A third baseman with the Vancouver Asahi, Kaye Kaminishi grew up across the street from the Powell Street Grounds at Powell and Dunlevy Streets
The last survivor of Japantown’s legendary baseball team the Vancouver Asahi has died at 102.
Kaye Kaminishi died Saturday at his home in Kamloops, with his family by his side.
A modest man, he always insisted he wasn’t one of the Asahi’s stars; he was more of a utility player. But he became the face of the team over the years, as it picked up many accolades.
The Asahi was adopted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003 and the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. It was the subject of a 2008 documentary, Sleeping Tigers, and a 2014 Japanese movie, The Vancouver Asahi.
In 2019, the team inspired a Heritage Moment on TV, narrated by Kaminishi. That same year the Asahi were honoured with a Canadian postage stamp.
On Jan. 11, 2024, the City of Vancouver proclaimed “Vancouver Asahi Day” in honour of his 102nd birthday.
Kaminishi was only 17 when he first played third base for the Asahi, which was the pride of Vancouver’s Japanese community.
When Canada went to war with Japan after it attacked Hawaii and Hong Kong on Dec. 7-8, 1941, the Japanese community was forced to leave the west coast.
Kaminishi spent the war in an internment camp near Lillooet in the B.C. Interior. After the war, he moved to Kamloops, where he resumed his baseball career and raised a family.
Kaminishi grew up across the street from the Asahi’s home field, the Powell Street Grounds, in his family’s rooming house at 143 Dunlevy Ave. Cleaning the rooms as a kid, he could watch baseball games out of the window.
“Powell Grounds seating capacity was pretty small, 300 to 400,” he said. “So everybody was standing up (along the baselines), about six deep watching the game. There were people standing up on Powell Street, Jackson (Avenue), six deep to watch the games. Outfield, too.”
His family had immigrated to Canada from Hiroshima, Japan. Some of his relatives were killed when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945.
The family initially thrived in Canada. His father, Kanosuke Kaminishi, owned the Royston Lumber Company on Vancouver Island, but died in 1933 when Kaye was only 11. His mother then ran Dunlevy Rooms until the family was interned in Lillooet.
“There was nothing there (when we arrived),” he said in 2019. “No water system, nothing. We had to build a big house (using) tarpaper (as insulation). We had a tough time.”
He organized a softball team at the camp, and approached a friendly police officer about playing against white kids in Lillooet. The games helped break down racial barriers.
“I guess the townspeople knew we were not vicious people, so they let us go to town, opened the door for us,” he said. “If we had a party at the east side, kids would come (from Lillooet) to the party, and if they had a party they’d invite us. Before the end of the war, we were good friends, both ways.”
Kaminishi returned to the Powell Street Grounds (today’s Oppenheimer Park) for the Heritage Moment in 2019. It brought back many memories.
“In those days the Powell Grounds wasn’t really a first-class ground, you know,” he said. “It was pretty rough — a lot of pebbles. Coach always told me, ‘If you can’t stop it with the glove, stop by the chest.’”
He laughed and said, “I thought I need a chest protector to play baseball!”
Japantown or Little Tokyo had an estimated 8,000 residents before the Second World War, clustered north of Hastings Street between Main and Campbell streets.
But it never recovered after the community was sent to internment camps. The Asahi had been founded in 1914, but never played after the 1941 season.
Kamanishi is survived by his daughter Joyce and son Ed. He was predeceased by his wife Florence.
