The South Bay’s Sansei Baseball league is a Japanese American tradition that’s been around since Gardena was filled with strawberry fields, and Torrance was known for flower farms. Established in 1960, the league today still gives kids of all backgrounds and skill levels a chance to learn and play the game.
But as Japanese American families move away, kids opt for basketball or soccer, and youth sports become more competitive, the league is shrinking. Where once there was a network of baseball teams serving the community, Sansei Baseball is the last one left in LA County.
The Japanese American community in Torrance (where Sansei Baseball holds its games) shrunk by about 20% between 2010 and 2020, according to U.S. Census data. Major Japanese companies like Toyota moved away from the area.
President of Sansei Baseball Jason Murai, who played in the league as a kid, says bringing in new kids is a challenge.
“When I was playing, I think it was like 600 kids. Now there's 300 or so,” Murai says.
Kevin Arima, head commissioner of Sansei Baseball, adds, “There's so many different opportunities where they can play year-round in many other sports, even baseball, that it's really tough to get people to join.”
Murai also started recruiting at his son’s Japanese day care, name-dropping baseball star Shohei Ohtani.
“When I tried talking to the other parents at the day care about joining in, they said, ‘Oh, Shohei,’” Murai says. “So I think it did give them a little more impetus or excitement into baseball, and I think it helped get some of the kids in.”
The children who play today are part of a broad and deep connection between baseball and California’s Japanese American communities, forged in a time of discrimination and now celebrated with pride.
Ryden Yun goes in for a high-five at the end of a Sansei Baseball T-ball game. Photo by Nathan Yun.
As early as the early 1900s, “every small farm town community had a baseball team, and that was their way of outreaching to other communities,” says Kerry Yo Nakagawa, president of the Nisei Baseball Research Project.
He estimates that 100 years ago, thousands of people played on Japanese teams throughout North America. They had to be on segregated teams because of widespread discrimination against Asians.
“They were able to play other teams, like the many immigrant teams that were Italian, that were Irish, that were Latino, that were Black,” Nakagawa explains.
During World War II, many Japanese and Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps – where they could only play baseball with each other. When the war was over, many returned to Southern California and continued the sport.
Sansei League has been around so long that several generations have played in it, like the family of Kevin Arima. He participated when he was younger, and now his seventh-grade son and fourth-grade daughter are involved as well. He wants for them what he got from Sansei baseball.
“[In] Sansei Baseball, they're able to play on the same team with the same group of friends year on,” Arima says. “A lot of the kids that I met through Sansei Baseball ended up becoming lifetime friends.”
It's the kind of low-cost, community-run recreational league that's rare these days. It’s not very competitive, and doesn’t require playing year-round or traveling to away games.
At a recent Sansei Baseball T-ball game for toddlers and preschoolers, there’s plenty of team spirit, but not much in the way of competition. When one of the preschoolers does hit the ball, all of the kids on the field, even the ones in the outfield, make a run for it. They tumble over each other, picking up the ball and dropping it. The ball usually doesn't make it to first base.
In the T-ball division, the parents don’t even count runs. In the upper divisions of baseball and softball, the league tracks runs, but there are no standings or playoffs. Kids play just for the fun of it.
“This league is just way more casual, and it's way more fun,” says 11-year-old Shota Yoshikawa, who plays on the Lightning team. “I feel more comfortable playing with my own people that look like me.”