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What: “Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American Baseball”

Author: Kerry Yo Nakagawa

Publisher: Rudi Publishing, San Francisco

Price: $35

The tradition and history of Japanese American is captured in this 132-page coffee-table book that is filled with fascinating text and pictures. On the cover is a picture of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth posing with four Japanese players. It was taken in 1927 in Fresno, during a barnstorming tour by Gehrig and Ruth.

Two of the Japanese players, who were all members of a semipro team, are the uncles of Kerry Yo Nakagawa. It was a photo Nakagawa saw often as a child growing up in Fresno. While coaching his son’s Little League team in 1994, Nakagawa became inspired to learn more about Japanese American baseball.

Nakagawa’s inspiration turned into a full-time avocation. He compiled this marvelous book, which includes a lot of general baseball history. Fresno native Tom Seaver wrote the foreword. Nakagawa also started the Nisei Baseball Research Project (Nisei refers to second-generation Japanese Americans), and it resulted in an exhibit, Diamonds in the Rough, which has been shown in such locations as Cooperstown, N.Y., and Tokyo.

Nakagawa is part of a symposium on baseball and race in America that will be held Friday at 7 p.m. at the Natural History Museum at 900 Exposition Blvd. in Los Angeles. The panel will include former major leaguers Dave Winfield and Orlando Cepeda, Negro League legend Buck O’Neil, and Sharon Robinson, daughter of Jackie Robinson.