Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer

While Jackie Robinson and the Negro Leagues have been well documented, few baseball fans know about the Japanese American Nisei Leagues, or of their most influential figure, Kenichi Zenimura (1900-1968). A phenomenal player who excelled at all nine positions, Zenimura possessed a gift for using the game to transcend the ignorance and intolerance of his era. As a player, captain, and manager, he worked tirelessly to promote Japanese American baseball, leading goodwill trips to Asia, helping to negotiate tours of Japan by Negro League all-stars and Babe Ruth, and establishing a 32-team league behind the barbed wire of Arizona's Gila River Internment Camp during World War II. This first biography of the "Father of Japanese-American Baseball" delivers a thorough and fascinating account of Zenimura's life.