On Thursday, August 23rd at 7:00 p.m. the South Pasadena Public Library and the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library proudly present a free Author Night program with Kerry Yo Nakagawa, as well as a screening of American Pastime, a new feature film that followed his book, Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American Baseball. The event is co-sponsored by The Bissell House Bed & Breakfast and Poets & Writers, Inc. with financial support from the James Irvine Foundation.
Nakagawa was in Pasadena last month, one year after he was honored there by the Baseball Reliquary for bringing to light so many of the significant, yet mostly overlooked, contributions to baseball history made by Japanese Americans.
His odyssey began when he was growing up in a small farm town called Fowler in the 50s. He often overheard stories of baseball glory voiced by his dad Dyna and his uncle Johnny Nakagawa. Each day he’d walk past one of his uncle’s game photos in the hallway and take notice of all of the ballplayers and their expressions. He felt special because not many kids could claim their uncle was on Lou Gehrig’s team that thundered Babe Ruth’s 13-3.
The photo was taken in 1927 and the Sultan of Swat and the Iron Horse were members of the New York Yankees team known as Murderer’s Row, usually considered the greatest team ever. The mighty Yankees that year had pummeled their opponents by more than 400 runs and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. Ruth had clouted 60 homers, an all-time high, and Gehrig slugged an almost equally impressive 47. Surprisingly, neither of the two led the team in doubles. That honor belonged to Tony Lazzeri who smashed an astonishing 176 two baggers. Nakagawa learned that his uncles and many other Japanese Americans played with and against other famous major leaguers such as Lefty O’Doul, Joe DiMaggio, and a young man from Pasadena named Jackie Robinson.
In 1996 Kerry developed the “Diamonds in the Rough: Japanese Americans in Baseball exhibit” for the Fresno Art Museum that later toured Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Tokyo, as well as numerous ballparks. For the exhibit he’d unearthed revelations about Japanese involvement with America’s national pastime that traced all the way back to the 1870s. His efforts led to a 35 minute documentary narrated by Karate Kid star Pat Morita, who himself was interned during World War II. By 2000 Nakagawa authored the beautiful and startling Through a Diamond, which really came about because of his inability to initially get grants for the exhibit. He’d been provided with so many wonderful stories, artifacts and photographs about Japanese American Baseball, both behind World War II internment camp walls and beyond, that he needed a vehicle to share the information. A related curriculum guide he developed with Stanford University has been used by hundreds of schools to introduce students to the subject of the Internment. A recent EFT, (Electronic Field Trip) to Manzanar drew 20 million students.
Five years ago motion picture producer –and avid baseball fan— Barry Rosenbush heard Nakagawa talking about the Japanese American baseball legacy on ‘The World ‘ radio and decided to develop a movie project based on incidents in camp. In early 2007 American Pastime debuted and it’s one of the few major American motion pictures to supplant all the other films on Internment Camps (Farewell to Manzanar and Snow Falling on Cedars being other examples). The film won the ‘audience favorite’ award in San Francisco. It has also garnered very positive responses at film festivals and during a limited theatrical run. It was released by Warner Home Video on DVD during late May. While Nakagawa likes all the positive reviews, what he enjoys the most is sharing the film with live audiences. To many interned Japanese Americans the film serves as an aid in the healing process and as such is priceless.
Nakagawa notes “If you can remember your high school sweetheart, if you like the sound of a jazz saxophone and piano and the nuances of baseball, I am confident you are really going to enjoy our film.”
The doors of the Community Room at 1115 El Centro Street will open at 6:30 p.m. No tickets or reservations are necessary. All audience members will be eligible to win a baseball autographed by Dodgers All Star pitcher Takashi Saito. Special thanks are due to the Los Angeles Dodgers, South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, the South Pasadena Review and Time Warner Cable, Channel 19.
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