1921 MLB All American Team's tour of Taiwan

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
1

okplaymayday.pixnet.net/blog/pos … t-60245239

According to this link, there was a MLB team that toured Japan and Asia after the 1920’s season ended. They decided to travel to Taiwan on January 8th, 1921, and played at least 8 games games with local teams before returning to Japan to play the against the famous Sō and kei university teams. The news clippings are from Taiwan ichi nichi shinpō (台灣日日新報), the prefecture backed news paper.

Due to my poor poor Japanese skills, I am having a tough time deciphering what was documented. However, I found this website:

vintageball.com/1920-21Tour.html

Correlating that information with the lineup, I am pretty sure this is the team that visited Taiwan:

It took me awhile to realize the katakana are meant to read from right to left here, once I realized that I found a couple of names that matched the roster.

カノリー Connoly, l.f., Washington
フレンチ Ray French, SS, NY Yankees
フード Wally Hood, lf., Brooklyn
エーンスミス Eddie Ainsmith, c., Detroit
フユーバー Hubert, 2b., Detroit
ドイル Doyle, 3b., NY Yankees
ロス Ross, p., NY Yankees

I think that’s enough matches to be the same team.

None of them went on to be in the Hall of Fame, but that’s a pretty amazing roster at the time. The entire MLB list is as followed:

“American League”

  • Eddie Ainsmith, c., Detroit
  • George Ellison, p., Cleveland
  • George Ross, p., NY Yankees
  • Charlie Robertson, p. Chicago White Sox
  • Carl Zamloch, 1b., Detroit
  • Ray French, SS, NY Yankees
  • (George ?) Cunningham, cf., Detroit
  • (Jim ?) Doyle, 3b., NY Yankees
  • (Joe or Tom ?) Connoly, l.f., Washington
  • (?) Hubert, 2b., Detroit

“National League” (Nationals)

  • Sammy Bohne., cf, Cin.
  • Jack Killilay, p. Boston (Red Sox, not Braves)
  • Jack Sheehan, 1b., Brooklyn
  • Frank Gay, 2b., Pittsburgh
  • Wally Hood, lf., Brooklyn
  • (Ernie ?) Shore, p., NY (Presumably Yankees, even though he pitched earlier for Giants)
  • (Don ?) Rader, ss., Philadelphia Phillies
  • (Art ?) Butler, 3b., St. Louis Cardinals
  • (?) Gomes, c., Chicago Cubs

From what I can tell, not suprisingly the All American team beat the crap out of any team Taiwan could throw at them, The first game a day after they landed was played at Taipei’s Tsukiji-chō (築地町, Today’s Simengding near Lesheng and Haohua theater). The team that went up against the Americans lost 26 to 0. In the double header the following day, the teams from Taiwan lost 11 to 0 and 7 to 8.

On the 12th, the All American travelled to Taichung and played a game there, didn’t see any report on the outcome.

They then travelled to Tainan on the 15th, where they kicked the crap out of the local team by 16 to 0, and 19 to 0 the following day. On the 17th they played a double header, and massacred local teams by 24 to 0 and 30 to 3. The team left Taiwan on the 25th.

2

Got some update on this:

The stadium at Taipei’s Taipei’s Tsukiji-chō (築地町, part of today’s Ximengding) was called Railway Field (江瀕街鐵道部球場, owned by the Taiwan Prefecture’s Railway Department). In the third and final game played at Railway Field, the All American team switched pitching and catching with the Taiwan all-stars. That is why instead of the 26 to 0, and 11 to 0 blowouts in the previous games, Team Taiwan managed to only lose by 1 point (7 to 8). The all Japanese Team Taiwan was no match for the visiting Americans.

Meaning, around the same time as the MLB team’s visit, these are some of the events happening around Taiwan:

Reported by Taiwan Ni-ni-sin p, Jan. 13th 1921, the same day that MLB visiting team played in Tainan, there were Japanese police officers killed in Daxi and Pingdong.

That’s what Taiwan was like when the first MLB All American team visited.

3

Very interesting!

I went to one of the games in 1993 when the Dodgers came to play against Taiwan’s All stars. That was a really good team with Darryl Strawberry, a young Mike Piazza and most of the '93 team. They played at the stadium on the SW corner of Nanjing and Dunhua, and the games were close. I think the owner of the Elephants knew the owner of the Dodgers (O’Malley), so they arranged it.

4

A young Pedro Martínez also visited Taiwan with that team and pitched the first game.

Of the 25 Dodgers that came to Taiwan, 2 went on to play professional ball in Taiwan. Pitcher Steve Wilson joined the TML during 1997 and 1998. Jonathan Hurst spent 7 years in CPBL since 1998.

Game 1 Oct 29 1993:

Dodgers 4 : 2 Dragons-Bears
Pitchers: Dodgers - Pedro Martinez, Kip Gross(W), Orel Hershiser, Jim Gott(SV)
CPBL - Huang Ping-yang, Felipe Castillo(L), Lin Chao-huang
HR: Mike Piazza (Huang Ping-yang)

Dragons was 3rd in the 1993 CPBL ranking, Bears was 4th.

Game 2 Oct 30 1993

Dodgers 0 : 1 Lions-Eagles
Pitchers: Dodgers - Tom Candiotti, Roger McDowell, Steve Wilson(L)
CPBL: Xie Chang-heng, Jose Cano (father of Robinson Cano), Guo Jian-cheng(W)
Extra-inning win for CPBL

Lions was 2nd place in the ranking, Eagles was 5th.

Game 3 Oct 31 1993

Dodgers 5 : 6 Elephants-Tigers
Pitchers: Pedro Astacio, Jonathan Hurst, Kip Gross(L), Roger McDowell
CPBL: Chen Xian-zhang, Walter Trice, Chen Yi-xin, David Pavlas(W), Al Jones(SV)

Elephants was the league champions, and Tigers was 6th in the ranking.

I was a Tigers fan…

5

I don’t know where to put this, but I saw a video of the 1934 MLB All-star visit to Japan.

Herb Hunter and Ainsmith, both were on the 1921 All American roster to Japan and Taiwan, arranged most of the subsequent MLB All-star tours in Japan, and were dubbed Baseball ambassadors by the Japanese.

6

Cool.