“I couldn’t have scripted a better place to be. It is coming home, in a sense,” he said.
Although the number of Asian-Americans has grown to about 15 million from roughly 1.5 million in 1960s, when Wakamatsu was born, few have become sports stars. Champion figure skaters like Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan are exceptions, along with the tennis player Michael Chang and Apolo Anton Ohno, who has won five Olympic medals in speedskating.
The burden Asian-Americans in sports view as their own is being perceived as not fully American. Oakland Athletics catcher Kurt Suzuki, for instance, said fans and players assumed he was Japanese.
“It’s entertaining to see how many fans absolutely expect me to be Japanese,” said Suzuki, 25, who grew up in Hawaii. “I just look at them with this blank stare.”
The first two Asian-Americans to play in the majors were also from Hawaii. Pitcher Ryan Kurosaki made seven relief appearances with the Cardinals in 1975. Two years later, Sakata became the second, playing most of his 11 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles. Now 54, Sakata is a minor league manager in Japan.
“He was the one guy that I followed,” Wakamatsu said. “For me, there was always that issue of looking for that identity.”
After seven seasons as a coach with AL West teams, Wakamatsu said, he bonded with Suzuki “as soon as I walked in the door” and served as his unofficial mentor.
Suzuki’s parents are Japanese-American, but it was Wakamatsu who knew more about their struggles. He is actively involved with the Japanese American Citizens League, a civil rights organization, and well read on the history of Japanese-Americans in baseball.
“He was the reason I read up so much about Japanese-American history,” said Suzuki, believed to be the only Asian-American in the majors last season. “We talked more about that than we talked about baseball.”
They immediately felt the weight of the coincidence: two Japanese-Americans, teacher and pupil, on the same bench. As far as they could tell, this had never happened.
“The truth is I really wanted him to succeed where I had failed,” Wakamatsu said. “I think it’s quite a coincidence that I ended up being the guy who came along and joined the team at that stage of Kurt’s development. What are the chances?”
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