Jorden: A review of ‘Gentle Black Giants: A History of Negro Leaguers in Japan’
From Rashaad Jorden at JETAA-NY on August 25, 2019, with mention of SABR member Bill Staples Jr.:
In the 1930s, major leaguers including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig went on tours of Japan, dazzling throngs of new fans while dropping nary a match (Gehrig’s group visited the country in 1931 while the Bambino arrived three years later). Those visits by all-star teams were widely credited for generating Japanese enthusiasm for baseball, which in turn helped launch professional baseball in Japan. But many (if not most) baseball fans are unaware the first American professional baseball players to tour Japan were not major leaguers.
A recently expanded book by the Nisei Baseball Research Project delves into a group of Negro Leaguers who sparked the growth of Japanese professional baseball. Gentle Black Giants: A History of Negro Leaguers in Japan explores the tours taken by the Philadelphia Royal Giants that contributed to the development of baseball in the country. Co-authored by Kazuo Sayama and Bill Staples, Jr. (the former is a Japanese baseball historian, the latter is a baseball researcher), Gentle Black Giants was first published in 1986, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the birth of Japanese pro baseball.
Read the full article here: https://jetaany.org/2019/08/25/jq-magazine-book-review-gentle-black-giants/
- Related link: Listen to Bill Staples’ presentation on Negro Leaguers in Japan at SABR 49 (scroll down to RP #3)
Originally published: August 29, 2019. Last Updated: August 29, 2019.