In the 1920s, a Japanese second baseman played in the Negro League for the Los Angeles White Sox, reports NPR.
It was just the start of a bond that formed between Black and Japanese American baseball players.
The Sox played in the same stadium as a local Japanese squad called the L.A. Nippons.
The Sox went on to play and lose to the a Japanese team called the Fresno Athletic Club. The two managers, Lonnie Goodwin and Kenichi Zenimura, met over a cold beer. Zenimura invited Goodwin and a few of his players to join them on a baseball goodwill tour of Japan. All this happened when anti-Asian racism was at a high. The Japanese Exclusion League was gaining influence and the Immigration Act of 1924 banned Japanese from immigrating to the U.S.
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Goodwin agreed and the tour further cemented the relationship between Blacks and Japanese. In 1927 Goodwin brought a squad of Negro League all stars to Japan. The way the players conducted themselves was in sharp contrast to the way Major League players acted just a few years earlier. Those players who included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig ridiculed and disrespected their opponents. The Negro League Players did just the opposite.
“We were extremely pleased to find that they did not take an overbearing attitude, but instead were quite gentlemanly,” said Zenimura about the Negro League Players. “Unlike our games with the Major League players, we had an excellent match, and this heightened our love for the game of baseball itself.”
In the 1930s, the Berkeley International League formed. The League consisted of Black, Latino, Japanese and Chinese teams.
You can read more about that and the Black player who made a splash playing in Japan on NPR.
