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Carp Tales: Gail Hopkins
After a seven-year MLB career Gail Hopkins joined the Carp in 1975 helping the team to its first Central League title. I had the pleasure...
fitts1951
13 minutes ago6 min read
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Carp Tales Takeshi Koba
In October 2003, I had the pleasure of interviewing former Carp manager Takeshi Koba before an oldtimers' game at Tokyo Dome. Koba played...
fitts1951
May 227 min read
41 views
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Newly Identified Newspaper Article Pushes Earliest Date of Japanese Baseball Back to July 1869
Kobe, Japan in 1871 In 2022 Japanese baseball celebrated its official 150th birthday. Most officials and historians date the introduction...
fitts1951
May 46 min read
2,586 views
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Carp Tales Fibber Hirayama
2025 is the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima Carp. To mark the occasion I decided to interview Americans who have played for the Carp...
fitts1951
Apr 2612 min read
306 views
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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
Mar 17, 20217 min read
227 views
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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
Feb 15, 20217 min read
59 views
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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
Feb 15, 20211 min read
48 views
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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
Feb 15, 20211 min read
117 views
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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
Feb 15, 20216 min read
66 views
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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
Feb 15, 20216 min read
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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
Feb 15, 20211 min read
34 views
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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
Feb 15, 202113 min read
14 views
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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...
fitts1951
Feb 15, 202116 min read
9 views
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