The 1953 Eddie Lopat All-Stars’ Tour of Japan

1953 Eddie Lopat All-Stars (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

Eddie Lopat was a fine, soft-tossing southpaw during a 12-year baseball career with the Chicago White Sox and most famously the New York Yankees. Called the Junkman because of his assortment of off-speed pitches, Lopat was also something of a baseball entrepreneur. He not only ran a winter baseball school in Florida, but, after barnstorming in Japan with Lefty O’Doul’s All-Stars following the 1951 major-league season, was very receptive to Frank Scott’s plan to put together a star-studded assemblage of major leaguers to again tour Japan after the 1953 season. Scott, a former traveling secretary of the Yankees who had since become a promoter, proposed calling the team the Eddie Lopat All-Stars.1 By 1953, after O’Doul’s 1949 breakthrough overseas trip to Japan with his San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, postseason tours to the Land of the Rising Sun had become more common.2 In fact, in 1953 the New York Giants also barnstormed in Japan at the same time as did Lopat’s team. For the Lopat tour, Scott secured the Mainichi Newspapers, owners of the Mainichi Orions of Japan’s Pacific League, as the official tour sponsor.3

Lopat and Scott spent much of the 1953 regular season recruiting players for the tour, including a somewhat reluctant Yogi Berra. Unbeknownst to Yogi, he was already a legend among Japanese baseball fans. At the All-Star Game in Cincinnati, a Japanese sportswriter who was helping Lopat and Scott with their recruiting was aware of Berra’s reputation as a chowhound and told Yogi about the exotic foods he would be able to consume in Japan. Yogi was skeptical, however, and wondered if bread was available in Japan. When the writer and Lopat both assured Yogi that Japan did indeed have bread, he signed on for the tour.4

Under the prevailing major-league rules, barnstorming “all-star teams” were limited to three players from any one team.5 With that constraint, a stellar lineup of major leaguers signed on for the tour including, in addition to Berra, future Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, Robin Roberts, Eddie Mathews, Bob Lemon, Nellie Fox, and Enos Slaughter. All-Star-caliber players like Eddie Robinson, Curt Simmons, Mike Garcia, Harvey Kuenn (the 1953 American League Rookie of the Year), Jackie Jensen, and Hank Sauer committed as well, as did Gus Niarhos, who was added to serve as a second catcher behind Berra.6 Whether a slight exaggeration or not, they were billed as “the greatest array of major league stars ever to visit Japan.”7

Lopat and his Yankees teammates Mantle and Berra were fresh off a tense six-game World Series win over the Brooklyn Dodgers in which all had played pivotal roles. Lopat had won Game Two thanks to a two-run eighth-inning homer by Mantle, while Berra had batted .429 for the Series. A casualty to the tour because of the long season and World Series, however, was the 21-year-old Mantle, who, after battling injuries to both knees during the year, needed surgery and was a late scratch.8 Lopat quickly added Yankees teammate Billy Martin, who had hit .500 with 12 hits and eight runs batted in in the Series to win the Baseball Writers’ MVP Award.9

The Lopat All-Stars were to first play four exhibition games in Colorado and began gathering at the famous Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs on October 6. Baseball had a no-fraternizing rule then and many of the players looked forward to getting to know ballplayers from other teams and from the other league. The Phillies’ Robin Roberts, who was known for his great control on the mound, remembered spotting fellow hurler Bob Lemon of the Cleveland Indians in the bar at the Broadmoor and going over to introduce himself. Lemon asked Roberts what he wanted to drink and Roberts said, “I’ll have a 7-Up.”

Lemon didn’t say anything but pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered Roberts one. Roberts said, “No, thanks, I don’t smoke.”

Lemon chuckled and said, “No wonder you don’t walk anyone.”10

The Lopat team’s opposition in Colorado was a squad of major leaguers put together by White Sox manager Paul Richards and highlighted by pitchers Billy Pierce and Mel Parnell, infielders Pete Runnels and Randy Jackson, and outfielders Dave Philley and Dale Mitchell.11

The big-league sluggers quickly took to the rarefied Colorado air as the teams combined for nine home runs in the first contest, a 13-8 victory for the Lopat All-Stars over the Richards group on October 8 in Pueblo. The 21-year-old Mathews, coming off a gargantuan 47-homer, 135-RBI season with the Braves, slugged two circuit shots (including one that traveled 500 feet), as did the Cubs’ 36-year-old Hank Sauer, the Cardinals’ 37-year-old Enos Slaughter, and, for the Richards team, Detroit catcher Matt Batts. Two days later, the Lopats blasted the Richards team 18-7 in Colorado Springs before the four-game series shifted to Bears Stadium in Denver for the final two contests. The results were the same, however, as the Lopat team won in the Mile-High City 8-4 and 14-8, the latter before a record crowd of 13,852, as fourtime American League All-Star Eddie Robinson of the Philadelphia A’s and Mathews both homered off Billy Pierce and drove in four runs apiece.

Mathews went 7-for-8 in the two Denver contests and posted Little League-like numbers for the whole Colorado series, driving in 17 runs in the four games, while the veteran Slaughter had 12 hits, including two homers, two triples, and three doubles.12

The Lopat All-Stars then flew to Honolulu for more exhibition games after a brief stopover in San Francisco. On October 12 and 13 they played a pair of games in Honolulu against a local team called the Rural Red Sox and it did not take long for disaster to strike. In the first inning of the first game before a jammed-in crowd of 10,500, Mike Garcia of the Indians was struck in the ankle by a line drive after delivering a pitch. Garcia, who had won 20, 22, and 18 games the previous three seasons, was unable to push off from the mound after the injury and had to leave the game.13 Although Garcia stayed with the team for most of the tour, he was able to pitch only sparingly in Japan.14

Despite the loss of Garcia, the major leaguers clobbered the locals 10-2 and 15-0. After the second game, first baseman Robinson, who had homered in the rout, was stricken with a kidney-stone attack and was briefly hospitalized.15 He quickly recovered and resumed the tour for the All-Stars, who had brought along only 11 position players.

On October 14 the Lopat squad flew to Kauai, where they pounded out 22 hits and defeated the Kauai All-Stars, 12-3, on a makeshift diamond fashioned from a football field. World Series MVP Martin was honored before the game and given a number of gifts, including an aloha shirt and a calabash bowl. He celebrated by smashing a long home run in his first time at bat and later adding a double and a single.16 The homer sailed through goalposts situated beyond left field, leading Robin Roberts to quip that it should have counted for three runs.17

The big leaguers next flew to Hilo on the Big Island, where on October 17, 5,000 saw them defeat a local all-star-team, 8-3, in a game benefiting the local Little League. But much more serious opposition awaited them back in Honolulu in the form of a three- game series against the Roy Campanella All-Stars, a team of African American major leaguers headed by Campanella, the reigning National League MVP, and including stellar players like Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Billy Bruton, Joe Black, Junior Gilliam, George Crowe, Harry “Suitcase” Simpson, Bob Boyd, Dave Hoskins, Connie Johnson, and Jim Pendleton.18

The Lopats won the first game, 7-1, on the afternoon of October 18 over an obviously weary Campanella team that had flown in from Atlanta the previous day, with a plane change in Los Angeles. Jackie Jensen, then with the Washington Senators, was the hitting star with two home runs, while the Phillies’ Curt Simmons allowed only a single run in eight innings of mound work. By the next night, Campy’s squad was in much better shape and defeated the Lopat team 4-3 in 10 innings behind Joe Black.19

Roberts pitched the first nine innings for the Lopats with Yogi Berra behind the plate. In one at-bat, Campanella hit a towering foul ball behind the plate. Campy actually knocked the glove off Yogi’s hand on the follow-through of his swing. Berra looked down at his glove on the ground and then went back and caught the foul ball barehanded.

Roberts picked up Yogi’s glove and handed it to him, asking him if he was okay. Yogi said, “That friggin’ ball hurt like hell.”

Over the years Roberts wondered if he had somehow made that story up, since he never again saw a bat knock the glove off a catcher’s hand. Over 30 years later, he saw Berra at an Old-Timers game in Wrigley Field in Chicago and asked him about it. Yogi said, “That friggin’ ball hurt like hell,” the exact thing he had said in 1953.20

On October 20 Campanella’s squad won the rubber game, 7-1, behind the three-hit pitching of Don Newcombe. Nellie Fox displayed rare power by homering for the Lopats’ only run, while George Crowe hit two homers and Junior Gilliam one for the Campanellas.21

The Lopat team stayed at the famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach and had such a great time in Hawaii that many didn’t want to leave. Many of the players had brought their wives22 but some like Eddie Mathews, Billy Martin, and Eddie Robinson were single and so enjoyed the Honolulu nightlife. Not surprisingly given his before and after history, Martin got into a dispute with a guard at a performance of hula dancers attended by the entire team and sucker-punched him.23 Fortunately for Martin, no charges appear to have been brought.

The Lopat squad did have a schedule to keep and flew on a Pan American Stratocruiser to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, arriving at 1:05 P.M. on October 22. They could scarcely have anticipated the frenzied reception they received. Although the New York Giants had been in the country for a week and had played five games, thousands of Japanese greeted the plane. After being officially greeted by executives from the trip sponsor, Mainichi, and receiving gifts from beautiful young Japanese women, the ballplayers climbed into convertibles, one player per car, to travel to the Nikkatsu Hotel, which would be their headquarters.24 The trip, which would normally take about 30 minutes, took almost three hours because of the throngs of fans lining the route and pressing against the cars as Japanese mounted and foot police were overwhelmed.25 Eddie Mathews likened it to the pope in a motorcade without police or security while it reminded Robin Roberts of a ticker-tape parade in New York City.26

That evening the Americans were guests at a gigantic pep rally in their honor at the Nichigeki Theater, where Hawaiian-born Japanese crooner Katsuhiko Haida introduced each player.27 American Ambassador John M. Allison also hosted a reception at the US Embassy for both the Lopats and the New York Giants, who had just returned to Tokyo from Sendai.28

 

Eddie Lopat All-Stars vs. Mainichi Orions, October 23, 1953 (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

The Lopat squad’s first game was the following afternoon, October 23, against the Mainichi Orions in Korakuen Stadium before 27,000. The Orions, who had finished fifth out of seven teams in Japan’s Pacific League, had the honor of playing the initial game due to its ownership by the Mainichi newspapers.29 Jackie Jensen won a home-run-hitting contest before the game by smacking six out of the yard, followed by Futoshi Nakanishi of the Nishitetsu Lions with three and then Berra, Mathews, and Hank Sauer with two each. Bobby Brown, stationed in Tokyo as a US Army doctor, was seen visiting in the dugout with his Yankee teammates Lopat, Berra, and Martin before the contest.30

The US and Japanese Army bands played after the home-run-hitting contest, followed by helicopters dropping bouquets of flowers to both managers. Another helicopter hovered low over the field and dropped the first ball but stirred up so much dust from the all-dirt infield that the start of the game was delayed.31

The game finally began with Curt Simmons on the mound for the Americans against southpaw Atsushi Aramaki. The visitors plated a run in the top of the second on a single by Sauer, a double by Robinson, and an error, but the Orions immediately rallied for three runs in the bottom half on three bunt singles and Kazuhiro Yamauchi’s double. The Orions led 4-1 heading into the top of the ninth but the Lopats staged a thrilling rally to tie the score behind a walk to Mathews, a two-run homer by Sauer, and Robinson’s game-tying circuit clout.32

Garcia, who had relieved Simmons in the seventh inning, was still pitching in the 10th but after allowing a single, reaggravated the leg injury suffered in Hawaii. He was forced to leave the game with the count of 1 and 1 against the Orions’ Charlie Hood, who was a minor-league player in the Phillies organization.33 (Hood was in the military stationed in Japan and had played 25 games for Mainichi during the season.) When Garcia had to depart, Lopat asked for volunteers to pitch. Roberts, sitting in the dugout, said he would and went out to the mound to warm up.

During the game Roberts had told Bob Lemon next to him that he was familiar with Hood from Phillies spring training and that he was a really good low-ball hitter. Then, on his first pitch, Roberts threw Hood a low fastball which he ripped down the right-field line for a game-winning double. Lemon ribbed Roberts for the rest of the trip about his throwing a low fastball to a low-fastball hitter.34 In one of baseball’s little coincidences, Roberts and Lemon would both be elected to the Hall of Fame on the same day in 1976, 23 years later.

The Lopat squad’s loss in the opener was only the third ever suffered by an American team of major leaguers in a postseason tour of Japan.35 The All-Stars were certainly embarrassed by losing to a mediocre team and afterward Roberts told the Japanese press, “Look, it’s a goodwill trip and so this was some of our goodwill. You won the first game, but you won’t win anymore.”36

It turned out Roberts was right. The major leaguers turned the tables quickly the next day, October 24, against an All-Pacific League team, 13-7. Before the game, the press brought over the starting pitcher for the Japanese, Tokuji Kawasaki, for some photos with Roberts, who was starting for the Americans. Kawasaki could understand some English, so Roberts asked him, “How many games did you win this year?”

Kawasaki said, “Twenty-four. One more than you, huh?”37

Of course, he was correct, Roberts had won “only” 23 games for the Phillies in 1953.38 But Roberts quickly got even as his team pounded out 17 hits, of which seven were home runs, including three by Sauer and two by Berra. Little Nellie Fox hit one as did Roberts himself as he coasted to the victory.39 It was more of the same the next day against the same opponent. The Lopats won 10-3 as Sauer hit another one out of the park, as did Mathews, Jensen, and Lemon before a record 40,000 fans.40

The teams headed north to Sendai for a rematch the next day, October 26, before a near-capacity crowd of 25,000. Curt Simmons took the slab for the Americans and through five innings the game remained a scoreless tie. In the sixth, Slaughter’s triple led to the game’s first run. The Lopat squad then plated two more in the seventh to extend the lead to 3-0 on an error, singles by Kuenn and Slaughter, a walk, and a sacrifice fly. That was the final tally as Simmons scattered five hits in tossing a complete-game shutout.41

The teams traveled south to Fukuoka for the fifth game of the tour on October 28 and drew a sellout crowd of about 30,000. Behind the pitching of Bob Lemon, the Americans breezed to a 9-4 win.42 Although the foul lines of the ballpark were only 300 feet, only Sauer managed a home run, and he hit two, one in the first inning and one in the ninth, to give him seven in the five games played in Japan.43 Sauer had won the National League MVP Award in 1952 playing for the Chicago Cubs, with 37 homers and 121 runs batted in before battling injuries in 1953 that limited him to 19 round-trippers.44

Sauer belted two more homers two days later in Shimonoseki, making nine in six games, as the Americans had 13 hits in a 6-2 win over the Pacific All-Stars. Mathews broke out of a slump with a home run, double, and single, while Berra slugged the fourth home run of the day for the Lopat squad. On the mound, Roberts coasted through the game and used his fastball sparingly, according to one report. The Japanese were not used to the arm strength of the Americans, whether from the mound or the field, and for the third game in a row had a man thrown out at home plate, in this case by Slaughter from center field.45

The Americans moved to Osaka next for three games in the area and visited three Army hospitals before their first matchup against the Nankai Hawks, champions of the Pacific League. The Hawks, however, seemed overawed by their opposition, committing five errors and for the most part flailing at Lopat’s off-speed assortment from the mound. The final score was 15-1 as Kuenn and Jensen smacked home runs and Mathews had four hits and four RBIs.46

The most excitement occurred in bottom of the fifth inning with the score 10-0. Yogi Berra vociferously objected to consecutive pitch calls by umpire Johnny Stevens and got himself ejected.47 The Japanese fans seemed stunned, “as though witnessing a terrible tragedy.”48 But since Stevens was part of the Lopat travel party, some wondered whether it was “a bit of pre-arranged buffoonery.” In any event, Berra took to the press box after his ouster and continued to heckle Stevens, to the entertainment of the Japanese press corps.49 At least backup catcher Gus Niarhos got to catch a few innings.

The venue then shifted to Nishinomiya Stadium, halfway between Osaka and Kobe, for an October 31 contest against the Hankyu Braves, who had finished second in the Pacific League, four games behind the Hawks. Before 30,000 partisan fans, the Braves put up a much sterner fight and took a 3-2 lead into the seventh. It was the first time the Americans had trailed since the opening game. But after a single by Curt Simmons and a walk to Kuenn, Enos Slaughter blasted a three-run homer, his second of the day, to forge a 5-3 lead. In the eighth, Berra’s double, Jensen’s single, and a double by Billy Martin closed out the 7-3 victory as Simmons went all the way on the mound.50

In spite of the string of defeats, Japanese enthusiasm for the tour did not wane. The next day the Lopat squad faced the Pacific League All-Stars in the same venue before an overflow crowd of 50,000. The result was all too similar for the home squad, an 8-2 defeat as the Americans cracked four home runs among their 13 hits. Mathews hit two over the fence while Jensen and Sauer each hit one. Lemon, relying primarily on his curveball, allowed only two hits and a run in six innings of work.51

Eighteen-year-old Sadao Nishimura, who had been loaned to the Lopats by the Nishitetsu Lions of Fukuoka a few days earlier to compensate for Garcia’s general unavailability,52 pitched the final three innings for the visitors, allowing only a single run.53 Lopat and Berra were so enthralled with Nishimura that they hoped to interest the Yankees in signing him.54 Roberts took a particular interest in working with Nishimura and it may have paid off as the 19-year-old went 22-5 with a 1.77 ERA for the Lions in 1954.55

Another young Japanese pitcher impressed the Americans during the tour. Lefty Masaichi Kaneda was only 20 years old but had just completed his fourth season for the Kokutetsu Swallows of the Central League.56 He displayed a major-league-caliber fastball and a sharp-breaking curveball.57 In two appearances spanning eight innings, however, the Lopat squad touched him for five runs. Kaneda, despite pitching most of his 20-year career for the habitually weak Swallows, went on to win 400 games and become Japan’s “God of pitching.”58

Nagoya was the next stop for the Lopat crew, where the opposition was the Central League All-Stars for the only time on the tour. The Central Leaguers had given the New York Giants some tough games on their tour, but on this day, they surrendered seven runs in the second inning and by the fifth trailed 9-0 before rallying for six late runs to make the final score 9-6. Homers by Kuenn, Sauer, and Berra knocked in six of the runs. The 26-year-old Jensen, who hadn’t pitched since his college days at the University of California, threw seven innings and allowed only three runs.59

Back to Tokyo for the final two games of the Japanese portion of the tour, the Lopats finished with a flourish, defeating the Pacific All-Stars, 10-0 and then All-Japan, 16-2. Robinson, Mathews, and Berra swatted home runs in the first game while in the finale the Americans smashed a hard-to-believe nine home runs.60 Sauer’s 12th homer in 12 games traveled an estimated 500 feet and sailed completely out of Korakuen Stadium.61 For that feat, Sauer was awarded a motorcycle at home plate. Sauer’s blast disappointed Lopat, who had negotiated with the sponsor that he would get the motorcycle if no one actually hit a ball that carried out of the ballpark.62 Whether Sauer managed to get it back to the States remains an open question.

After winning 11 of 12 in Japan and playing 12 games in 13 days, the Lopat All-Stars were not done yet. They still had two games to play in Okinawa and two in Manila before heading home. At the first stop, at the Camp Kue baseball diamond in Okinawa, the Lopats defeated the Okinawa All-Stars, a team of Army and Air Force personnel, 14-1 and 6-0, behind Roberts and Jensen.63

The team’s flight to Manila after the game was delayed 17 hours when a truck clipped a wing of their plane while it was sitting on the tarmac.64 The Lopats arrived at Manila’s Rizal Memorial Field an hour late, but still had no difficulty defeating the Canlubang Sugar Barons, the champions of the Manila Bay League, 17-0, behind Roberts’s three-hitter.65

The opposition for the tour finale on November 8 was much tougher, as the Mainichi Orions, the only team to defeat the Lopat squad in Japan, had flown into Manila to start their own mini-tour. The Lopats eked out a narrow 1-0 win before 11,000 cheering fans, with the only run scoring in the seventh on a single by Kuenn that drove in Martin from second.66 The weather was so oppressively hot and humid that Lemon, pitching a shutout, was unable to continue after five innings and was replaced by Lopat.67

With the final victory, the Lopat All-Stars finished with an overall 24-3 record, with two of the losses coming to the Campanella All-Stars in Hawaii.68 After the loss in their first game in Japan, the Americans reeled off 15 straight victories to finish the tour.

The long trip home for the exhausted All-Stars was not without incident. Their Pan American Clipper developed an oil leak, which resulted in a four-hour unscheduled delay in Guam for repairs, causing the team to miss their connection in Honolulu.69

The delays undoubtedly bothered Jackie Jensen, whose fear of flying eventually led to his early retirement from baseball.70 On the flight home, he used a sleeping mask and managed to fall sound asleep. Billy Martin, who had earlier been Jensen’s teammate with the Yankees and the Oakland Oaks, grabbed an oxygen mask and a captain’s cap and shook Jensen awake, yelling, “Put on your Mae West, we’re going down! We’re going down!”71

Gallows humor aside, the Lopat tour was by any measure a great success. It drew 365,000 fans for the 12 games while the Giants tour drew 338,000 as the Japanese had a seemingly unquenchable thirst for major-league baseball.72 Mathews, Berra, and Sauer were particular favorites because of their penchant for the long ball.73 The Japanese fans also loved little Nellie Fox because of his “booming infield chatter.”74

 

1953 Eddie Lopat All-Stars Welcoming Parade (Rob Fitts Collection)

 

The Americans were lavished with gifts at every turn and, combined with their own shopping, had to send most of their belongings home by ship.75 In turn, the major leaguers appear to have been amiable guests, signing endless autographs, even for the many fans who invaded their dugout. They also little complained about their arduous schedule in which they often arose at 5 A.M. to travel to their next destination to play a game that same day. In the more remote locales, their accommodations were less than luxurious76 and the playing fields were sometimes made of volcanic ash, which tended to stick to their spikes.77

The Japanese loved home runs and the Americans accommodated them, smashing 42 in the 12 games.78 Sauer’s 12 round-trippers are still the second-most home runs hit by a player during a trip to Japan. (Babe Ruth holds the Japanese tour record with 13 home runs in 18 games.) Mathews and Berra each popped six balls out of the park in Japan. The Americans soon got used to the Japanese infielders bowing to them as they circled the bases after a home run.79 In Tokyo, at least, home-run hitters were greeted at home plate by young girls with boxes of candy, which the major leaguers donated to Japanese orphanages.80

The Lopat team hit .325 for the tour, led by Fox’s .435 and Sauer’s .423, Slaughter’s .393, and Berra’s .386.81 The pitchers had a $5 sweepstakes for the top-hitting moundsman, which Bob Lemon won handily by going 3-for-7.82 In contrast, the Japanese collectively batted .238 and poled only three home runs. Twenty-year-old future Japan Baseball Hall of Famer Futoshi Nakanishi of the Nishitetsu Lions batted .313 in 32 at-bats to lead the hosts. Nakanishi had led the Pacific League with 36 circuit clouts and had just missed the Triple Crown. Although he did not homer against the Americans, he did raise eyebrows by defeating Mathews in a pregame home-run-hitting contest in Tokyo, 6to5.83

Overall, the contrast in playing styles was dramatic, with the Americans’ swing-from-the-heels approach and the Japanese playing small ball and bunting at any time, even when several runs down. According to Curt Simmons, Japanese players were motivated by being paid 10,000 yen for every run they scored against the foreign visitors.84 Even the Japanese press acknowledged that Japanese baseball players had a long way to go to match the strength and skill of the major leaguers.85 But there was room for hope for an eventual World Series between Japan and the United States, fueled by several close games against both the Lopat All-Stars and New York Giants.86

The Lopat All-Stars arrived back in San Francisco on November 12, nearly five weeks after they had gathered in Colorado for the start of the tour. In the interim they had traveled almost 30,000 miles. Each pocketed $4,000 for the trip and all regarded it as one of the best times of their lives.87 The players especially enjoyed the royal treatment from the Japanese fans and, as an added bonus, they made friendships and connections among themselves that endured.88 The trip was lauded by the US State Department as a huge diplomatic success.89 Army officials agreed, telling Lopat that the two postseason tours that year had created more goodwill in Japan than the Army had been able to stir up in five years.90

C. PAUL ROGERS III is the co-author or co-editor of several baseball books including The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant Race (Temple University Press, 1996) with boyhood hero Robin Roberts, and Lucky Me: My 65 Years in Baseball (SMU Press, 2011) with Eddie Robinson. Paul is president of the Ernie Banks-Bobby Bragan DFW Chapter of SABR and a frequent contributor to the SABR BioProject, but his real job is as a law professor at the SMU Dedman School of Law, where he served as dean for nine years. He has also served as SMU’s faculty athletic representative for 35 years and counting.

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Greg Ivy, Skipper Steele, Frank Jackson, and Rob Fitts for their ready help with the research of this article.

 

NOTES

1 Eddie Robinson with C. Paul Rogers III, Lucky Me:My 65 Years in Baseball (Dallas: SMU Press, 2011), 100; Eddie Mathews and Bob Buege, Eddie Mathews and the National Pastime (Milwaukee: Douglas American Sports Publications, 1994), 92.

2 Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, declared at the end of the Seals tour that “[t]his trip is the greatest piece of diplomacy ever. All the diplomats put together would not have been able to do this.” “O’Doul Off for Australia to Direct Japanese Tour,” The Sporting News, November 17, 1954: 21.

3 Dan Daniel, “Lopat to Lead Major Stars to Japan,” The Sporting News, June 3, 1953: 1.

4 Yogi Berra with Dave Kaplan, Ten Rings: My Championship Seasons (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003), 131; Allen Barra, Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009), 182.

5 “Giants’ Fall Trip to Japan Okayed; 15 Players to Go,” The Sporting News, July 22, 1953: 7.

6 Future Hall of Famers Warren Spahn, Red Schoendienst, and Pee Wee Reese also initially committed to the tour, as did Bobby Shantz. All, however, ended up withdrawing, mostly because of injury issues. Daniel; “Giants’ Fall Trip to Japan Okayed,” 7; Mathews and Buege, 93.

7 Robin Roberts with C. Paul Rogers III, My Life in Baseball (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2003), 122; Mathews and Buege, 92-93.

8 “Sports in Brief,” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1953: 32; Jane Leavy, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), 103-111; David Falkner, The Last Hero: The Life of Mickey Mantle (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 108.

9 “Two Expeditions to Japan Leave on Successive Days,” The Sporting News, October 14, 1953: 19. With Mantle’s withdrawal, Lopat could add another Yankee without violating the rule against having more than three players from one team on the tour.

10 Roberts with Rogers, 122.

11 Philley and Eddie Robinson, who was the first baseman for Lopat’s All-Stars, were then teammates with the Philadelphia Athletics and were both from Paris, Texas, a town of about 15,000 people in Northeast Texas. Paris also produced football’s Raymond Berry and Gene Stallings.

12 “Lopat’s All-Stars Win Four Before 31,241 in Colorado, The Sporting News, October 21, 1953: 15.

13 “Garcia Injures Leg in Hawaiian Game,” The Sporting News, October 21, 1953: 15, 18.

14 Hal Lebovitz, “Report by Garcia After Japan—His Injury Is a Bruise,” The Sporting News, November 18, 1953: 17.

15 “Garcia Injures Leg in Hawaiian Game,” 18.

16 Red McQueen, “22,800 See Majors’ All-Stars in Hawaii,” The Sporting News, October 28, 1953: 17-18.

17 Roberts with Rogers, 123. It actually did account for three runs since two men were on base. McQueen: 18.

18 Newcombe was in the Army but was able to pitch due to a 28-day furlough. McQueen: 17.

19 “Campanella Team Wins—Defeats Lopat’s Squad, 4-3, in Tenth Inning at Honolulu,” New York Times, October 21, 1953: 39; McQueen: 17.

20 Roberts with Rogers, 122-23.

21 McQueen: 17.

22 Carmen Berra, Joanne Fox, Jane Lemon, Libby Lopat, Mary Roberts, Dot Simmons, Ruth Slaughter, and Zoe Ann Olsen, the Olympic diving champion who was married to Jackie Jensen, all accompanied their husbands to Hawaii. “Yanks’ Billy Martin Mobbed on His Arrival in Honolulu,” The Sporting News, October 21, 1953: 15; Mathews and Buege, 93. However only Mary Roberts and Dot Simmons accompanied their husbands to Japan as well. Pfc. Jack Squires, “Chotto Motte—All-Star Notes,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 6, 1953: 12.

23 Mathews and Buege, 93-4.

24 Sgt. Mike Hickey, “Japanese Fete Lopat All-Stars with Gala Reception, Parade,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 23, 1953: 15.

25 “Big Crowds Greet Lopat’s All-Stars at Contests in Japan,” The Sporting News, November 4, 1953: 17.

26 Mathews and Buege, 96; Roberts and Rogers, 123.

27 “Big Crowds Greet Lopat’s All-Stars at Contests in Japan.”

28 Hickey, “Japanese Fete Lopat All-Stars with Gala Reception, Parade.”

29 The Orions had won 56 and lost 62, with two ties in 1953, finishing 14½ games out of first place. Daniel E. Johnson, Japanese Baseball: A Statistical Handbook (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1999), 71.

30 “Big Crowds Greet Lopat’s All-Stars at Contests in Japan.” Carlo DeVito, Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008), 157.

31 Mathews and Buege, 96.

32 Sauer won a $325 Nikon camera for hitting the first home run by an American on the tour. “Big Crowds Greet Lopat’s All-Stars at Contests in Japan.”

33 “Big Crowds Greet Lopat’s All-Stars at Contests in Japan.”

34 Roberts with Rogers, 123-24.

35 Sgt. Mike Hickey, “Mainichi Orions Surprise All-Stars, 5 to 4,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 24, 1953: 15. The Herb Hunter team lost in 1922, the DiMaggio All-Stars in 1951, and then this one. The Negro League Royal Giants also lost a game in 1932,

36 Roberts with Rogers, 124.

37 Roberts with Rogers, 124.

38 Moreover, Kawasaki’s 24 wins were in a 120-game regular season, as opposed to the major leagues’ 154-game year.

39 Sgt. Mike Hickey, “All-Star HRs Down Japanese, 13-7,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 25, 1953: 14; “Big Crowds Greet Lopat’s All-Stars at Contests in Japan.”

40 The Americans led just 4-2 before erupting for five runs in the sixth. Sgt. Mike Hickey, “Big Sixth Inning Humbles Pacific Leaguers, 10-3,” Pacific Starsand Stripes, October 26, 1953: 14.

41 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Lopat Stars Win, 3-0, at Sendai,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 27, 1953: 14.

42 “Lopat Team Scores, 9-4,” New York Times, October 29, 1953: 45.

43 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Sauer Belts Two More HRs as Lopats Win,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 29, 1953: 14.

44 Sauer rebounded in 1954 and slugged 41 home runs and drove in 103 runs for the Cubs.

45 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Four Circuit Blows Top Pacific All-Stars, 6 to 2,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 30, 1953: 15.

46 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Ed Lopat’s All-Stars Bang Out 15 to 1 Win,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 31, 1953: 15.

47 DeVito, 158.

48 Lebovitz.

49 Squire, “Ed Lopat’s All-Stars Bang Out 15 to 1 Win.” According to The Sporting News, however, Berra had had previous run-ins with Stevens, who was an American League umpire. “Berra Raised Only Rhubarb on Lopat’s Tour of Japan,” The Sporting News, November 11, 1953: 15.

50 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Slaughter Paces All-Stars in7 to3 Victory,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 1, 1953: 14.

51 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Four Circuit Clouts Highlight Stars’ Win,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 2, 1953: 15.

52 “Japanese Pitcher Joins Lopat’s Stars,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 29, 1953: 14.

53 Garcia, who had pitched little since his injury in Hawaii, returned home on November 1 due to the reported serious illness of his mother-in-law. “Barnstorming Season Winds Up with Games in Far East, Mexico,” The Sporting News, November 18, 1953: 18; Squire, “Four Circuit Clouts Highlight Stars’ Win.”

54 Dan Daniel, “Lopat and Berra Plug Pair of Jap Pitchers to Yankees,” The Sporting News, November 25, 1953: 16. Apparently nothing came of Lopat’s recommendation to the Yankees. Nishimura had a relatively brief but very successful career in Japan for the Nishitetsu Lions, winning 82 games with a .636 won-loss percentage and a lifetime 2.44 earned-run average.

55 This according to John Holway, who served in Korea but was in Japan in time to witness the two 1953 postseason tours, http://baseballguru.com/jholway/analysisjholway36.html.

56 Kaneda had won 23 of the 45 victories for the last-place Swallows, his third straight 20-win season.

57 A number of major-league teams, including the Yankees and the New York Giants, were reportedly interested in signing Kaneda. Dan Daniel, 16; Robert Obojski, The Rise of Japanese Baseball Power (Radnor, Pennsylvania: Chilton Book Company, 1975), 52-53.

58 Robert Whiting, The Chrysanthemum and the Bat (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977), 109. In 1989, 36 years later after 1953, Kaneda happened to meet Robin Roberts at the Don Drysdale Celebrity Golf Tournament in Palm Springs, California. Through an interpreter, Roberts learned that Kaneda considered Roberts “his teacher” because he had copied Roberts’ drop and drive delivery after seeing him pitch in Japan in 1953, even though Roberts was a right-hander. Kaneda was then manager of the Lotte Orions and invited Roberts and his wife, Mary, to attend the Orions’ spring training in Japan in 1990. While there, the Robertses saw a tape of Kaneda’s pitching motion, leading Mary Roberts to say to her husband, “My goodness, he looks like a left-handed you.” Roberts with Rogers, 124-25.

59 Pfc. Jack Squire, “Lopats Triumph as Jensen Hurls,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 3, 1953: 15.

60 Sgt. Mike Hickey, “Lopat Romp, 10-0,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 4, 1953: 15.

61 “Lopat Stars Tab 11-1 Mark in Nippon,” The Sporting News, November 11, 1953: 15; Sgt. Mike Hickey, “Lopats Go Homer- Happy,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 5, 1953: 15.

62 Daniel, “Lopat and Berra Plug Pair of Jap Pitchers to Yankees.”

63 “Lopat Stars Belt Okinawa Troops,” Pacific Stars and Stripes,” November 6, 1953: 15; “Jensen Hurls Stars to 6-0 Victory Over Okinawa Club,” Pacific Stars and Stripes. November 7, 1953: 15.

64 Daniel, “Lopat and Berra Plug Pair of Jap Pitchers to Yankees.”

65 “All-Stars Trounce Filipinos, 17-0, Behind Roberts,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 8, 1953: 14.

66 United Press, “Lopatmen Clip Orions in Finale,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 9, 1953: 14.

67 >Enos Slaughter with Kevin Reid, Country Hardball: The Autobiography of Enos “Country” Slaughter (Greensboro, North Carolina: Tudor Publishers, 1991), 152.

68 That includes the four pre-tour games in Colorado against major-league opposition.

69 Slaughter with Reid, 152.

70 Many believe that Jensen’s fear of flying began on the Lopat All-Stars tour. Mark Armour, “Jackie Jensen,” https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jackie-jensen/; George I. Martin, The Golden Boy: A Biography of Jackie Jensen (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2000), 88.

71 Robinson with Rogers, 101; Roberts with Rogers, 126. The Mae West was an inflatable life preserver used by the military in World War II. When inflated, it made the wearer appear to have large breasts like the big-bosomed actress Mae West, hence the name.

72 “Giants and Lopat Stars Attract 703,000 at 24 Games in Japan,” The Sporting News, November 11, 1953: 15.

73 “Martin Arrives Home, Praises Japan Junket,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 12, 1953: 15.

74 Pfc. Jack Squires, “Chotto Motte-All-Star Notes,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, November 6, 1953: 12.

75 Slaughter with Reid, 152.

76 Squires, “Chotto Motte—All-Star Notes.”

77 Slaughter with Reid, 151.

78 In contrast, the Japanese hit three home runs against the Lopats.

79 According to Eddie Mathews, the Japanese did not cheer but clapped three times when something good happened. Mathews and Buege, 97.

80 Hickey, “Lopats Go Homer-Happy.”

81 Eddie Robinson struggled the most among position players, hitting 196 with three home runs. Robinson always viewed the junkballing Lopat as the toughest pitcher he faced in the big leagues, and it is probable he had the same difficulty adjusting to the Japanese pitchers’ assortment of off-speed deliveries. Robinson with Rogers, 154.

82 Daniel, “Lopat and Berra Plug Pair of Jap Pitchers to Yankees.” Of course, Lemon had broken into the big leagues as an outfielder-third baseman.

83 Obojski, 51.

84 “Runs Mean Yen, Japs Bunt at Any Time, Curt Reports,” The Sporting News, November 25, 1953: 16.

85 A. Satoru Ikeda, “Time at Bat,” Nippon Times, October 28, 1953: 5.

86 Gayle Talbot (Associated Press), “Japan in World Series? It’s Less Dreamlike Now,” Nippon Times, November 23, 1953: 65.

87 “Martin Arrives Home, Praises Japan Junket”; Daniel, “Lopat and Berra Plug Pair of Jap Pitchers to Yankees”; Mathews and Buege, 98.

88 For example, in 1966 Eddie Lopat was the general manager of the Kansas City Athletics and hired Eddie Robinson as his assistant GM. Later, in 1972 when Robinson was general manager of the Atlanta Braves, he hired Eddie Mathews to manage the Braves. He also fired Mathews in 1974. Robinson with Rogers, 154, 170, 174-75.

89 “State Department Lauds Teams’ Tour,” Nippon Times, November 23, 1953: 5.

90 Daniel, “Lopat and Berra Plug Pair of Jap Pitchers to Yankees.”

91 Listed Japanese players have a minimum of 5 at-bats, 3 innings pitched, or a decision. Yoshikazu Matsubayashi, Baseball Game History: Japan vs, U.S.A. (Tokyo: Baseball Magazine, 2004), 89; Nippon Professional Baseball Records, https://www.2689web.com/nb.html.