YAKIMA, Wash. – Every May, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month celebrates their essential roles in American history. You might have yet to hear of a baseball team in Wapato, the Wapato Nippons, comprised mainly of farmers and teenagers and played a massive role in the Yakima Valley in the 1920s and 30s.
According to the Yakima Valley Museum curator Mike Siebol, baseball was introduced to Japan in the 1870s. He said when the first generation of Japanese immigrants came to America, they brought their love of the game. They started their Japanese baseball teams, and the Wapato Nippons began to play in 1928. The leader of the team was coach Frank Fukuda. Siebel said Fukuda was born in Japan, came over to Seattle, and eventually became the principal of the Japanese language school in Wapato. Fukuda also found time to coach baseball.
“He brought this team that could only practice one day a week,” Siebol said. “Thursday evening after they got all their chores done and they won the championship.”
Siebol says they won the championship not only in 1934 but also in 1935. Fukuda died in 1941. The Nippons hosted a memorial game to honor their fallen coach.
The team was eventually celebrated in Seattle and Portland for being great.
“A lot of historians said this solidified the Japanese community in Yakima Valley,” said Siebol.
Siebel said in 1941, the team played its last game because of America’s entrance into World War 2. The Japanese community was eventually shipped to Portland and placed in Heart Mountain Relocation Camp, an internment camp for Japanese people living in the U.S.
Siebel said that in 1935, the Tokyo Giants, a professional baseball team from Japan, traveled to Wapato to play the Nippons. The Giants had their hands full, and the Nippons only beat them by one run.
