DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Wally Yonamine and his wife, Jane, stood next to a display case that shows off some of his baseball memorabilia at Honolulu International Airport.
Yonamine’s
legacy on displayThe Japan Baseball Hall of Famer
is honored with an exhibit at
the Honolulu International Airport
PREVIOUSLY, Japanese people hoping to catch a glimpse of a Hall of Famer's old uniform had to find their way through the crowded Tokyo streets and conquer the maze of tunnels inside the Tokyo Dome.
Now, it will be as easy as getting off an airplane.
A pair of display cases containing artifacts of Wally Yonamine's Hall of Fame career have been moved from the Japanese Cultural Center in Moiliili to just outside Gate 25 at the Honolulu International Airport. It will be the first sight an estimated 2 million visitors to the state will see of Hawaii, and it will be a familiar one.
"When Paul (Yonamine, Wally's son) and I were in Japan they said that our airport needed to be more visitor friendly," former Honolulu City Council Mufi Hanneman said. "This makes the airport a lot better place for Japanese visitors because all of them are familiar with Wally."
Yonamine, 78, won three batting titles and an MVP award for the Yomiuri Giants in the 1950s and became the first foreigner to win the Central League when he guided the Chunichi Dragons to the top as a manager in 1972.
"I am so happy because many, many Japanese tourists come here, and they are the ones who helped get me into the Japanese Hall of Fame," Yonamine said at the unveiling yesterday. "A lot of them haven't seen the trophy, now they get a chance."
Yonamine was inducted into the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994, bringing closure to a career that started out needing it. After breaking his wrist two weeks before his second season as a running back for the San Francisco 49ers, the Farrington grad went to Japan to become the third foreign player to play professional ball in the country.
But his experience was unlike his two predecessors. Yonamine showed up to Giants camp just six years after the end of World War II. Because he was a second generation Japanese, tensions were still high about the son of parents many people considered traitors.
"When I went to Japan I was a little afraid of the reaction," Yonamine said. "But when I got into the Giants' uniform the players all accepted me as a ballplayer. It helped because the fans and the players on the other teams would always yell at me and tell me to go back to Hawaii."
Yonamine won over fans with his aggressive style, but it didn't come quickly. Before Yonamine showed up, custom demanded that Japanese players politely walk to first base after drawing a base on balls and never show up an opponent by knocking him off the bag at second base. But the man from Olawalu, Maui, knew only one way to play the game and wasn't going to change.
"My manager, (Shigeru) Mizuhara, told me, 'What you have learned in the states, do in Japan,' " Yonamine said. "That was a great help because I was very aggressive and people didn't like it. Now they say I changed Japanese baseball."
Part of Yonamine's legacy is he's the Nisei Jackie Robinson, a comparison that honors and humbles him at the same time. He says he only went through "about half" of what Robinson endured in breaking baseball's color line, that the worst he experienced were fans throwing rocks at him.
Supposedly, he counts rock-throwing as more of a problem than actual death threats.
"I remember my first time in Hiroshima, I shoved the umpire and I didn't realize how bad that was," Yonamine said. "Two Yakuza (Japanese gangsters) came onto the field and told me they were going to kill me, so I learned quickly to tone it down. But I still played as hard as ever."
The Giants won eight pennants in Yonamine's eight seasons, winning the Japan Series (Japan's version of the World Series) four times in his first five years. But Yonamine's time with the Giants ended when Mizuhara was fired in 1959 (for losing his fourth straight Japan Series) and Tetsuharu Kawakami -- was hired to take his place. Kawakami, who is known as the 'God of Batting' in Japan and was inducted into the Hall of Fame 29 years before Yonamine, released Yonamine immediately.
Kawakami and Yonamine each won three batting titles as teammates in the 50s, fueling a rivalry that got its spark from Kawakami's fervent nationalism. Yonamine latched on with the Chunichi Dragons and hit a home run against Kawakami's Giants the first time he faced them, and it was then that he knew for sure that he was accepted.
"When he fired me I was very sad because the Giants were all I knew and all I loved," Yonamine said. "But when I hit that home run and came back to touch home plate, all of the fans stood up and clapped for me. I can't think of a better feeling."
Yonamine has been awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure Gold Rays with Rosette from the government of Japan in recognition for his 'outstanding service and achievements in strengthening the bonds of friendship between Japan and Hawaii,' and his latest honor is not just another award.
The man whose foundation sponsors the Hawaii High School Baseball Tournament and gives out scholarships every year says this one is special because it is another way he can give back to the state. Visitors have to look for his plaque in the airport with other members of the Hawaii Hall of Fame, but they can't help but see his black and orange Giants cap the minute they leave the gate.
"It's always a pleasant surprise," Jane Yonamine, Wally's wife, said. "It's nice that in the states they always remember the old players. In Japan it's not like that so much."
