Densho Digital Archive - Victor Ikeda Interview (denshovh-ivictor-01-0039)

<Begin Segment 39>

RP: Now, you also were on the high school baseball team.

VI: Yeah, I played out in the outfield on the high school baseball team. We played, I think, in 1944, they played eight games. I didn't play all of them because I think I left before they finished the season. But they won eight and lost one, so that was pretty good. They played the different, some of the towns that were close by, like Twin Falls, Jerome, Burley. They played Jerome twice, and I was talking to one of the fellows that played in the game, he says, "I'll always remember we went into Twin Falls and beat 'em 24 to 1." And he says he always would remember that game. But we beat 'em pretty bad. Of course, it's kind of a disadvantage, 'cause some of these smaller towns were very small in population, so they didn't have too much to pick from. And of course, we had the whole Seattle and Portland group we can pick from, especially in high school, so we had a pretty good team. The high school team played the semi-pros, and we beat 'em twice and we lost once. Except the semi-pros, lot of the people that were on the original team had left camp, or some had gone into the army. So it was not the same team that went out and played the different cities and tournaments. They were just what was left over, so it really wasn't like we beat the pros or semi-pros. [Laughs]

RP: Did you, did you travel out to play all your games, or did these teams come into the camp?

VI: They came in a couple of times, but most of the times they went out to play.

RP: Your high school?

VI: Yeah, that's right. Can't remember that well, 'cause we were talking about it, says, "Do you remember when we went or where we used to" -- no, we went, but it's hard to remember. That's not one of the things that really stays with you, because it was, we have a tendency to forget those things. But most of the time we went out and sometimes they came in, 'cause our facility wasn't that, that great.

RP: Were there, was there a main baseball diamond with bleachers?

VI: No bleachers, it was just, people just on the side.

RP: Backstop?

VI: We had a backstop, at least we had a backstop, we used to say. [Laughs]

RP: And how important to you -- it sounds, obviously, that baseball was a really important part of your camp experience.

VI: Yeah, one of the things that, if you realize, if you're in a camp, there's not much you can do. And we had nine fields, quite a few small fields all over the camp where you can play baseball, where you don't have, if it's a hardball, it goes, you need a bigger playing area. So there's not much young people can do, so they formed these different teams to play baseball, especially during the summertime.