The First Japanese Professionals: Guy Green's 1906 Japanese Base Ball Team

The First Japanese ProfessionalsGuy Green's 1906 Japanese Base Ball Team Robert K. Fitts (bio) Baseball historians have a fetish for documenting first occurrences. The first game, the first curveball, the first no-hitter, the first player of each ethnicity. As Japan's professional game began in the 1920s with independent teams and solidified with the creation of Nippon Professional Baseball in 1936, the first Japanese professional played in the United States not Japan. For decades, historians have identified this player as Goro Mikami, a graduate of Waseda University who played for the independent barnstorming All Nations team in 1914 and 1915. But with the proliferation of searchable digital newspaper archives, we now know that before Mikami, an independent team called Guy Green's Japanese Base Ball Team barnstormed across the Midwest in 1906, becoming the first professional Japanese players on either side of the Pacific. ________ Guy Green grew up in Stromsburg, Nebraska, studied at Doane College from 1887 to 1891, the University of Iowa in 1893, and graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 1897. He had captained Doane's baseball team but was not destined for a career in pro ball. "I was death to flies," Green wrote in 1900, "but I had to carry the ball in as I couldn't throw it over fifty feet. I retired in disgust and at the earnest request of the captain after playing a few games … During my stay in Stromsburg I managed and captained the local nine and played first base. My arm was as bad as ever and the only way I ever got the ball from one corner of the diamond to the other was by running half way across and pushing the sphere the rest of the way. I ceased playing base ball altogether in 1897, but have never lost my love for the sport. I consider it the king of athletic amusements."1 Instead of playing, Green turned his considerable creative and entrepreneurial talents toward owning and running his own team. [End Page 9] The early twentieth century was the heyday of barnstorming baseball. Independent teams crisscrossed the country playing in one-horse towns and large cities. Often organizers created teams around a theme to attract customers. There were all female teams, squads of only fat men, clubs of men sporting beards, and teams consisting of "exotic" ethnicities. African American clubs, excluded from Organized Baseball leagues, commonly supplemented their incomes by barnstorming against town teams. Some of these clubs provided other forms of entertainment; bringing along musicians, jugglers, acrobats and even high-wire walkers. These independent squads were often called "semi-professional" to differentiate them from teams in Organized Baseball (clubs formally associated with Major League Baseball), but they were actually professional enterprises. These teams signed players to contracts, paid them salaries during the season, provided transportation and housing on the road, charged admission to games, and were intent on turning a profit. An innovative idea for a barnstorming squad came to Green in 1895 when, as the player/manager of the Stromsburg town baseball club, he organized a game against the Genoa Indian Industrial School. To his surprise, "even in Nebraska, where an Indian is not at all a novelty, a base ball organization composed of red men drew everyone who was alive. When the Indians came to Stromsburg, business houses were closed and men, women and children turned out en. masse to see the copper-colored performers corral the festive fly and chase the elusive grounder. I reasoned that if an Indian base ball team was a good drawing card in Nebraska, it ought to do wonders further east if properly managed."2 After graduating law school in 1897, Green put his plan into action. Recruiting Native American players from the Genoa and Haskell schools, Green's All-Nebraska Indian Ball Team (soon shortened to the Nebraska Indians) embarked on a forty-seven game tour of Nebraska and Iowa. Large enthusiastic crowds came to watch the team play and cavort on the diamond. Green realized from the start that fans expected more than just a baseball game, and the Nebraska Indians entertained spectators with ball tricks, gags, and...

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