re-entry into mainstream society,thegovernmentallocateda$25subsidyforeachtorestarttheirlives.4 But, thereturntotheirprewarcommunitieshaditsdrawbacks,andmanyapproached their newfound freedom with caution. At the Minidoka camp, for instance, Seattle hotelkeepers funded the return of one of their own so that he might observe the conditions that lay before them. “He reported that there was much anti-Japanese hostility in Seattle, and some hotelkeepers delayed returning,” wrote historian Roger Daniels.5 Similar examples of anti-Japanese sentiment were widespread. “No Japs Wanted” signs were common and many Japanese homes were vandalized. Nor could the former evacuees turn to local courts for satisfaction.InPlacerCounty,California,inacasethatinvolvedagroupofmen who had confessed to firing shots at the home of a returning evacuee while attempting to dynamite it, a jury there, nonetheless, acquitted the defendants andthenpraisedthemfortheiractions.Moreremarkably,twoofthemenwere AWOL from the army.6 At Livingston, California, in seven different incidents, vigilantesfiredgunshotsinto the homes ofJapanesewhohad recentlyreturned from internment. So shaken were the dwellers that they “lined their bedrooms with mattresses, rice sacks, and sheet metal.”7 Inotherincidents,“theHoodRiver,Oregon,AmericanLegionPostremoved the names of all sixteen local Japanese American servicemen from the public honor roll, and American Legion posts from Seattle to Hollywood barred Nisei veteransfrommembership.”8 JoeMeyer,thetown’smayor,ledthecharge:“We mustlettheJapaneseknowthey’renotwelcomehere.”9 AsayoNoji’sfamilywas amongthefirsttoreturntotheirHoodRiverhome.Forthemandothers,staying alert for possible repercussions to their bold presence was a twenty-four-hour chore. “We were so frightened! I jumped at every sound! Even at night, I did notsleepwell.Whenwesawastranger,wewereundulyalarmedforwedidnot know what to expect,” she recalled.10 Ruth Wakamatsu, whose mother-in-law, Hisa, arrived in America years earlier as a picture bride, recalled, “My sister-inlawandIwentshoppingdowntown ,gotacart,filleditupwithfood,andaman said ‘We’re not trading with you.’”11 ◆ ◆ ◆ Insuchadifficultenvironment,inmostplacesNikkeibaseballcametoavirtual halt. This was a first in their world, for the Japanese in America had played continualballsince1905andhadevendonesothroughinternment.12 However, throughoutmuchof1945andinto1946,evacueesconcernedthemselveswiththe Regalado_Text.indd 116 10/24/12 4:54 PM 117 Catching Up transition from camp to home. While they encountered hostility from outside their ranks, they also saw turbulence inside their circles. This was the case for James Sakamoto. As the chief Japanese supervisor at the Evacuation Administration Headquarters of the Puyallup, Washington, assembly center “Camp Harmony,”SakamotofellfromgraceamongtheresidentsforquestionabledecisionsthattheybelievedbettersuitedtheinterestsoftheWCCA .13 Furthermore, Sakamoto and many of his cohorts in the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) needed to patch up their reputations as a result of their preinternment collaborations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sakamoto, the famed publisher of the Seattle-based Japanese American Courier, whose paper had sponsoredtheregion ’sgreatestoverallsportsprograms,was,by1945,abrokenman.A leadingfounderandvoicefortheJACL,hisambitiouscallsforNiseiloyaltycame back to haunt him during the internment phase, because many at the Puyallup AssemblyCenterwhereheresidedbelievedhehadcooperatedmuchtoogenerously with authorities. Already handicapped by his blindness, Sakamoto, with hisnewspaperdefunct,returnedtoSeattleunemployed.Withlittlevoiceleftin the community, he found work at the St. Vincent De Paul group as a telephone solicitor.InDecember 1955, twentyyearsafterthe height ofhisprominence,he died after a car struck him while he crossed a street on his way to work. Ray “Chop” Yasui, a baseball organizer in Hood River, Oregon, prior to the war, also had...