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Asahi (baseball team)
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Asahi (baseball team)
The Asahi was a Japanese-Canadian baseball team of amateur and semi-professional players that was based in Vancouver from 1914 to 1941. The team won many league championships, particularly in the 1930s.
The Asahi was established as a senior team in 1914, under its first manager and coach, Matsujiro Miyazaki. Team members included both issei and nisei. These include the notable players: Yo (Yoshitaro) Horii, Mickey (Hatsu) Kitagawa, and Tom Matoba. After 1918, Asahi was the sole Japanese Canadian team after the Vancouver Nippon team disbanded. Many of Vancouver Nippon's players joined the Asahi. The team was based in Vancouver's Oppenheimer Park—originally known as the Powell Street Grounds—in the city's Japantown.
Coach Miyazaki, who was raised in Japan, was largely influential to the team’s enduring success. He incorporated Japanese strategies into his coaching, which was dubbed “smartball” or “brainball” by the media, due to its reliance on speed and defense as opposed to power and heavy hitting. This strategy was devised to capitalize on the player’s small frames. Bunting, cutoff and base-stealing were among their most popular strategies, and emphasized teamwork to create an impenetrable defense.
Asahi was active during a time of harsh anti-Asian racism. While players were praised in the media, they experienced racism in their everyday lives including limited employment opportunities and segregation in places like movie theatres. The success of the Asahi, in spite of these hardships, made the team a symbol of Japanese Canadian perseverance and cultural participation. The team has contributed to closing off the intergenerational gap between the issei and the children born during the interwar period. The team helped to mediate the relationship between Japanese Canadians and the white community by creating a common interest that brought the two together. During a time of prominent racial discrimination, Oppenheimer Park became a place where barriers fell as the Asahi and Occidental fans would support one another. The Asahi's style of play and determination on the field gave them "grudging respect" from European-Canadian fans.
After the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Canada invoked the 1914 War Measures Act and all Canadians of Japanese descent were registered as ‘enemy aliens’ and forcibly moved in internment camps. This resulted in the disbanding of the Asahi team. They never played as a team again.
The team was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, and the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. The team was designated an Event of National Historic Significance on August 26, 2008. A plaque honoring the team was unveiled in Oppenheimer Park on September 18, 2011, the 70th anniversary of the team's last game. In 2014, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto donated a small swatch of material from a surviving original Asahi jersey in their collection to the Six String Nation project. The swatch was mounted on the front of the guitar strap that supports the guitar at the heart of the project. The donation was publicly unveiled during a pre-game ceremony on August 10, 2014 at the Rogers Centre during the Toronto Blue Jays annual Canada Baseball Day festivities, where the guitar and strap were posed with on the field by Blue Jays mascot "Ace", Babe Ruth's granddaughter Ruth Tosetti and then Blue Jay Munenori Kawasaki. On April 24, 2019, the team was honoured with a postage stamp issued by Canada Post.
In December 2014, a Japanese studio released a period drama movie called The Vancouver Asahi starring Satoshi Tsumabuki and Kazuya Kamenashi.[citation needed] The film premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, receiving the Top Audience Award, and was released in theatres on December 20.
A 2003 documentary about the team, Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story, was directed by Jari Osborne. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, the documentary combines archival film and dramatic recreations, along with interviews with the last of the Asahi. The 50-minute film garnered four awards including a Rockie Award for Best Sports Program at the Banff Television Festival and a Golden Sheaf Award.
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Asahi (baseball team)
The Asahi was a Japanese-Canadian baseball team of amateur and semi-professional players that was based in Vancouver from 1914 to 1941. The team won many league championships, particularly in the 1930s.
The Asahi was established as a senior team in 1914, under its first manager and coach, Matsujiro Miyazaki. Team members included both issei and nisei. These include the notable players: Yo (Yoshitaro) Horii, Mickey (Hatsu) Kitagawa, and Tom Matoba. After 1918, Asahi was the sole Japanese Canadian team after the Vancouver Nippon team disbanded. Many of Vancouver Nippon's players joined the Asahi. The team was based in Vancouver's Oppenheimer Park—originally known as the Powell Street Grounds—in the city's Japantown.
Coach Miyazaki, who was raised in Japan, was largely influential to the team’s enduring success. He incorporated Japanese strategies into his coaching, which was dubbed “smartball” or “brainball” by the media, due to its reliance on speed and defense as opposed to power and heavy hitting. This strategy was devised to capitalize on the player’s small frames. Bunting, cutoff and base-stealing were among their most popular strategies, and emphasized teamwork to create an impenetrable defense.
Asahi was active during a time of harsh anti-Asian racism. While players were praised in the media, they experienced racism in their everyday lives including limited employment opportunities and segregation in places like movie theatres. The success of the Asahi, in spite of these hardships, made the team a symbol of Japanese Canadian perseverance and cultural participation. The team has contributed to closing off the intergenerational gap between the issei and the children born during the interwar period. The team helped to mediate the relationship between Japanese Canadians and the white community by creating a common interest that brought the two together. During a time of prominent racial discrimination, Oppenheimer Park became a place where barriers fell as the Asahi and Occidental fans would support one another. The Asahi's style of play and determination on the field gave them "grudging respect" from European-Canadian fans.
After the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Canada invoked the 1914 War Measures Act and all Canadians of Japanese descent were registered as ‘enemy aliens’ and forcibly moved in internment camps. This resulted in the disbanding of the Asahi team. They never played as a team again.
The team was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, and the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. The team was designated an Event of National Historic Significance on August 26, 2008. A plaque honoring the team was unveiled in Oppenheimer Park on September 18, 2011, the 70th anniversary of the team's last game. In 2014, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto donated a small swatch of material from a surviving original Asahi jersey in their collection to the Six String Nation project. The swatch was mounted on the front of the guitar strap that supports the guitar at the heart of the project. The donation was publicly unveiled during a pre-game ceremony on August 10, 2014 at the Rogers Centre during the Toronto Blue Jays annual Canada Baseball Day festivities, where the guitar and strap were posed with on the field by Blue Jays mascot "Ace", Babe Ruth's granddaughter Ruth Tosetti and then Blue Jay Munenori Kawasaki. On April 24, 2019, the team was honoured with a postage stamp issued by Canada Post.
In December 2014, a Japanese studio released a period drama movie called The Vancouver Asahi starring Satoshi Tsumabuki and Kazuya Kamenashi.[citation needed] The film premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, receiving the Top Audience Award, and was released in theatres on December 20.
A 2003 documentary about the team, Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story, was directed by Jari Osborne. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, the documentary combines archival film and dramatic recreations, along with interviews with the last of the Asahi. The 50-minute film garnered four awards including a Rockie Award for Best Sports Program at the Banff Television Festival and a Golden Sheaf Award.
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