September 19, 2018 Americans in Japanese Baseball.....Glenn Mickens and Gene Bacque

I was going through some folders on my computer and found I had some images of U.S. ballplayers in Japan....

Glenn Mickens
pitched in 4 games ( starting 2) for the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers going 0-1. He stayed in the Dodgers organization until 1958 when in 1959, he went to play ball in Japan with the Kintetsu Buffaloes. Mr Mickens won 45 games over 5 seasons, was named to 3 All Star teams and was the first American to win an All Star game. He played in Japan until 1963. After returning to the States, he was an assistant coach for UCLA from 1964 to 1989.

Gene Bacque
was signed by the Detroit Tigers in 1957 and played in their organization until 1960, when he was released. Playing semi pro baseball, he was signed by the Hanshin Tigers in 1962. In 1964, Mr Bacque had a monster season....winning 29 games while losing only 9, striking out 200 batters and pitching 353 innings, unheard of these days. He won the Sawamura Award, the equivalent of the Cy Young Award and the Tigers won the pennant.