89. Fujio Nagasawa: Hats off to the Tokyo Giants

Please excuse the lack of updated for the past 2 weeks, I have been in the process of moving from California to Kentucky and the past weeks have been filled with packing, moving and storing capped off with a severely injured back due to a freak accident when I tried to stop a file cabinet from tipping over while standing one one foot. Live and learn I suppose. Also, if you are interested, on my Facebook page I just posted a card of a certain 1970's Red Sox relief pitcher named Sam "Mayday" Malone and I'm soliciting writers to come up with the story that will accompany it...

This week's card and story is about Fujio Nagasawa and the 1935 Tokyo Giants. You can get the back story on the tour in the story I did about the team's star outfielder Jimmy Horio.

Hailing from the island of Hokkaido in the northern-most part of Japan, first baseman Fujio Nagasawa was the star of his college team from Hakodate Commercial School. After graduating he continued to play ball for the Hakodate Oceania Baseball Club. His talent was such that at the “advanced” age of 30 was recruited to represent Japan against the Major League All-Stars in the winter of 1934.

Led by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the All-Stars wiped the floor with the Japanese team but the Americans came away with the impression that the Japanese players they faced were at a AA level. Nagasawa himself hit .226 in 11 games against major league pitching. With practice against good, professional competition, American sportswriters speculated they would improve quickly. Major Leaguer Lefty O'Doul was on that 1934 team and had previously played on tours that stopped in Japan earlier in the decade. Through his friendships with influential businessmen eager to start a Japanese league, O'Doul suggested sending the Dai-Nippon team to the United States in the spring to play against the American professional teams that held spring training on the west coast. O'Doul was newly named manager of the San Francisco Seals and offered to act as intermediary in arranging other ball clubs to play against the Japanese.

Besides acting as middle-man for the Japanese, the publicity-savvy O'Doul made a few suggestions to the Dai-Nippons - the first of which was to change their name: The Dai-Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Club was just too much of a mouthful for the American public to digest. O'Doul suggested the "Tokyo Giants" and the name has held to this day. Other suggestions by O'Doul was for the Japanese to capitalize on national customs that would be unique to their team when they toured America. Despite the fact that Japanese baseball teams all used English words and numbers on their uniforms, for the tour jerseys would sport the player's number in traditional Japanese kanji characters on their backs and the kanji characters for "Tokyo" would appear on their sleeve. O'Doul instructed them to continue the tradition of tipping their caps and bowing as a group to the crowd before and after a game. Each batter was told to also tip their cap and bow to the umpire before each at bat and even after being thrown out on the base paths runners were to do the same. Another unique aspect of a Tokyo Giants game was their football-like huddle before each inning. Newspaper scribes in America were kept busy debating just what was being discussed during these mysterious huddles. Curious little things like that really made a difference to the American public and the team was awarded with decent-sized crowds and much newspaper publicity.

Among the photographs that accompanied the Tokyo Giants press kit was a much-reproduced photo of Fujio Nagasawa tipping his cap to the home plate umpire. American sportswriters commented favorably on his fielding skills and he batted right around .300 on the 6 month tour. The success of the tour back in Japan led to the formation of the nation’s first professional league and Nagasawa was signed to be the Tokyo Giants first baseman. As the Giants lead off hitter, Nagasawa became the very first batter in the Japanese Baseball League when play began in 1936. Now in his early 30's, Fujio Nagasawa's playing days were coming to an end and the arrival of first baseman Tetsuji Kawakami, soon to be known as "The God of Batting" led to his retirement in 1943. Nagasawa then switched gears and became a successful reporter for the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, dying at the age of 80 in 1985.

This card and story stems from the large file of research I have been slowly accumulating on the 1935 Tokyo Giants. Often a footnote in other baseball history books, no volume of its own has ever been published in English. In Japan, baseball writer and historian Yoichi Nagata has written the definitive study of this tour - unfortunately it is in Japanese and no translation has been done of this interesting work. Through a speech he gave at a SABR convention a few years ago, Nagata related how his research uncovered Lefty O'Doul's part in helping the Tokyo Giants create a unique persona through the continued use of the "football huddle" and the bowing and tipping of their caps. I am planning to release the drawings I have done of the 1935 team along with the story of their tour in a future edition of "21".

80. Farmer Dean: His Own Meal Ticket

Let me first start out by saying that what follows is a true story - it might not read like it is, but it's all taken from a wide variety of period newspapers and wire services from February to April, 1935... While digging up old newspaper articles on the Tokyo Giants games against the Pacific Coast League teams during the spring of 1935, I happened upon one of those crazy characters that only baseball seems to attract: Oscar "Farmer" Dean. The first mention was of the Great Farmer Dean being slated to pitch against the Giants. The name sounded interesting and I made a note of it. Later I noticed his name kept popping up as I read the west coast newspapers from the spring of that year. When I found a mention of his eating capacity, I decide I had to dig deeper. Who was this guy? The truth was weirder that I ever imagined...

Out of thousands of baseball hopefuls who turned up at spring training camps all across America trying to escape the grips of the great depression, "Farmer" Dean quickly set himself apart from the pack. After writing to every club in the Pacific Coast League bragging of his unbridled talent, the Los Angeles Angels were the quickest on the draw and invited The Farmer to camp that spring. Even before he arrived the press was abuzz with anticipation of yet another great hurler with the "Dean" moniker.

In the previous year the brother duo of Dizzy and Paul Dean devastated the National League not only with their fastball but with the great copy their wild bragging and colloquial quotes brought. The Dean's won all 4 of the Cardinals victories in the '34 World Series and now there seemed to be yet another one of these "diamond in the rough's" out there. The aspiring pitcher that reported to the Angels camp on February 11th wasn't a spring chicken - he claimed to be 23 but looked like he was well into his mid-30's, six foot four and over 190 lbs. When not in uniform, Farmer wore an old suit of overalls complete with a sign sewn on the back declaring "I Am Farmer Dean." And just in case you failed to take notice of all that, he brought along his own agent/manager, Herb Levine, to make sure you did. The beat writers ate this stuff up.

While most of the Angels' hopefuls tried their damnest to distinguish themselves on the field, Farmer Dean made headlines with his prodigious apatite. His relentless assaults on the team's hotel restaurant became legendary - eating 2 steaks before morning workout became his routine. While others threw the ball around or worked on their curve ball, Farmer Dean held court, giving the eager sportswriters plenty of copy for their papers.

He was was fresh out of the U.S. Army, he said, where he learned how to pitch while posted at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "My best throws are my cannon and submarine throws" the Antelope Valley resident said. While he claimed to be of no blood relation to the Cardinals' two sibling superstars, Dizzy and Paul Dean, The Farmer admitted that he possessed the same level of ability, and while he'd never seen either one in person, by reading about them he could confidently state they "haven't anything on me." Apparently The Farmer could do the the Dean's of St. Louis one better: he claimed he was such a good hitter he played outfield when he wasn't mowing 'em down with that fire ball of his.

Apparently the Angels management didn't think the same way because after a week Farmer Dean and his agent/manager Herb Levine were cut loose.

On February 19th sports pages across the country carried the UP article exclaiming Farmer Dean's signing by the Mission Reds of San Francisco. The Reds sent Dean a contract and told him to travel north to Marysville, California where the Mission team was opening their training camp on February 25th. The Red's manager, Gabby Street, who a few years earlier was Dizzy Dean's catcher on the Cardinals, optimistically told the press: "He's just like Dizzy when he signed with the Cards" and The Farmer himself added confidently "I'll win 20 games in this league."

The article also went on to list Farmer Dean's weight as 200lbs.

Before the Reds even opened the doors to their spring training camp in Marysville, Farmer Dean was a local superstar: he was presented with the key to the city. Earlier in the month the Reds' Bay area rivals, The Oakland Oaks, were chastised in their local newspapers for not being quick enough in responding to The Farmer's letter of introduction and letting him slip away to the Angels. Now that he turned up in the rival Reds' camp made it even harder for the Oaks fans to take.

The reporters who covered the Reds badgered manager Gabby Street for updates on the team's prized rookie. "Well, I'll tell you. The big fella has a lot of color and is sure attracting a lot of attention. He's plenty big, says he can pitch and certainly acts the part of a fellow looking to make good. He talks a great game and he eats like a big leaguer." Street went on to contrast The Farmer with Dizzy, saying The Farmer was more modest because when asked how many games he planned on winning that year said: "I guess about twenty games would be enough for the first year, eh Sarge?"

The Sarge promised to put The Farmer through a rigorous tryout to determine the full extent of the rookies prodigious talent. "I will find out mighty quick if this big boy has anything of value in a baseball way. What a card he will be if he can really pitch. If he can't, the Mission club will be out the price of his car fare and the meals he absorbed."

On the afternoon of Saturday, March 2nd Gabby Street handed the The Farmer the ball to see what he could do in a game situation. The Mission Reds faced the touring Tokyo Giants in the first of a series of games they scheduled against Pacific Coast League teams. The Tokyo Giants were a young team, mostly made up of college stars and featured the schoolboy sensation, Eiji Sawamura who made history that winter when he struck out Gehringer, Ruth, Gehrig, and Foxx in succession during an exhibition game in Japan. Before the game Dean went over the pitches he planned on unleashing that afternoon: "I got a submarine ball and a fire ball, but my fire ball is the best. It starts out fast and leaves a smoke screen as it curls up."

The Farmer, employing a novel submarine-style pitching motion shut out the Tokyo Giants for 2 innings until the roof caved in during the 3rd. Slapping him around for 6 runs, Tokyo knocked him out of the box on the way to a 12-5 win.

Obviously choosing to focus on only the first 3 innings of that afternoon's game, Dean went out on the town celebrating. By the time he meandered into the team's hotel, the Reds' president, Joe Bearwald, confronted his star hurler about breaking training rules. An indignant Dean declared; "I am a farmer, and Saturday is farmer's night. I do not care to retire now." The two men began a heated exchange but Bearwald had the last word: "You're fired."

The next morning as The Farmer and his agent/manager Herb Levine packed up their stuff, the Reds' manager Gabby Street spoke to the shocked press: "Farmer Dean didn't have a thing as a chucker." Dean had a lot of color he said, "but nothing on the ball."

At a rival meeting of the scribes, no doubt set up by agent/manager Levine, The Farmer gave his side of the story. "I walked out on The Missions because that old miser Joe Bearwald complained because I ate two steaks for dinner." The most famous pitcher in the Pacific Coast League was now free to take his talents elsewhere.

On March 5th he suddenly turned up in Santa Barbara and presented himself to the Seattle Indians owner Bill Klepper. At a press conference the following day Dean reported that Klepper and the Indians promised him "plenty of food" and promptly proved the point by devouring 2 full steaks before making his way to the field for practice. The newspapers described him as "... the 205lb Dean..."

Now boasting that he would win 25 games for Seattle this season, The Farmer was treated to a rigorous running regimen by the Indian's manager Dutch Reuther. Seeing as he put away 2 steaks, Reuther had Dean run around the field for 3 hours. The following morning the press reported seeing The Farmer only put away one steak at breakfast. Ruether adjusted his training regimen accordingly and made Dean run for only one hour. He was yet to appear in a game claiming the cards were not right yet. Farmer Dean, you see, consulted his horoscope before every game and if the stars were not favorable, Dean didn't pitch.

The newspaper now all seemed to focus on The Farmer's appetite instead of his fire ball. One paper claimed he ate "20 hot cakes every morning" and "carries with him a loaf of french bread and a roll of bologna sausage in a paper bag" to stave off hunger between meals. At the end of March he challenged teammate and the reining Indians eating champ, Mike Hunt, to an eating contest. The Farmer packed in "eight pounds of hamburger steak, three plates of potatoes and then ripped a beefsteak apart" on the way to thrashing Hunt and claiming the team title. After the crumbs settled Dean told manager Reuther that if they had a better class of steak he could really show 'em how to eat. Incredulous, Reuther called his bluff and ordered the pitcher a fresh T-bone. 10 minutes later it was gone.

Indians owner Bill Klepper declared: "if he could play ball like he can eat he'd be worth as much as Dizzy Dean."

The last traces I can find of The Farmer is at the end of March where the UP syndicated a photograph of Dean sitting awkwardly on the ground in front of the Indians dugout eating an impressive-looking sandwich. The supplied caption notes that to construct the sandwich he is consuming "...required 14 inches of bologna and a loaf of bread." He is also noted as being: "6' - 4" and 220lbs."

So who was Farmer Dean? There is no other mention of him after April 2nd of 1935. A teammate on the Indians did say that he had known Dean under a different name back on an unnamed Eastern team and that he was 35, not 23 as claimed. But he never gave the man's former name. Another clue I found was a mention of him being a resident of Lancaster, California. Then I found it. In a Los Angeles Times article, back when the L.A. Times still employed reporters that actually reported, writer Bob Ray's secret contacts told him that Oscar "Farmer" Dean's real name was "West" and that he once played with a team in the now-defunct Eastern League. Going through all the records found on Baseball-Reference.com I found no "West" who played in the Eastern League that would fit his age group (assuming he was born between 1900 and 1905). The only close fit I could see would be a Tommy West who played for the Lindale Pepperalls of the Georgia-Alabama League in 1930. The league collapsed following the 1930 season so it fits what was reported about Dean being out of a job after the folding of the league he played in. And taking into consideration that before showing up on the west coast he'd just served a 4 year hitch in the Army, that would fit into the timeline just fine. But this is all just a wild, though educated, guess on my part. So was this guy a real prospect or a publicity-hound trying to be his own meal-ticket? I'm guessing the latter and the teams in the Pacific Coast League played along. 1935 was one of the worst years of the depression and Americans grasped at any kind of distraction to keep their minds off their current predicament. If anything, Dean's romp through the P.C.L.'s spring training was beneficial to both himself and the league: the ever-hungry Dean gained in excess of 30lbs from free food and the Coast League gained national publicity and a much-needed boost to spring training attendance because of The Farmer and his personal publicity machine. I love the history of this game!

Note: I wasn't happy with the original drawing I did of The Farmer, he was too... animated. (You can still see the original version HERE on my facebook page) I decided to do a 2nd version showing the Ace Fire-baller Farmer Dean, staying out of the sun, contemplating what the afternoon's lunch menu may hold...

61. Wally Yonamine: Japan's Jackie Robinson

This week's story was written by award-winning author Rob Fitts. You'd be hard- pressed to find another American who knows as much about Japanese baseball history and cards. I made Rob's acquaintance while doing research on pre-war baseball in Japan and came across his website that offers a great overview on the 1934 tour of Japan by a group of Major League All-Stars. Besides featuring the American team, he also equally focuses on the Japanese team, something that I have never found in English. Rob has a book about that tour coming out this year which I for one can't wait to get my hands on. After finding his website I became fascinated by early Japanese baseball, especially the 1935 barnstorming tour that the Japanese team took all across North America. After returning to Japan that team became the Tokyo Giants and members of the first professional league in Japan. While researching the 1935 team Rob not only shared his research but translated a few things for me and did a great service in identifying player photographs. He also wrote a well-received biography on Japanese-American trail blazer Wally Yonamine...
Often called the Nisei Jackie Robinson, Wally Yonamine was the first ethnic Japanese to play professional football in the United States and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. Yonamine was born in 1925 on a Maui sugar plantation to poor Japanese immigrants. His success on the gridiron allowed him to escape the plantation and eventually sign with the San Francisco 49ers in 1947. After an injury ended his football career, Yonamine turned to baseball. In 1951, the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants chose him to become the first American to play in Japan during the Allied occupation. Yonamine adopted his football skills to baseball and played hard-stealing bases, sliding hard, and knocking down opponents. Opposing fans hurled insults and rocks at him, but he quickly became one of the most dominant players in the league, winning batting titles in 1954, '56 and '57 as well as the 1957 MVP Award. His success changed the way the Japanese played the game and opened the door for other Americans to come to Japan. Yonamine adapted to Japanese culture and stayed in Japan as a player, coach, and manager for 37 years. He was elected to the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

Robert K. Fitts is the author of two books and a number of articles on Japanese baseball and baseball cards. A former historical archaeologist, Rob left academics to write about baseball in 2000. His articles have appeared in The National Pastime, Baseball Research Journal, Journal of American Culture, Tuff Stuff and on MLB.com. His first book, Remembering Japanese Baseball won the 2005 Society of American Baseball Research & The Sporting News Award for Best Baseball Research. His second book, Wally Yonamine: The Man who Changed Japanese Baseball tells the story of the "Jackie Robinson of Japan." His forthcoming book, Banzai Babe Ruth!, which focuses on the 1934 tour of Japan will be available in 2012. Learn more about his projects at www.RobFitts.com

53. Jimmy Horio & the 1935 Japanese All-Stars

While learning about the negro leagues years ago, I became interested in the various teams they competed against when not playing against other black teams. Back before the Second World War there was a whole parallel universe of baseball operating just out of bounds of the recognized leagues affiliated with major league baseball. Researchers Scott Simkus and Gary Ashwill seem to have coined the perfect phrase for these teams and the games they played: "Outsider Baseball". As a young amateur historian I found out about the bearded House Of David religious colony from Michigan which sent out as many as 3 different traveling teams a season to play all over the country. I heard about the Nebraska Indians, made up of, you guessed it, Native Americans. I read about barnstorming teams made up of major league stars angling to make a buck. All-Girl teams. Teams of washed up players sponsored by a shoe company. Prison teams. The F.B.I. had a team which J. Edgar Hoover never failed to come out and support. And I also came across the Japanese All-Stars which toured North America in 1935.

The team that toured North America in 1935 was an off-shoot of the Japanese "All-Nippon" Team that was assembled in the fall of 1934 to challenge the American All-Star Team that visited the island nation that year. I briefly talked about this tour in my Moe Berg post back in July. Although stocked with the best college ballplayers on the island, the Japanese lost all 17 games against the Americans. While it was looked upon as a national embarrassment, it inspired the formation of a regular professional team sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper. In the Spring of 1935 the team, now called "The Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu" (Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club), embarked on a tour of the United States and Canada. Among it's players was a 28 year-old Hawaiian named Jimmy Horio.

Jimmy Horio was born in Maui, Hawaii in 1907. Like most Americans, he learned baseball at an early age and was fortunate in growing up in Hawaii as the island was a hotbed of very talented teams made up of Japanese-Americans. He lived in Japan for a few years with his grandparents and later returned to Maui. He dropped out of high school with the ambition to become the first Japanese-American to play in the Major Leagues. The speedy Horio was signed by the Sioux Falls Canaries of the Class D Nebraska State League in the Spring of 1934. Jimmy batted .264 in 110 games. After the season ended he learned of the up-coming tour of Japan by the Major League All-Stars and wrote to the Japanese National Team's manager sending his semi-pro and minor league records and asked to be a part of the team.

Horio became the team's centerfielder but against the Big Leaguers didn't do too well, batting a lowly .196. But hey, he was batting against Lefty Gomez and Earl Whitehall, winners of 26 and 14 games that season. Jimmy's biggest contribution to the team however was not his bat, but the practical experience he brought with him as a bona-fide American Minor League player, which he readily shared with his teammates.

When the Dia Nippon team was formed, Jimmy Horio was again selected as it's centerfielder. In February of 1935, Japan's first all-professional baseball team sailed out of Yokohama Harbor, destination North America to try their lot against a full schedule real baseball competition. The Dia Nippon's toured extensively playing all-levels of ballclubs from small town factory teams to AAA level minor league teams. Gauging their success and talent is not an easy thing to do as they did extremely well against amateur teams and very good against minor league opposition, however the games against minor league teams were during spring training and many of the teams did not field their best players. None-the-less, the tour was very successful and huge crowds packed the ballpark when the Japanese came to town. American audiences were fascinated by their cultural differences such as tipping their caps and bowing deeply to the umpire when coming to bat or being thrown out steeling. Particularly noted during the tour was Jimmy Horio's excellent fielding and newspaper accounts are filled with mentions of the Japanese-American's exploits in the centerfield. His fluency in Japanese and English made it much easier for the tour to navigate it's way through the back roads of North America. It is reported that the Dia Nippon team's record for the 1935 tour stands at 74 wins and 34 losses.

After the Japanese players went home, Horio stayed in the United States where he was signed by the Sacramento Senators of the Pacific Coast League. The opportunity to play in the PCL might have come from a recommendation from Frank "Lefty" O'Doul who was part of the U.S. team in 1934 and now playing manager of the San Francisco Seals. Jimmy hit .250 in 20 games for Sacramento which at that time was part of the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system. The following year the Japanese team was back in the States, this time as the Tokyo Giants, now part of the first Japanese Baseball League. And this wasn't an exhibition tour, it was a serious spring training to get the team ready for the inaugural 1936 Nippon Professional Baseball League season.

Horio returned to Japan and joined the Hankyu Ball Club where he batted .233 for the first half of the slit season and .217 for the second. Again, although his averages were low, his influence on the game in Japan well out-weighed his offensive output. Horio steadily increased his batting average, batting over or close to .300 for the 1937-41 seasons. Horio starred for the Hanshin Tigers from 1939 to 1941 when he and Tadashi Kameda, the other American player in Japan, left the island due to the deteriorating political situation between the two countries. Jimmy continued to play semi-pro ball in Hawaii during the war, playing until he was 39 years-old. Jimmy Horio died from bone cancer in 1949 and although he never reached his goal of becoming the first Japanese-American in the majors, his influence on the game in Japan is still felt, forever known as "The Ty Cobb of Japan".

I'd like to thank two historians whose grateful sharing of their research made this post possible. Scott Simkus, co-proprietor of The Outsider Baseball Bulletin (www.outsiderbaseball.com) lent me his newspaper files on the 1935 tour as well as his painstakingly compiled statistics culled from available box scores. Robert Fitts, Japanese baseball card expert and author of two major books on Japanese baseball history: "Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball" and "Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History Of The Game", helped me out with identifying and translating Japanese photo captions and generally sharing his knowledge of early professional baseball in Japan. I am also anxiously awaiting his book on the 1935 U.S. Tour of Japan, "Banzai Babe Ruth!" which is due to be released next year. (www.robfitts.com)