Last updated 2 years ago 
ROCKLIN, CA - It's a time many of them don't discuss -- a time when over 100,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans were forced into internment camps.
It's a time 83-year-old Bob Hayashida remembers. "I was 16 years old and it really didn't hit me until we left our house," said Hayashida. His family joined the throngs of people ordered to leave their homes after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entered World War II. "We had to sell everything. We didn't know what was going to happen," Hayashida said.
His family left their farm in Loomis for the camp at Tule Lake. Their loyalties to the U.S. where questioned but once he and his brothers arrived at the camp, they turned to America's favorite pastime -- baseball.
"Different people started organizing teams and that's how we started playing ball," said Hayashida. He served as catcher on his team. "The baseball field didn't have a blade of grass. It was all sand and rocks but we were still able to have a good time," he recalled.
Hayashida has photos from those days in 1942. "It was a big deal for us," he said. "We didn't have any stands so the people would all come out. And there were big crowds standing on the sidelines and watching."
He remembers one game in particular. "They had a Caucasian team that came down to play us. They were from Klamath Falls. I remember we beat the heck out of them. We had a pretty good team considering everything," he said.
When the war ended his family left the camp. Hayashida joined the U.S. Army's 1st Calvary Division. "I was the only Japanese-American on the team and we played in all the big cities in Japan," he said. "And we won Japan's championship. So we went to Hawaii to play teams from the Philippines, Korea and Hawaii."
Once he returned home, Hayashida played for Placer College and community teams. That's where he met pitcher Wayne Hironaka. "He was the field general," Hironaka said as he nodded toward Hayashida. "I was always afraid I wouldn't throw the ball where he told me to."
Hironaka, 72, a teacher at Grant High School was recently honored with a place in the Hall of Fame at CSU, Fresno. "When I came home I got to thinking about these baseball pioneers," he said. "I probably never would have played baseball if it hadn't been for people like Bob and the others who played at the internment camps."
On Wednesday, Hironaka has arranged for Hayashida and the other baseball pioneers to be honored. "I found out there are about 250 Japanese-American baseball players living in the Sacramento Valley that played during the 40s, 50s and 60s," Hironaka said.
About 80 players will attend a luncheon at the Sacramento Buddhist Church at 4501 Riverside Boulevard at 3 p.m. Then at 6:30 Wednesday evening, the players will be recognized before the Rivercats game at Raley Field in West Sacramento.
"It's an honor really," said Hayashida. And proof of the tenacity of people who survived one of America's darkest periods.
News10/KXTV
