<Begin Segment 31>

AH: And what happened to your career after you left the Giants?

WY: So after I left the Giants, so I was with the Giants and then, so naturally I was really down, because the Giants was the only team that I really loved because I went with the Giants 1951 and played there with them for ten years. And I did so much for the Giants -- breaking double plays. Even, I collided with the shortstop, I broke my jaw in four parts and all these things. With the Giants, it's the only thing that I really loved in Japan. Then when the Giants fired me with a .316 batting average and they fired me, naturally, I was really down. But when I think back today, I think that maybe the good Lord wanted me to leave the Giants and go to, because after I got fired from the Giants and I went home, naturally in those days, I was a pretty big star in those days. I went home and all the media, they would be lining up outside. They had about fifteen cars lining up and waiting to see what I was going to do and all that. So that night, I told my wife, "Let's not stay home," because so much guys are outside like that. So my wife and I went to see a movie. So we went to see a theater down in Ginza, and this guy that I met, I haven't seen him for a long time. And he, this guy asked me, "You look so sad today." I said, "Yeah, I just got fired from the Giants." So he told me, "You want to play with the Chunichi Dragons?" I said, "Well, I'm out of a job. If I can't get a job somewhere else, I don't mind going." And then he said, "You wait. I'll go back to Nagoya and talk to the Dragons," because he knew one of the directors there.

So he went back, and about three or four days after, he came back home and told me, "The Chunichi Dragons are interested in you." So he wants me to come to Nagoya. So I went to Nagoya and they gave me a two-year contract. So I signed right away because at that time, when I signed with the Dragons, they gave me $25,000 bonus on that. So, I signed it and, but, so I played with the Dragons for only one year and the next year they asked me to be a coach. But all those things really fell in place because when they gave me $25,000 at that time, and my wife... every year when I was with the Giants, every year after the season we would pack our things up, put in storage, and we would come back to Hawaii. And then go back again and she would go find another apartment and put all the things in. And she did that for ten years, and she got so disgusted with something like that because every year she had to change. So after I got, I signed with the Dragons, she tells me she want to buy a place. I said, "We can't buy a place now because I'm on my way out now. I'm thirty-six years old. Maybe I have only a year or two to go, and we cannot buy a place, we have to think of going back to Hawaii." And, "No, I want to buy a place."

So I went see this property, I must have went to see the property about ten times because I didn't want to buy it because I know I'm ready to go home, because I know I don't have it anymore. But she was so hard-headed, so I said, "Okay then." So we bought that property, we built a home. So when I built the home, see, in Japan, you buy the land but when people want to buy the home, it's not the home, it's the land. So I didn't put too much money in the house because the land was more important. I figured in two years I'm going to sell it and I got to go back. So, after the first year, then my kids were getting sick because the house wasn't built too good, and during the wintertime, all the breezes would come in the house, and so I had to knock that house, maybe at least 80 percent, I had to knock it down and build all over again -- put central heating and things like that. So then right after that, I started to be a coach. And when I, they asked me to be a coach, then everything started to fall in place. And so I bought that piece of property, built a home there. And then when I, before I became a coach, I knew that all, when I figured all my expenses, I was going to make only $5000. And I figured, "Gee, $5000 is not that much." So I called my friend, my accountant back in Hawaii. I said, "After all my expenses, I'm going to make only $5000. What you think?" He tells me, "If you can make $5000 after all your expenses, don't come back. Stay in Japan." So I took his advice, I stayed in Japan. And lucky thing I stayed in Japan because I stayed in Japan right through and then, you know, I had a chance to become a manager with the Chunichi Dragons. And so naturally, I was in uniform thirty-eight years as a player, coach and manager in Japan.

AH: By the time that you were traded to the -- or not traded...

WY: Fired.

AH: Fired and then you went with the Dragons, during that period, were you starting to feel like a Japanese as opposed to a Hawaiian?

WY: Pardon me?

AH: Were you starting to feel like a Japanese rather than a Hawaiian by the time that you were finishing your stint as a player with the Giants?

WY: No, you know, all the years that, all the years I was in Japan, I never felt at one time that I was really a Japanese. I always thought that I was an American, Japanese American. But sometimes, the general managers would get mad at me because they tell me that, "You," he says, "when you sign a contract, if you think that you should be an American, you make it as if you're American. But sometimes you, when we talk to you, you just like, you make as if you are Japanese." [Laughs] So I'd go both ways, see? But always, even, even my son at one time, he wanted to play baseball in Japan, and in order for him to play ball in Japan, he had to lose his citizenship and get a, be a national, Japanese national. So he asked me, "Dad, what do you think? I want to play ball. Do you think I should give up my citizenship and be a Japanese?" I said, "No way." I said, "No way. Once you give it up, you can't get it back." So then he just forgot it. But then we had some other friends that changed their citizenship. They wanted to play ball in Japan, and they gave up their citizenship. And they have a hard time getting it back now.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2003 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.