<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Well, before we go there, I just wanted to -- and this might be part of this -- but I know you were pretty active in sports, that you really enjoyed sports.

TU: Yeah, in grammar school we had a baseball team. And I did pretty well in that, and played a little basketball also.

TI: And then when you went to high school, you also continued doing sports?

TU: Yeah, I did a little baseball, little bit of basketball. But by that time, I was short of stature, and so these bigger boys could cover me pretty well. [Laughs] So I didn't do too well, but I did some sports.

TI: And you have one story that I wanted to mention about sports, and this is -- we're jumping a little ahead, but since we're talking about sports -- is right when, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I think there was like a championship game that you played. And why don't you tell me that story about, you were supposed to get some kind of award.

TU: Yeah, if you won a championship, you get a silver ball. Anybody that served on the, played on the championship team in Placer High School got a silver ball. Well, it so happened that this is spring of 1942 now, and the war has started, and many of the teams in that league fell by the wayside, they dropped their program. And we had this team from Roseville High School that we were playing for the championship, just the two teams, and we happened to win that. [Laughs] And I don't want to blow up the story too much, but I remember when I was at bat, the bases were loaded, and this pitcher got behind two balls to nothing, no strikes. And I figured he's gonna come in and give me a good ball to hit, so he did come in with a strike. And I saw him, I don't know, I closed my eyes and swung. [Laughs] And the ball went over the outfielder's head and so all the guys scored and that started a rally that we won the champion.

TI: And this was the championship game that you did this?

TU: Yeah. [Laughs]

TI: And normally, after you win the championship game, all the players would get this silver ball?

TU: Exactly. But that was the spring of '40, and that was, I think, April. Well, in May, I think it was in May that we left for the camp. The school wasn't out yet and we were put in camp, and this silver ball, a game named, I understand later on, was in charge of that, guy named Nelson Poole. I don't know what he did with the balls, but I never got a silver ball.

TI: And it sounds like this was a pretty big thing to have one of these silver balls. This is like the championship ball.

TU: Yeah. In the sports world, whether you are in baseball, basketball or football, if you win, you get a silver ball. That was a big thing in high school.

TI: Now was this the type of thing that they would even attach to like a letterman's jacket or something?

TU: Yeah, yeah. I never got one of those either. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, that's a good story.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.