andrew "bucky" harris mcgalliard (japan's "bucky harris"), herbert "buster" north, and james e. "jimmy bonna" bonner became the first americans to play in japan's professional baseball league in 1936. (bonner was african-american, thus beating jackie robinson to professional baseball 11 years before robinson broke in with the brooklyn dodgers.) they were joined by the japanese-american players kiyomi "slim" hirakawa, fumito "jimmy" horio, kazuyoshi "george" matsuura, yoshio "sam" takahashi, and tadashi "bozo" wakabayashi.