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Who was the first Japanese player on an American baseball team?

By Gemma Kaneko

If you just glanced at the photo of the 1886 Wesleyan University varsity baseball team, you might miss him. But he's there, in the upper left corner, leaning against a tree: Aisuke Kabayama, shortstop and the earliest known Japanese-born person to play college baseball in the United States.

Translation courtesy Professor Kyoko Yoshida, Ritsumeikan University. 

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