Yosh Kawano, longtime Cubs clubhouse manager, dead at 97
Yosh Kawano, one of two brothers who became fixtures as clubhouse managers in major league baseball, died late Monday at age 97, his family said.
Kawano, who had Parkinson’s disease, spent his later years living with his brother, Nobe, in a Southern California nursing home.
Yosh worked for the Chicago Cubs for five decades; Nobe served in the same capacity for almost as long with the Dodgers.
“It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it,” Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg told the Times in 2016. “All the time they spent around the clubhouse, they probably saw everything.”
The Kawano brothers were born in Seattle and moved to Southern California at a young age.
They started in baseball as teenagers when Yosh stowed away on a boat to Catalina and met a Cubs executive who was headed for the team’s training camp on the island.
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