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AUNTIE KIN AND BASEBALL

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Seattle Baseball during the 192... Seattle Baseball during the 1920s and 30s
Kin had trained as a nurse, but being a free-thinker, she was not inclined to the usual offers for marriage in her Mie-ken, Japan, community. Therefore, the offer from the Morookas to marry their son in Seattle intrigued her in 1918. Mr. Morooka owned his restaurant, The Marion Cafe. Again with her self-determining nature, Kin found work elsewhere.

Kin thought, as she ended her day at the Alaska King Crab Fishery, “Cracking crabs for the meat is not hard and gives me the extra money for bus fare and hot dogs at tomorrow night’s Rainier baseball game. Everyone is talking about Fred Hutchinson and he is sure to get his 27th win.” She even went to games all by herself.

The all-Japanese baseball Courier League in the 1930s was even more fun and she walked to those games when they were in town. This one Sunday she sat with Ken and Miki Ishida. Ken was for the White River boys because his nephew was the catcher, “Hey Okimoto, show them your good change up!!! Nakanishi! Nakanishi! You know what to do. Give him the right sign!!!!”

Kin grabbed Ken’s right arm with her, hard as a rock from all the years of working at cracking crab, hands, "Calm down!! You’re too loud. You’re going to mess them up!”

Today is July 23rd and the first of the short 2020 Mariner Baseball season because of all the Covid virus issues. I am reminded of Auntie Kin, who was a healthy almost 100-year-old by 1993 and a huge baseball fan in Seattle. By 1993, Kin was living with her daughter, our Auntie "Onions", who at age 95 uses her season tickets for day games and says, “Mom got up, opened the blinds, lay down again and was gone. She was on no medications. I want to be like her.”

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