Vancouver Asahi baseball legend Kaye Kaminishi celebrates 100th birthday
CBC
Koichi Kaye Kaminishi, the last surviving member of the legendary Vancouver Asahi baseball team, celebrated his centennial birthday this week.
Born Jan. 11, 1922 in Vancouver, Kaminishi grew up in Hiroshima, Japan, where he learned to play baseball at school, before his mother took him back to Canada in 1933 after his father's death.
In 1939, he joined the Japanese Canadian baseball team as a rookie at 17. The Asahi was a powerhouse in the West Coast during the 30s, winning many league championships during a time when Japanese Canadians faced discrimination in employment and political participation.
During the Second World War, Kaminishi and his teammates along with 22,000 other Canadians of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps — a slice of history featured in a Heritage Minutes video released in 2019.
"Baseball helped get us through the internment," Kaminishi says in a voiceover on the video.
On Tuesday, Kaminishi enjoyed his birthday cake at his home in Kamloops, B.C., where he has been living for many years and is still active in local baseball events.
"I feel really good and appreciate it very much," Kaminishi said Thursday to host Gloria Macarenko on CBC's On The Coast.
Ed Kaminishi, his son, says he's proud of his dad's baseball legacy.
"I knew about dad's baseball history when I was a young kid, but I never realized it was this close to dad — it's a part of him that he really treasures so much.
"I'm so thankful that he's around, and the longer he's around, the more I appreciate that history and what he's gone through," he said.
Since October, the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby, B.C., has been running the Safe | Home exhibition featuring the Vancouver Asahi team's history, and showcasing paraphernalia such as Kaminishi's baseball jersey and glove.
Museum curator Sherri Kajiwara praised Kaminishi for his leadership in fighting anti-Asian racism.
"You are such a living treasure and an incredible example of how the best quality of sports can help transcend barriers of racism and hate and really bring people together," she said in a birthday greeting to Kaminishi on On The Coast.
Former CBC broadcaster JJ Lee also shared a greeting and talked about his "pilgrimage" to Kamloops to meet Kaminishi in person.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.