<Begin Segment 28>

AH: You had a really good start in Japanese baseball in terms of your batting average. First seven years you were there, you hit over .300?

WY: Yeah.

AH: And during that period, was the league starting to change in terms of the traveling conditions and the facilities and things like that? Or was it still pretty...

WY: Pretty bad. The first five, six years was bad. We were, at home, we didn't have an air conditioner, no heat. First five, six years was bad. And we didn't have that kind of money that we can spend and try to get a good air conditioner or heat, because I was making only, what, $285 a month, American money. So, we're gonna, and we don't know, I don't know how long I'm going to be there, so I have to try to save and try to bring some money home. That's the reason why in Japan, I was there in baseball for thirty-eight years in uniform. But one way that I could, whatever money I made, my kids, after that, they started to go to college in the States. And since I didn't go to college, I wanted my kids to go to college. So whatever money I had, I had to send it to my kids because my kids, two of them when to USF and one went to Fordham. So we had to send kids money so that they could go to school. My two daughters... my wife was very strict. My two daughters, they would not let them stay in the same apartment. She wanted them to learn how to budget themselves so they were always staying, they could be next door, but they had their own apartment. So, they would figure out how they can save money. So that really helped them, I think, in the long run.

AH: Your kids were not old enough by the time you quit playing, right? Because you played 'til 1962.

WY: Right, right.

AH: And they, your kids must've been very young at that time.

WY: Right, right.

AH: So, I mean, you had the financial burden of being able to try to raise a family when you were carving out a career in baseball. Did your salary to up substantially as you were starting to win your first and then your second and then your third batting champion?

WY: Our days, our days, salary wasn't that great. See, by 19-, my third year I think it was, I batted .361, and I went in and talked contract with the general manager. And first day I went and I talked, I argued with him for six hours and he would not give me a raise. So I went home, and next day I went another six hours. Couldn't come to terms, so I went home. Third day I went for another six hours. Couldn't come to terms. I fought, I talked for three hours, I got so tired that I signed the contract, and he gave me only, in those days was only 100,000 yen raise. So right now it'd be only $1000, below $1000 raise, batting .361. And many years after, I asked one of the general managers, "Today a guy hit .361, had a batting title, what kind of raise you give him?" He said, "At least a million dollars," he said. [Laughs]

AH: Now, did the Giants have the biggest payroll of any of the other teams?

WY: Giants or the Chunichi Dragons. Dragons paid them pretty good money, too, I heard.

AH: And those are the two teams you played with.

WY: Yeah. But see, when I was, after I retired as a active player, I became a coach and things. I went to about six different teams in my thirty-eight years, and the reason why I did that, see, when my contract expired -- I signed a two-year contract, three-year contract -- when my contract expired, I was always in demand because the other teams wanted me as a coach. So when I go with another team, they give me a good bonus. Maybe they would give me 40-, 50,000 as a bonus. And so, I would not stay with one team when I was a coach. And see, when you're a coach, when your contract expires, you can go to any team you want. But as a player you cannot do that. So, when my contract expired as a coach, so I went to five or six different teams just to get that bonus because if I have that bonus as my savings, then the salary that I get all goes to my kids to go to college. That's how I used to do it.

AH: So you were, you were going up the ladder by changing jobs all the time. And the coaches the same as it is here? Because I wasn't sure if the coach and the manager were equivalent terms to those positions here. Is a coach like a, like the third base coach or the first base coach or pitching coach?

WY: Yeah. Right.

AH: Okay, and then you were also the manager. And of course, you, as a manager, you won a Japanese series, right?

WY: Right. Six years I was a manager. But about twelve or fourteen years, I was a coach. So, I was a manager for about six years.

AH: And what about the scout period? Was that later on?

WY: That was only two years, towards the end of my career. My good friend, Mr. Nagashima, was manager of the Giants, and he wanted to get American players, so he asked me to go to the States and try to get American players. So that's the reason why I became a scout.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2003 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.