Inductee In An Instant
Our first Canadian Baseball HOF team inductee to review...
VANCOUVER ASAHI
Established: 1914
Folded: 1941
Ballpark: Powell Street Grounds (now known as Oppenheimer Park), Vancouver BC
First Manager & Coach: Matsujiro Miyazaki
Championships Won:
Amateur Vancouver International League Pennant - 1919
Terminal League Champions - 1926, 1930, 1933
Pacific Championship winner - 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941
Triple League Championship winner - 1938
Burrard League Championship winner - 1939, 1940
HOF Inductions:
Inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame - 2005
Inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame - 2003
The Asahi was a Japanese Canadian baseball team made up of amateur and semi-professional players born in Japan (Issei) and Canada (Nisei).
During the late 1800s/early 1900s there was an influx of Japanese immigration to the west coast of Canada with almost all immigrating to BC and about 1/3 of those in Vancouver. Baseball was a key pastime in the community during this time, especially as its popularity grew in the 1920s.
Asahi used a style of play that was described in the media, such as it was in the early 1900s, as “Brainball”. We may know it as “Small Ball”. Stolen bases, bunts, and impeccable technique all were used to compete against typically larger and stronger opponents.
During this time the population of the city and province was primarily Caucasian that were not welcoming. The team, their families, and the Japanese population as a whole were subject to racial discrimination on all fronts. Notable examples of this include:
extremely limited immigration (400 people/yr until 1928, 150/yr until Japanese immigration stopped in 1940),
the province limiting social assistance & jobs Japanese people could have during the Great Depression
could not vote until 1948
On February 24, 1942, the War Measures Act was enacted as part of the response to Pearl Harbour, which removed all Japanese Canadians within 160km of the Pacific coast. This leads to the ultimate disbanding of the Vancouver Asahi as 22,000 Japanese Canadians were moved to work camps and various detention centers. Internment ends in 1949 and the team never came back together as many of the people spread throughout the country to find work and rebuild.
Heritage Minute - Vancouver Asahi
Thank you for checking in on our first team inductee today. I’ll be talking with you all again in a little while. Until then…KEEP IT 80 GRADE.
Sources & Resources:
Yarhi, E., & Pellerin, C. (2022). Vancouver Asahi. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/vancouver-asahi
https://baseballhalloffame.ca/hall-of-famer/vancouver-asahi/
https://www.historicacanada.ca/productions/minutes/vancouver-asahi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_(baseball_team)