Oral History

150 Years of US-Japan Baseball Diplomacy

Full interviews with different United States and Japanese Baseball players will be uploaded here and on our YouTube Channel as the project continues. Follow us on YouTube at US-Japan Baseball Diplomacy Project or by this link.

Part 1 of an interview with Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese Major League pitcher who played for the San Francisco Giants in 1964 and 1965.
The second part to our interview with Masanori Murakami.
Interview with Ryan Kurosaki, the first American of Japanese descent to play at the major league as a relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1975.
Interview with Jack Bloomfield, who played in Japan for the Kintetsu Buffaloes (1960-64) and Nankai Hawks (1965-66) won the battling title in 1962 and 1963.
Interview with Gosuke Katoh of the Nippon Ham Fighters. Born in California, Katoh was drafted by the New York Yankees in 2013 and played for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2022. He was drafted by the Fighters the following year.
Born in Alabama in 1953, Greg “Boomer” Wells played for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Minnesota Twins before joining the Hankyu Braves in 1983. As its first baseman, Wells became the first Triple Crown winner as a foreign player in 1984, and has also won the Gold Glove and league MVP.

Born in Amarillo, Texas in 1963. After playing under the Cleveland Indians system, Hillman joined the coaching staff of the New York Yankees. In 2003, Hillman was tapped to manage the Nippon-Ham Fighters and, in 2006, won the Pacific League, the Climax Series, the Japan Series, and the Asian Cup. In 2016, he began a two-year stint as manager for the SK Wyverns and won the league championship in 2018. Hillman is the first foreign manager to win in both Japan and South Korea.

Also check out our YouTube Short on our channel and on this webpage.

Ken Macha on Ichiro Suzuki
Jack Bloomfield on Masaichi Kaneda
Ryan Kurosaki on Shohei Ohtani
Boomer Wells on Suguru Egawa
Masanori Murakami on Roberto Clemente
Jack Bloomfield on Isao Harimoto
Boomer Wells on Choji Murata
Gosuke Katoh on Shohei Ohtani
Lenn Sakata on Ichiro Suzuki
Trey Hillman on the Nippon-Ham Fighters’ success in 2006
Gosuke Katoh on His First Hit in the Majors
Jack Bloomfield on Tadashi Sugiura
Masanori Murakami on Pete Rose
Boomer Wells on Osamu Higashio
Ken Macha on Egawa and Nishimoto
Lenn Sakata on the player who looked better than Ichiro