User:TehSharp/sandbox

Sports in the camps

Although life in the camps was very difficult, Japanese Americans formed many different sports teams including baseball and football teams. In January 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued what came to be known as the "Green Light Letter," to MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, which urged him to continue playing Major League Baseball games despite the ongoing war. In it Roosevelt said that "baseball provides a recreation," and this was true in the Japanese Interment Camps as well. Over 100 baseball teams were formed in the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans to have some recreation, and some of the team names were carry-overs from teams that were formed before Japanese interment.

Both men and women participated in the sports. In some cases, the Japanese American teams from the camps traveled outside of the camps to play other teams. Incarcecees from Idaho even got to compete in the state tournament in 1943, and there were even games between the prison guards and the Japanese American teams. Eventually even Branch Rickey, who is responsible for brining Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball, sent a letter to all of the interment camps expressing interest in trying out some of the Nisei players. In fall of 1943, three players tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in front of MLB scout George Sisler, however none of them made the team.