<Begin Segment 19>

AH: You had a ringside seat on what Honolulu was like during World War II, and especially the year you weren't playing sports and stuff. So, could you kind of give us a portrait of what it was like living in Honolulu when they had this tremendous influx of military people and war workers and everything else? The population doubled overnight, practically. What was it like?

WY: Well, see, the good thing about -- coming to sports -- the good thing about during the war, they had all these major league ballplayers, all these professional football players, all-American, all-pros, they all came to Hawaii in the air force, or army, navy and all that. So all the people in Hawaii saw the best. And so, even like us, I was playing, I was playing baseball at that time for the Asahi baseball team. But I learned my, a lot of baseball from all these major leaguers that came. So when you play against these major league teams, so your brand of ball start going up. And that's the only reason why when I went to Japan in 1951, I could compete against the Japanese because I played my baseball all against a lot of these ex-major, I mean, these major leaguers here in Hawaii. Played ball with them, and that's how I got to learn. And naturally, the pitching was much faster and they taught me how to play the infield, how to play the outfield, and how to hit and all those things. So when I went to Japan, I was more or less ready, but the kids today, now, they cannot go to Japan and play because they're not ready. Our days, we were ready when we went to Japan.

AH: Who were the Asahi team? Who were they? A semi-pro team?

WY: Yeah, semi-pro. It's all, just like a industrial league, but it's a semi-pro team.

AH: Did you play other industrial league teams?

WY: Yes, they had, they had the Chinese team, they had the Japanese team, they had the haole teams, they had the Filipino team, like that. They had about five or six teams, all nationality. And then they played against each other.

AH: And so your baseball really shot up at that time, too, then, in your abilities, as well as the football.

WY: Right.

AH: So, okay, so anyway, we got you over to where you were talking about, where you finally got a chance, you got this exposure in Portland, when you had this career day. And Buck Shaw and the 49ers saw you. And this would have been the 49ers team that had Frankie Albert as quarterback and had great fame at Stanford with Norm Standlee and everybody for the Stanford Indians then, now they're the Cardinals. But how did the recruitment occur? You got $7000?

WY: Well, they gave me $14,000, guaranteed contract -- $7000 a year. I was there one year with them. And then, then the following year, after the first year was over, I came back to Hawaii.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2003 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.