Archives West Finding Aid

Japanese baseball teams began organizing in Seattle in 1904, when the Nippon baseball team was formed by first-generation immigrants (Issei). The Mikado, another early Issei team, was formed in 1906. The first team composed of Nisei (second generation), the Cherry baseball team, was formed in 1910. In 1912, some players from the Mikado team, including Frank Fukuda, and some Cherry team players formed the Seattle Asahi Club's baseball team. By 1919, both the Asahi Club and the Mikado Club each sponsored three teams, and other Japanese teams in the area included Tacoma's Columbia Club.

Frank Fukuda was a prominent figure in the development of Japanese baseball in the Pacific Northwest, and the Asahi team was considered the strongest Japanese team in the region during Fukuda's time with them. Fukuda was credited with having shaped the team as a player and manager and as a coach of the Asahi junior teams, the Cubs and Midgets. While he was coaching in Portland and in Wapato, his teams consistently won league championships and the annual Fourth of July Japanese Baseball Tournaments (begun in 1933). Fukuda was often called upon for short-term coaching assistance to help area teams experiencing "slumps," and he even traveled to Japan on at least two occasions to coach teams there for short periods of time.

Fukuda was also one of the first managers to take his team to Japan to play college and university teams and promote cultural exchange. He wanted the young Nisei on his team to have a better understanding of their cultural heritage. Although the Waseda University team from Japan had come to the U.S. and visited Seattle as early as 1905, it wasn't until 1908, when an all-star team of professional players from the Pacific Coast League and the Major League arrived, that a U.S. team toured Japan. That same year, the University of Washington became the first American university team to tour Japan. (The UW team also visited in 1913, 1921, and 1926.) Other American university teams soon followed. However, Japanese teams in Seattle were the only club teams to sponsor consistent exchanges with teams from Japan before 1921. Seattle's Japanese club teams, including the Asahis, the Nippon and the Mikado, visited Japan six times from 1914 to 1920 and continued to do so until 1927. (The Asahi team visited in 1914, 1918 and 1921). Other club teams from the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii began visiting in 1921. Most of these teams were Japanese, including the Vancouver Asahi team, but the Suquamish Indian team toured Japan on one occasion. These university and club tours of Japan were highly publicized events that drew thousands of fans and figured prominently in the development of baseball there.

After 1927, coinciding with Fukuda's departure from Seattle and the development of new club tournaments in Japan that were the early stages of the formation of Japan's professional league, baseball in Japan began to shift to a higher level of play and exchanges with U.S. professional teams took the spotlight. Seattle sent no more teams to Japan after 1927. Fukuda's departure from Seattle also marked a new era in Japanese baseball there. The Asahi Club lost its dominance of the game, and the formation of the Japanese American Courier League in 1928 shifted attention to the Taiyo Club and the role of baseball as a social event for the Japanese community that aided in bridging the generation gap between the older generation of Issei and the Nisei youth. The Nisei were struggling with the pressures of trying to maintain traditional culture and values passed on by their Issei parents while identifying with their own culture as Japanese-American youth. The need to strengthen relations within their new Japanese-American community began to overshadow the interest in maintaining relations with the homeland.

These were also the emerging issues of the Yakima Valley Japanese Community where Fukuda eventually made his new home. Through his work with youth both as principal of the Japanese Language School and as a baseball coach and league organizer, Fukuda aided the community there in struggling with these issues up until his death in 1941, which shortly preceded the advent of WW II and the Japanese internment. None of the Japanese baseball teams were revived when the Japanese communities of the Pacific Northwest returned home after the war.