04/14/2026
The first professional game in Japanese baseball history:
April 15 marks the first professional game in Japanese baseball history. Thirty years before the formation of a professional league in Japan in 1936, Guy Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team played their first game in Frankfort, Kansas.
In March 1906, Guy W. Green, the owner of the Nebraska Indians barnstorming baseball team, gathered a dozen immigrants from Japan to form an all-Japanese baseball squad to barnstorm across the Midwest. Like Green’s Nebraska Indians players, the Japanese players signed contracts and were paid to play, making them the first known professional Japanese team.
The team contained some extraordinary men. At first base was Ichiro Fujisaku, who played under the name Toyo Fujita. Fujisaku would become a movie star, appearing in about a dozen Hollywood and Japanese films. Playing second base was Tetsusuburo Uyeda, the third son of a Japanese Diet member. During World War II, Uyeda would be jailed as a spy but afterwards his daughter would marry an heir to the Anheiser-Busch fortune. The shortstop was Ken Kitsuse, considered to be the best Issei player of the time. His father was also a member of the Japan Diet. The outfield consisted of Junjiro Uyeda, Tetsusuburo’s brother; Umekichi Kawashima; and Koji Naito, a graduate of Keio University. Acting as an umpire when needed was Tozan Masko, who would become a journalist, sports promoter, and eventually a swindler. On the mound was Kansas-born Dan Tobey, the captain of the famed Nebraska Indians who would eventually be inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame as an announcer. Four more Japanese and three more American-born players filled out the team’s roster.
After practicing for about a month in Lincoln, Nebraska, on April 13 Guy Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team headed south to begin a twenty-five-week tour that would cover over twenty-five hundred miles through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Their first stop was Frankfort, a small town of about 1,400 people in northeastern Kansas, where they would play the town’s high school squad.
On Sunday, April 15 the two teams met at Sportsman’s Park just outside of town. The high schoolers took the field in brand-new red and grey uniforms that had just arrived a couple of days before, while the Japanese squad wore white pants reaching just below the knees, wide leather belts, maroon stockings, maroon undershirts, and a winged-collared maroon jersey with “Greens Japs” stitched in white block letters across the chest. The caps were white with maroon bills.
As the high school contained just 41 students, the match should have been an easy victory for Green’s professional team, so Tobey started a mostly Japanese lineup. But Tobey had underestimated the skinny, 15-year-old redhead on the mound. The teenage ace, Fairfield “Jack” Walker would go on to pitch for the University of Kansas in 1911-12 and professionally in the Class D Nebraska State League and the Eastern Kansas League. Although a quiet kid, the Horton Headlight noted “when playing Walker wears a perpetual grin that makes a lot of batters mad because they think he is laughing at them.”
The schoolboys jumped out to an early 4-1 lead after three innings, forcing Tobey to bring in what the Marshall County Index called “five professional American players.” The visitors battled back, scoring in every inning after the second, to eventually win 11-8. The Frankfort Review reported, “A large number of people witnessed the game, and they pronounced it one of the best games ever played here.”
Green’s Japanese squad would stay on the road until October 10, playing about 170 games against small town teams and a few semi-pro squads. They won 122 of the 142 games for which results are known.
Despite the lengthy tour and the uniqueness of the club, The Sporting News, as well as big market newspapers in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, did not cover or even mention Green’s Japanese team. As a result, the first professional Japanese players had little impact on the national or international baseball scene and were soon forgotten. But the tour marked the true beginnings of Japanese American baseball. After the season, the players headed back to the West Coast to form amateur Japanese ball clubs. These teams’ success helped spawn numerous Nikkei clubs as baseball became an integral part of the Japanese American community and culture.
You can read more about Guy Green’s Japanese Base Ball Team and these early Nikkei players at www.RobFitts.com/blog
