July 1, 2005

Evergreen Sports

Local author chronicles history of Japanese baseball in San Jose

Author Ralph Pearce reflects on the making of “From Asahi to Zebras”

By Diego Abeloos
Sports Writer

After 12 years of tedious research work, Ralph Pearce has finally chronicled something no other author has attempted—a definitive history of Japanese baseball in San Jose.

This picture of the San Jose Asahi team was taken in 1925 in Osaka, Japan, when the team was invited on a baseball tour of the country after beating Japan’s Meji University at San Jose’s Sodality Park in 1924. During the trip, the team also went on a smaller tour of Korea to play exhibition games. Photo courtesy of the Kifune Family

Pearce, a library clerk in the California room of the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, began his long journey in 1993, when he stumbled across information in books about baseball in Japan and some of the American players who played there in the 1930s.

While attending a world baseball fair in San Diego, Pearce came across Jeff Hayamizu, who mentioned that his father played against the Tokyo Giants in San Jose during a one-game exhibition in 1935.

After meeting the man’s father, Pearce became hooked on the idea of researching Japanese baseball’s history in San Jose. The result is the book, “From Asahi to Zebras: Japanese American Baseball in San Jose, California.”

“I always had in mind that I wanted to do a book with it, but I never knew if that would be feasible,” Pearce said of his research. “So, when I transferred to the California Room at the library I saw all these local histories that had been done … I just thought, ‘there’s got to be a way that I can put this into print, even if it’s just locally.’”

Scheduled to be released July 23, along with a book signing by Pearce at the Martin Luther King Library that day from 2 to 4 p.m., the book examines in painstaking detail the humble beginnings of Japanese baseball’s rise in San Jose.
Pearce said much of the help he received in doing interviews and research for the book came from the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, which also published the book.

The book chronicles the beginning of the San Jose Asahi baseball team, a group of first-generation Japanese men often referred to as Issei, who formed the team in 1913 before disbanding in 1917. One year later, an original member of the Asahi team, Harry Okida, convinced Harry “Jiggs” Yamada, another original member, to reform the team and hence, the second San Jose Asahi team was born. It consisted of mainly second-generation players, known as Nisei.

The book also examines the fate of the Asahi team during Japanese internment throughout World War II, when many of the players and their families were relocated to Tule Lake and other camps. Out of those camps came the San Jose Zebras, mostly a mix of Nisei players from the second Asahi team that played during the pre-war days in San Jose.

“To be honest, a lot of these guys really were great athletes,” said Pearce. “… So many of these guys that played were great players in high school and they also played on a lot of American teams.”

During his work on the book, Pearce had the chance to interview several of the still-living members of both Asahi teams as well as the Zebras. He found out some interesting facts about the Japan Town area. For example, the existence of Asahi Park, which was formerly located on Seventh and Younger streets, a park funded with the help of Issei players and other first generation Japanese men, including the Horio family, which later had four brothers play on the same team.

Above all, Pearce said the players he interviewed supplied him with something else that was hard to come across—baseball pictures and other memorabilia, such as a baseball signed by the Tokyo

Giants when they played an exhibition game against the Asahi team in 1935 and again in 1936.

“I was always surprised when I would go and interview these guys and they had all these kinds of photographs,” Pearce said. Many of those pictures, along with other baseball memorabilia such as jerseys and signed baseballs, are now on display in an exhibit at the King Library’s special collections lobby.

This picture features the San Jose Asahi and Fresno teams in 1938 at Asahi Park. The Asahi disbanded at the Santa Anita Assembly Center during Japanese interment, forming the Azucars baseball team, which played competitively throughout Japanese internment. Photo courtesy Ralph Pearce

Another tidbit Pearce came across dealt with the Asahi team’s trip to Japan on a baseball tour in 1925. That information came to him when a family member of one former Asahi player came into the Japanese American Museum.

Up until that point, the only information available about the tour was stories told from the experiences of former Asahi players like Russ Hinaga, who is chronicled prominently in the book for achieving the game-winning single against the Tokyo Giants in 1935, giving the Asahi a 3-2 win.

“By chance, a player came down to the museum who was the nephew of one of the players who went to Japan in 1925,” Pearce said. “He told the museum that he had the original score book from the tour in Japan. It took me some time to locate him, to get in touch with him. He supplied me with copies of that tour book and it basically outlined the entire tour in detail. It told us everything we wanted to know.”

For Pearce, the book represents a part of San Jose’s Japanese-American history that has gone untold for too long.

Although Pearce said he is pleased with how the book turned out, his one regret is not getting it done sooner for some of the now-deceased members of the teams. Nonetheless, Pearce hopes the book will bring further awareness to the history of baseball in the area.

“Maybe the book will encourage a little more of the appreciation of the areas that nobody has any idea about now,” said Pearce, adding that he wished a plaque could be created to honor the efforts of these San Jose men who long ago played America’s favorite pastime.

Local Evergreen resident recalls baseball’s days in Japan Town

Horio family played integral role in baseball’s success in pre- and post-war San Jose

By Diego Abeloos
Sports Writer

While many Japanese baseball enthusiasts will read about the sport’s past in San Jose’s Japan Town, Evergreen has its own local resource in Ralph Horio, who remembers the time quite well.

Horio, 84, is chronicled along with other members of his family in “From Asahi to Zebras,” a book written by Ralph Pearce, a library clerk in the California Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. During Pearce’s research on the book, Horio provided the author with memorabilia and information on other players who dominated the baseball scene as members of the San Jose Asahi and San Jose Zebras baseball teams.

But perhaps Horio is best known for his family’s contribution to Japanese baseball. His father and uncle contributed funds for land and helped build Asahi Park on Seventh and Younger streets in 1926.

Fond memories
Throughout his youth, Horio helped out at the park by selling tickets and soda pop while also keeping the manual scoreboard updated throughout games.

“At that time, I was probably still in grammar school,” Horio said. “…When I graduated grammar school, I just turned 12 and went to Campbell High School. When I graduated high school, it was at that time when I was active with the ballpark, helping with the upkeep of the park and selling tickets at the ballgame on weekends.”

While Horio doesn’t quite recall every detail of those years, specific memories stick out in his mind. One of those memories is when the Tokyo Giants, an all-star cast of Japanese players, came to San Jose to play an exhibition match against the San Jose Asahi in 1935.

“When the Tokyo Giants came to play the San Jose Asahi on a weekday, I had to get permission from the high school principal to miss one day of school so I could sell tickets at the ticket booth,” Horio said.

Horio said because of the absence of television or many other entertainment forms available today, San Jose Asahi baseball games were well attended and were very popular in the Japanese-American community throughout San Jose.

“It was quite a deal because most of the Japanese people were in farming, and they would leave the farms on Sunday and come to the ballgame,” Horio said. “They’d be all dressed up in suits, not like these days. They really enjoyed the baseball games and the team was quite good, so they were winners usually.”

He remembers one day back in the 1930s when Olympian Jesse Owens attended a game and gave the fastest player of the Asahis a big head start in a foot race on a marked course.

“Of course, he would overtake them and beat them to the finish line,” said Horio.

Horio’s love for the game of baseball grew out of those experiences at Asahi Park. After serving various roles in park operations, Horio and his three brothers—Frank, John and Sumito—all played on the same San Jose Zebras team, which was formed mainly from former Asahi players during Japanese internment at Tule Lake. They later played games at San Jose Municipal Stadium.

Running family farms
Unlike his brothers however, Ralph Horio had the added responsibility of running the family’s farms during game days. The family owned 60 acres in Willow Glen and as development encroached the area, they gradually exchanged acreage in the Coyote Valley.

In the early 1950s, he and his family moved to Evergreen, just east of Murillo between Quimby and Aborn roads, where they ran the Chaboya Mushroom Farm until 1978.

“Most of the time, I was left at home because I was in charge of the farms,” Horio said. “A lot of the games were during harvest season and they would take off and go the games while I stayed back and ran the farms. So, I really didn’t get a chance to develop as a player like my brothers did, because I didn’t get a chance to play that much.”

Still, a love for the game, as well as other sports like football and basketball, was alive and well in the Horio family.

Throughout their youth, the Horio brothers were often found playing on an open field after a hard day’s work on the farm.

“At our home ranch, we set it up so we had a catcher’s plate and a pitcher’s mound and we used to play baseball at home too,” Horio said with a chuckle. “Of course, there was a huge barn behind what would be third base, so we figured on certain lines on the barn, if you hit it higher than that on a line drive, it would be a home run. We participated in all the sports really.”

For Horio, the book by Pearce, scheduled for release July 23, brings back great memories of events and people from decades past.

“Most of the old people who remember are gone. Gone or very old, like me,” said Horio. “… But there are fond memories.”


About Ralph Horio
Ralph Horio still lives in the Evergreen home that his family purchased in the early 1950s to operate the Chaboya Mushroom Farm. He and his wife Emma raised five children there—Mark, Nancy, Brian, Donna and Ralph, Jr.—and ran the farm until 1978.

Emma has since passed away, but his son Mark still lives there, and his daughter Nancy prepares meals for him during the week. Her children attend Carolyn Clark Elementary and Quimby Oak Middle School. Horio’s other children have moved to Southern California, and his younger brother Thomas lives nearby on a second home the family owned.

Over the years, Horio, his siblings and his cousins sold the rest of their acreage in Willow Glen, Coyote Valley and Evergreen, including a piece of land where the First Church of the Nazarene will soon be opening its doors.

By 1985, the retired farmer began his second career as a professional photographer. In almost two decades, he photographed about 1,000 weddings until he retired in 2003.

His office walls are still filled with photos he took of rock legends such as Paul McCartney, Elton John and Led Zeppelin while accompanying his children to concerts.

Ralph Horio is pictured here with a photo he took of his brother John, who was a pitcher for the San Jose Zebras.

Evergreen super swimmers clock All-American times

Simonds, Isaacs lead Mitty to success

By Bea Baechle
Editor

Evergreen residents Shannon Simonds and Dory Isaacs glided to success at this year’s Central Coast Section Swimming Championship held at Stanford’s Avery Aquatics Center in May.

Simonds, a senior, and Isaacs, a sophomore, were among the seven girls on the Archbishop Mitty swim team in the finals who chalked up the most event wins—taking first place in three out of the 11 events.

As a team, the girls came in second place, just 20 points behind Palo Alto High School. Although Palo Alto High did not win a single swimming event, the school’s diving scores took them to first place.

Isaacs and Simonds, along with Michelle Liu and Erin Garcia, won the 400-yard Freestyle Relay with a time of 3:31.38. Since the All-American time is 3:34.79, they automatically qualified for All-American.

Swimming the final leg of the 200-yard Freestyle Relay, Simonds brought the foursome of Liu, Jamie Cisar and Julie Hyrne to victory. They clocked in with a time of 1:37.58, achieving another All-American time.

Both Evergreen residents also qualified for finals in the 100-yard breaststroke. Isaacs finished third with a time of 1:06.77 and Simonds finished fourth with a time of 1:07.24. Both swims were All-American consideration times.

Mitty’s 200-yard Individual Medley Relay took fourth place, with Isaacs swimming the breaststroke. The 1:51.81 time qualified for another All-American consideration. Isaacs also placed seventh in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.51 seconds.

Not too shabby considering that nearly 1,000 athletes attending 81 area high schools qualified for this year’s CCS Swimming Championship.

Car accident before CCS
Yet there’s more to the story behind these All-American times, making this an almost unbelievable tale.

On the way to the CCS preliminary races, a young women with no driver’s license and no insurance darted in front of the Simonds’ car on San Felipe Road. The unavoidable collision left the Simonds car totaled and Shannon Simonds “bawling hysterically”—not from the pain of the car accident, but from the agony of potentially missing the CCS preliminary races that would qualify her for finals.

“All I could think about was getting to CCS,” said Simonds, who qualified for CCS Finals since her freshman year at Mitty.

She pulled herself together and convinced the paramedics that she was fine, although her ankle got hurt underneath the dashboard. A quick call to her mom provided the necessary transportation to the meet. Although she was pretty rattled in her first race, she still qualified for Saturday’s finals.

Simonds said that when she awoke on Saturday, “I felt like I got hit by a car.” In addition to hurting her ankle, she had twisted three vertebrae, and by now, the pain surfaced full-force. She dragged herself to the finals and ended up scratching her first race.

She said her teammates told her, “If you’re in pain, don’t swim for us. If you hurt yourself more, it’s not worth it.”
Yet Simonds couldn’t bear to see her team slip in the rankings. She ended up swimming four races that day, with one race ranking as her personal best.

Dory’s mom Paula Isaacs noted that at the end of the day, Simonds needed assistance just to get up on the block to retrieve her award. “I couldn’t believe it. She just stepped up [and swam despite the pain] … what an inspiration she was.”

“We did this for Shannon,” said Isaacs, who returns next year as a junior. She’s already psyched for the 2006 competition, especially with her sister Caroline and a few other renowned swimmers entering as freshmen. Simonds and Hyrne are the only seniors graduating from the Mitty girl’s swim team this year.

“If we win CCS next year, we’re dedicating it to Shannon,” said Isaacs.

College-bound
Simonds, team captain and most valuable player, would like to put the car accident behind her. “It could have been a lot worse,” said Simonds. “I walked away from it.”

She’ll be heading to Southern California to attend UC San Diego in the fall, where she will join the women’s swim team. With the university’s close proximity to the beach, Simonds hopes to catch a wave or two on a surfboard in her “spare” time.

Although UCSD competes in Division II, she expects to train like a Division I school. In fact, 11 of UCSD’s 23 sports qualified for NCAA postseason play during the 2004-05 campaigns, including women’s swimming.

“I liked the school, I liked the coach and I can still swim hard and get faster,” said Simonds. “I’ll be a bigger fish in a smaller pond.”

Evergreen resident Paula Isaacs contributed to this article.

Evergreen girls take U13 Class III soccer team championship

The Portuguese Athletic Club International Soccer Team won the Spring 2005 Girls U13, Class 3 division championship as part of the Mt. Hamilton Youth Soccer League.

The team, comprised of girls from the Evergreen area, was undefeated, winning eight games and tying one game. The team had only three goals scored against them all season and they scored a whopping 23 goals against their opponents. 

“The team did very well this season because you could see how much fun the girls were having,” said Head Coach Maria Sumnicht. “I was very proud of the way they played.”

PAC International member Alyssa Vargas agreed. “We had a lot of fun this season.  I think that is why we played so well!”

“Our season was the best! Our team is a fun team to play on,” chimed in Serena Sornito.

“We played awesome this season!” concluded Haley Samuelson.

The team, led by Sumnicht and Assistant Coach Dustin Richert, has been together for five years and is looking for talented players. If you’re interested in joining the team, go to http://www.employees.org/~soccer1/mthamiltonrayz/index.html.

Mt. Hamilton Youth Soccer League Class 3 team tryouts
PAC United, a U14 Boys soccer team in the Mt. Hamilton Youth Soccer League, is looking for a few more good players. Boys born between Aug. 1, 1991 and July 31, 1992 are welcome to try out for the team on Thursday, July 7, at 6 p.m. in the upper fields at Chaboya Middle School, 3276 Cortona Road, San Jose, Calif., 95135. For more information, contact Arthur Leal, (408) 929-3551 or (408) 921-7352.