Blog | Robfittshistory

fitts1951

The First Japanese American Battery Included a Future Hollywood Actor and a Philanthropist

While researching my latest book, The Pioneers of Japanese American Baseball, I uncovered this intriguing story. Bigotry towards Japanese...

fitts1951

How a Native American Star Began his Career as a Japanese

William Watkins aka Naga aka Big Chief Harry Saisho had a problem. He wanted to transform his Los Angeles-based Japanese Base Ball...

fitts1951

1934 All American Tour Roster

I'm often asked if I know the uniform numbers of the 1934 All American team that toured the Far East so I decided to post them here. 1...

fitts1951

Scapegoat! How the first Japanese professional ball player was framed as a spy.

Presented at the 2020 Virtual SABR Conference, this 16 minutes powerpoint video tells the story of how Tetsusaburo "Tom" Uyeda played on...

fitts1951

Solving the Mystery of Togo Hamamoto

The history of early Japanese American baseball is still being discovered. There is so much we do not know. Mainstream, English-language...

fitts1951

The First Japanese Professional Game Took Place in .... Kansas?

The first Japanese professional baseball game took place not in Tokyo, not in Osaka, or even in Japan, but in a tiny town in Northeastern...

fitts1951

Cheering Carp

Last week my wife and I were lucky enough to get tickets to the Hiroshima Carp's final home game. We sat in the right field bleachers...

fitts1951

Remembering Gene Bacque

Hanshin Tiger Great Gene Bacque passed away this week. In this memory I am reposting his story that I published in remembering Japanese...

fitts1951

Remembering Glenn Mickens

Brooklyn Dodger and Kintetsu Buffaloes pitcher Glenn Mickens passed away on July 9 2019. In 2003 I had the pleasure of interviewing Glenn...