The Interview
Melanie Stoddard: So, Bob, you’ve had a very interesting history with your mom being born in Hawaii, moving to Okinawa, you being born there, and finally ending up all the way in frigid Minnesota. How did that all happen?
Bob Fenwick: Well, it was my mother’s fault. My mother, yes, you’re right, she was born in Hawaii and because of her Okinawan heritage and her father being from Okinawa, at some point he wanted to go back to Okinawa. He decided to do that in 1941, just before the war broke out. He also decided to take my mother with him. She was the youngest in the family. We don’t know why he chose her, but it just happened that he did choose her. One day they arrived in Okinawa, shortly after the war broke out, and she was stranded there during the war up until the time of the invasion and the island was freed and she could go home. During that time on the island, when the Americans invaded, after they took over the island she met my father, who was a medical corpsman in the Navy. He worked in the hospitals there and they found her, or she was given over to the charge of the naval forces there in Okinawa. And luckily, because she was an American citizen and because she spoke English, she was able to be taken out of the hospital to care for the injured, both from the American side and from the enemy side. While there, they were married, my father and my mother. I was born there in December of 1946. Claim to fame: according to what we know, I was the first American citizen to be born in Okinawa – ever. And then, shortly after that in 1947 they returned to Minnesota, where my dad was brought up in Lake City. That’s where we settled and that’s where I was brought up.
MS: Why did your dad bring your mom back to Okinawa after living in Hawaii?
BF: I don’t know. I think because it was typical for the people from the Far East, in this case Okinawa, to come to Hawaii to work. For lack of a better term, earn their fortune. And he was one who came from Okinawa to work in the fields of Hawaii, and I’m not sure if it was the sugarcane fields or the pineapple fields. But he worked under that capacity for a while. Apparently saved enough money to be able to get a track of land and to work the land and he became, what I guess we would call now, a sharecropper of sorts. Grew food, took it in to Honolulu to sell at the farmer’s market. Once he gained his money he was striving to make, I think his goal was always to then go back to Okinawa. And I think that’s why he went back at that time.
MS: How many siblings did your mom have?
BF: She had two older sisters and two older brothers. Am I right here? Let me think now. Iako, Alice, Ted, Harold. Three older sisters. No, two! Iako, Harold, Ted, Alice. I think that’s it.
MS: And no one really knows why her dad chose her, the youngest, to go with him?
BF: No, there were even upon her return to Hawaii, I think, bad feelings. Because I think some of the other siblings, I think mainly the oldest brothers, would have wanted to go back with their father. There had been some concerns as to why she had been chosen. Beyond that, I don’t know why. I really don’t know.
MS: Do you know if she was happy about going back or if she didn’t really want to?
BF: That I don’t know. She didn’t really speak much about the circumstances under which she went there. She even spoke very little about the circumstances while she was there, which brings up a point. She did have one other brother, and that oldest brother actually lived in Okinawa. She lived with him when she got to Okinawa. And I don’t know the history of how he got there, either.
MS: So, was being the first Okinawan-born U.S. citizen in pale-white Minnesota, was that hard at all?
BF: You know, you may think when you consider the circumstances today of how some people don’t get along with others that it would have been difficult. But I don’t remember any difficulty on my part, and mother never spoke of any difficulty on her part, as far as being considered part of the family and part of the community. Everything I saw indicated that there were no issues as far as accepting her as an Okinawan and me as part Okinawan, part English as far as being accepted in the community. I had a really good life in Lake City while I was there.
MS: Did any Okinawan culture show through your mom? Did she cook more traditional foods or did she ever speak in Okinawan around you?
BF: Very little. She would use little phrases, but she was capable of speaking Okinawan and Japanese. And when we would have visitors, especially those from Japan or other places would come to Minnesota to go to college, and we would meet them she was able to converse with them in Japanese. She had no problem doing that. She spoke very little to me in that way and I think probably because she was even taught as a young girl in Hawaii, even though they spoke Okinawan in the family, they were taught English in the schools and it was important they learned English. She always felt it was important to learn English. That was where we always had our conversations. As far as food, fried rice! That’s where I learned to make fried rice was my mother. She would serve that a lot. We didn’t have access to many Chinese ingredients so she didn’t get to cook much oriental food for us there. But when we got away, and I remember that as one of the biggest treats when I was younger, when we would get to a place like Chicago or something like that where there was a Chinese restaurant, that was our favorite place to go.
MS: How would you describe your relationship with your mother?
BF: I would say very close. I suppose probably it would be typical to be closer to your mom than your dad; I was typical in that regard. If I was to confide in anybody, it would be my mother. If I help or got hurt or something I would go to my mother. And I always looked to my mother as being the most hospitable, kindest, of the family. I always looked up to her in that way. If I was ever wanting to please one or the other I think I’d want to please them equally. I think on that basis they were the same. But on terms of saying who was the kindest and the most outgoing, most hospitable, that would be it.
MS: While you played professional baseball when you were younger, did your mom come to those games? Did she enjoy it?
BF: It was difficult for them to come to professional games. I’ll preface it by saying they always backed me, all the way through high school they never missed a game, and even through college at the University of Minnesota, they would even come to the road games when we were with the University of Minnesota. I remember them coming to the University of Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, don’t think they came to Michigan. I think they missed that. But they would go to all the road games, and then when I signed my first year in pro ball, I was in Decatur, Decatur Illinois in the Midwest league. A lot of those teams weren’t too far away, and I remember them coming to the games when I played in Decatur My next year was in Fresno. They came to few games in Fresno, but it was like a vacation time for them. At some point, and I can’t remember the exact year, they moved to California from Minnesota. So, during that time, I know I was playing in Phoenix in AAA ball for three years and part of that time they lived in Los Angeles or La Jolla, one of the two. They moved from La Jolla to Los Angeles. They would come over to Phoenix and see the games. They made as many as they could, especially before I got to pro ball, but after pro ball they came... but, remember. Once you get to professional baseball you’re playing every day, where in college you’re playing a few times a week. So they couldn’t come to nearly as many games, but they made it when they could. They always tried to follow it.
MS: What was your favorite part about playing baseball?
BF: Winning.
MS: Really?
BF: Sure! It’s like any other sport, where, I think, hopefully, the favorite part to anyone who plays any sport is to get better and better and better every day you go out. When you practice, you learn to do something you did good the day before and better the next day. So, I think the most fun was improving and continuing to get better at what you did. And I enjoyed practicing and getting better. You know at some point it’s not going to continue but while it was going, it was great. I guess, secondarily, the treat that I had in baseball was being able to play with some of the most famous names in that era to play the game. I went to spring training with the Giants; my locker was next to Willie Mays’ locker. When I went to St. Louis, on that St. Louis team, these names you probably wouldn’t know, Melanie. My locker partner on the left was Tim McCarver and my locker partner on the right was Joe Torre. Those who are old enough to remember will remember those names real well. I played on the same team as Bob Gibson, Lou Brock. When I was in the Giants’ organization I mentioned Willie Mays, I played with Juan Marichal. During that era I got to play against players like Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Steve Carlton, and Johnny Bench... It was really quite an era. There was a change that took place in baseball once the... I’ll put it this way, the strike. My first year of baseball, we went on strike. That changed it from a way that the players only took care of themselves, there wasn’t any big pension plan, nothing like that. Once that went away, once free agency came into being, once you didn’t belong to the team as much as you did before, it changed a lot. And the era of those players who were with one team all the time like Mickey Mel and Willie Mays, Clemente and those guys. Today, those players would be making so much money they’d be going from one team to the next and they wouldn’t be tied to a team. That all changed. I can look back on that era and say these guys are really important because they were not only good but they were recognized as being part of a team all the time. Those days have gone. Even the greatest player St. Louis had, I can’t think of his name now, just got traded to the Angels. Back in those days that probably would’ve never happened. The best player on your team would go off to another team. It just wouldn’t happen. I think those days are gone. I was really glad to be a part of that era and remember those players for what they were.
MS: Do you still talk with any of the people you played with?
BF: No, I think the last time I talked to a fellow player was a few weeks ago. I heard a player from Minnesota, Mike Davidson, who played for Springfield, who I played against in the State High School League tournament, he signed. He actually went to the big leagues with the Giants. I ended up playing with him in Phoenix. I didn’t hear if he died but I heard he was on his last few days of living not too long ago. So, I gave him a call and talked to him. But there aren’t any I’m in close contact anymore from my major league days, no. You know, you mentioned if I’d had any contact with some of the players. Kind of a cute story, it’s nice for even my family now. When I was President of the Association of the Minnesota Counties, the year I got inducted in as the president, I got to try to help plan the annual conference. One of the features of the annual conference is to have a keynote speaker. Well, in deference to me, they created the conference in such a way as the whole gist of the conference, and the topic and style of the conference was around baseball. We even got warm-up shirts with our names on them to show the executive board people and things like that. So, when asked who I’d like to have for a keynote speaker, I thought about, I was wondering if there was anybody from my past in baseball who might be good. I was just watching TV one day and I thought, “I played with and I know Tony La Russa,” who was at that time the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. This would have been in 2007. So, I went to the internet and I figured out how to get a hold of La Russa down at the Cardinals. Called and got through to him right away. I said, “Tony, you might not remember me perhaps, but I played with you in Wichita, this is Bob Fenwick.” He says, “Oh, Bobby, I remember you!” And he did. So we talked for a little while and I told him my reason for calling was to ask him to be the speaker at our convention. Some nice things: because he’d become famous, his normal speaking rate was like $25,000. We couldn’t pay that. He agreed to come in for half that price. He was very happy to come and speak to our group, looking very much forward to it. It just so happened that after we had talked, they continued the season and actually won the World Series. I was anticipating having Tony La Russa, the manager of the World Series St. Louis Cardinals, being able to come and be our keynote speaker at the convention. A week before the conference, he called me up. II think when he called he got Jennifer on the phone, and he said, “This is Tony La Russa, I’m trying to get a hold of Bob.”I think she had talked to him before. It was kind of cute, remembering speaking to Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. And he said, “My owner, my general manager (who happens to live in Minneapolis, by the way), says I have to attend the first day of the winter meetings, and the first day of winter meetings happens to fall on the same day that I’m scheduled to speak at your conference. I can’t be there.” He really felt bad, and he couldn’t talk his general manager out of letting him out; he wouldn’t do it. We didn’t get Tony La Russa. As it turned out, though, he had called two people. He had called the manager of the Detroit Tigers, and he called Tom Kelley, the manager of the Minnesota Twins. And Kelley said he would do it; he came and spoke.
MS: Is it true that you have a World Series ring?
BF: I don’t. I wish I did. That’d be nice. We, at Houston, had a good team. When I went to Houston, we were picked to win the pennant. We had one of the finest teams in baseball with also, without a doubt, one of the worst managers in baseball. We had a manager named Harry Walker. When we went to spring training and played against the Atlanta Braves, I was standing with a group of guys and Hank Aaron came over to our group, talked to us and was looking at our team, he said, “You guys look like a Rolls Royce that doesn’t have a driver.” That’s what we were. We were a great team with no manager. Our manager got fired in the middle of the year, Harry Walker. This gave me the opportunity to play with one of the worst people in baseball I’ve ever met in my life: Leo Durocher. Another name you wouldn’t know. Became the manager of the Giants. He was a very famous manager, became a very famous player. He was believed to have stolen Willy Mays’ watch, and maybe stole his World Series ring, I don’t know. What a jerk. He was a terrible... not a good person. We ended up losing. We ended up finishing 2nd in our division, but we really had a good team. We had a chance.
MS: Is there anything else you’d like to add about this interview?
BF: About baseball?
MS: About anything.
BF: No, nothing about that. It’s lucky the way I've got to live my life, because it’s nice to do the things you like when you’re young. If you had the chance to do all those things, like I did to be able to play baseball, and then still have to make a living, it doesn’t make making a living seem like such a bad deal. I tell people, “I've lived my life backwards.” I got to spend my young time kind of having fun and then going to work. Whereas most people have to work real hard and then hope they have time to still have fun. I didn’t miss out on anything. Now I just go back and try to get my golf game back to where it was. Like baseball was. I just think I've had a really good life when it comes to that. The best thing to happen is to have a nice family; find a nice wife; end up with, including Luke, six nice sons.
MS: Thank you.
BF: You are welcome.
Bob Fenwick: Well, it was my mother’s fault. My mother, yes, you’re right, she was born in Hawaii and because of her Okinawan heritage and her father being from Okinawa, at some point he wanted to go back to Okinawa. He decided to do that in 1941, just before the war broke out. He also decided to take my mother with him. She was the youngest in the family. We don’t know why he chose her, but it just happened that he did choose her. One day they arrived in Okinawa, shortly after the war broke out, and she was stranded there during the war up until the time of the invasion and the island was freed and she could go home. During that time on the island, when the Americans invaded, after they took over the island she met my father, who was a medical corpsman in the Navy. He worked in the hospitals there and they found her, or she was given over to the charge of the naval forces there in Okinawa. And luckily, because she was an American citizen and because she spoke English, she was able to be taken out of the hospital to care for the injured, both from the American side and from the enemy side. While there, they were married, my father and my mother. I was born there in December of 1946. Claim to fame: according to what we know, I was the first American citizen to be born in Okinawa – ever. And then, shortly after that in 1947 they returned to Minnesota, where my dad was brought up in Lake City. That’s where we settled and that’s where I was brought up.
MS: Why did your dad bring your mom back to Okinawa after living in Hawaii?
BF: I don’t know. I think because it was typical for the people from the Far East, in this case Okinawa, to come to Hawaii to work. For lack of a better term, earn their fortune. And he was one who came from Okinawa to work in the fields of Hawaii, and I’m not sure if it was the sugarcane fields or the pineapple fields. But he worked under that capacity for a while. Apparently saved enough money to be able to get a track of land and to work the land and he became, what I guess we would call now, a sharecropper of sorts. Grew food, took it in to Honolulu to sell at the farmer’s market. Once he gained his money he was striving to make, I think his goal was always to then go back to Okinawa. And I think that’s why he went back at that time.
MS: How many siblings did your mom have?
BF: She had two older sisters and two older brothers. Am I right here? Let me think now. Iako, Alice, Ted, Harold. Three older sisters. No, two! Iako, Harold, Ted, Alice. I think that’s it.
MS: And no one really knows why her dad chose her, the youngest, to go with him?
BF: No, there were even upon her return to Hawaii, I think, bad feelings. Because I think some of the other siblings, I think mainly the oldest brothers, would have wanted to go back with their father. There had been some concerns as to why she had been chosen. Beyond that, I don’t know why. I really don’t know.
MS: Do you know if she was happy about going back or if she didn’t really want to?
BF: That I don’t know. She didn’t really speak much about the circumstances under which she went there. She even spoke very little about the circumstances while she was there, which brings up a point. She did have one other brother, and that oldest brother actually lived in Okinawa. She lived with him when she got to Okinawa. And I don’t know the history of how he got there, either.
MS: So, was being the first Okinawan-born U.S. citizen in pale-white Minnesota, was that hard at all?
BF: You know, you may think when you consider the circumstances today of how some people don’t get along with others that it would have been difficult. But I don’t remember any difficulty on my part, and mother never spoke of any difficulty on her part, as far as being considered part of the family and part of the community. Everything I saw indicated that there were no issues as far as accepting her as an Okinawan and me as part Okinawan, part English as far as being accepted in the community. I had a really good life in Lake City while I was there.
MS: Did any Okinawan culture show through your mom? Did she cook more traditional foods or did she ever speak in Okinawan around you?
BF: Very little. She would use little phrases, but she was capable of speaking Okinawan and Japanese. And when we would have visitors, especially those from Japan or other places would come to Minnesota to go to college, and we would meet them she was able to converse with them in Japanese. She had no problem doing that. She spoke very little to me in that way and I think probably because she was even taught as a young girl in Hawaii, even though they spoke Okinawan in the family, they were taught English in the schools and it was important they learned English. She always felt it was important to learn English. That was where we always had our conversations. As far as food, fried rice! That’s where I learned to make fried rice was my mother. She would serve that a lot. We didn’t have access to many Chinese ingredients so she didn’t get to cook much oriental food for us there. But when we got away, and I remember that as one of the biggest treats when I was younger, when we would get to a place like Chicago or something like that where there was a Chinese restaurant, that was our favorite place to go.
MS: How would you describe your relationship with your mother?
BF: I would say very close. I suppose probably it would be typical to be closer to your mom than your dad; I was typical in that regard. If I was to confide in anybody, it would be my mother. If I help or got hurt or something I would go to my mother. And I always looked to my mother as being the most hospitable, kindest, of the family. I always looked up to her in that way. If I was ever wanting to please one or the other I think I’d want to please them equally. I think on that basis they were the same. But on terms of saying who was the kindest and the most outgoing, most hospitable, that would be it.
MS: While you played professional baseball when you were younger, did your mom come to those games? Did she enjoy it?
BF: It was difficult for them to come to professional games. I’ll preface it by saying they always backed me, all the way through high school they never missed a game, and even through college at the University of Minnesota, they would even come to the road games when we were with the University of Minnesota. I remember them coming to the University of Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, don’t think they came to Michigan. I think they missed that. But they would go to all the road games, and then when I signed my first year in pro ball, I was in Decatur, Decatur Illinois in the Midwest league. A lot of those teams weren’t too far away, and I remember them coming to the games when I played in Decatur My next year was in Fresno. They came to few games in Fresno, but it was like a vacation time for them. At some point, and I can’t remember the exact year, they moved to California from Minnesota. So, during that time, I know I was playing in Phoenix in AAA ball for three years and part of that time they lived in Los Angeles or La Jolla, one of the two. They moved from La Jolla to Los Angeles. They would come over to Phoenix and see the games. They made as many as they could, especially before I got to pro ball, but after pro ball they came... but, remember. Once you get to professional baseball you’re playing every day, where in college you’re playing a few times a week. So they couldn’t come to nearly as many games, but they made it when they could. They always tried to follow it.
MS: What was your favorite part about playing baseball?
BF: Winning.
MS: Really?
BF: Sure! It’s like any other sport, where, I think, hopefully, the favorite part to anyone who plays any sport is to get better and better and better every day you go out. When you practice, you learn to do something you did good the day before and better the next day. So, I think the most fun was improving and continuing to get better at what you did. And I enjoyed practicing and getting better. You know at some point it’s not going to continue but while it was going, it was great. I guess, secondarily, the treat that I had in baseball was being able to play with some of the most famous names in that era to play the game. I went to spring training with the Giants; my locker was next to Willie Mays’ locker. When I went to St. Louis, on that St. Louis team, these names you probably wouldn’t know, Melanie. My locker partner on the left was Tim McCarver and my locker partner on the right was Joe Torre. Those who are old enough to remember will remember those names real well. I played on the same team as Bob Gibson, Lou Brock. When I was in the Giants’ organization I mentioned Willie Mays, I played with Juan Marichal. During that era I got to play against players like Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Steve Carlton, and Johnny Bench... It was really quite an era. There was a change that took place in baseball once the... I’ll put it this way, the strike. My first year of baseball, we went on strike. That changed it from a way that the players only took care of themselves, there wasn’t any big pension plan, nothing like that. Once that went away, once free agency came into being, once you didn’t belong to the team as much as you did before, it changed a lot. And the era of those players who were with one team all the time like Mickey Mel and Willie Mays, Clemente and those guys. Today, those players would be making so much money they’d be going from one team to the next and they wouldn’t be tied to a team. That all changed. I can look back on that era and say these guys are really important because they were not only good but they were recognized as being part of a team all the time. Those days have gone. Even the greatest player St. Louis had, I can’t think of his name now, just got traded to the Angels. Back in those days that probably would’ve never happened. The best player on your team would go off to another team. It just wouldn’t happen. I think those days are gone. I was really glad to be a part of that era and remember those players for what they were.
MS: Do you still talk with any of the people you played with?
BF: No, I think the last time I talked to a fellow player was a few weeks ago. I heard a player from Minnesota, Mike Davidson, who played for Springfield, who I played against in the State High School League tournament, he signed. He actually went to the big leagues with the Giants. I ended up playing with him in Phoenix. I didn’t hear if he died but I heard he was on his last few days of living not too long ago. So, I gave him a call and talked to him. But there aren’t any I’m in close contact anymore from my major league days, no. You know, you mentioned if I’d had any contact with some of the players. Kind of a cute story, it’s nice for even my family now. When I was President of the Association of the Minnesota Counties, the year I got inducted in as the president, I got to try to help plan the annual conference. One of the features of the annual conference is to have a keynote speaker. Well, in deference to me, they created the conference in such a way as the whole gist of the conference, and the topic and style of the conference was around baseball. We even got warm-up shirts with our names on them to show the executive board people and things like that. So, when asked who I’d like to have for a keynote speaker, I thought about, I was wondering if there was anybody from my past in baseball who might be good. I was just watching TV one day and I thought, “I played with and I know Tony La Russa,” who was at that time the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. This would have been in 2007. So, I went to the internet and I figured out how to get a hold of La Russa down at the Cardinals. Called and got through to him right away. I said, “Tony, you might not remember me perhaps, but I played with you in Wichita, this is Bob Fenwick.” He says, “Oh, Bobby, I remember you!” And he did. So we talked for a little while and I told him my reason for calling was to ask him to be the speaker at our convention. Some nice things: because he’d become famous, his normal speaking rate was like $25,000. We couldn’t pay that. He agreed to come in for half that price. He was very happy to come and speak to our group, looking very much forward to it. It just so happened that after we had talked, they continued the season and actually won the World Series. I was anticipating having Tony La Russa, the manager of the World Series St. Louis Cardinals, being able to come and be our keynote speaker at the convention. A week before the conference, he called me up. II think when he called he got Jennifer on the phone, and he said, “This is Tony La Russa, I’m trying to get a hold of Bob.”I think she had talked to him before. It was kind of cute, remembering speaking to Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. And he said, “My owner, my general manager (who happens to live in Minneapolis, by the way), says I have to attend the first day of the winter meetings, and the first day of winter meetings happens to fall on the same day that I’m scheduled to speak at your conference. I can’t be there.” He really felt bad, and he couldn’t talk his general manager out of letting him out; he wouldn’t do it. We didn’t get Tony La Russa. As it turned out, though, he had called two people. He had called the manager of the Detroit Tigers, and he called Tom Kelley, the manager of the Minnesota Twins. And Kelley said he would do it; he came and spoke.
MS: Is it true that you have a World Series ring?
BF: I don’t. I wish I did. That’d be nice. We, at Houston, had a good team. When I went to Houston, we were picked to win the pennant. We had one of the finest teams in baseball with also, without a doubt, one of the worst managers in baseball. We had a manager named Harry Walker. When we went to spring training and played against the Atlanta Braves, I was standing with a group of guys and Hank Aaron came over to our group, talked to us and was looking at our team, he said, “You guys look like a Rolls Royce that doesn’t have a driver.” That’s what we were. We were a great team with no manager. Our manager got fired in the middle of the year, Harry Walker. This gave me the opportunity to play with one of the worst people in baseball I’ve ever met in my life: Leo Durocher. Another name you wouldn’t know. Became the manager of the Giants. He was a very famous manager, became a very famous player. He was believed to have stolen Willy Mays’ watch, and maybe stole his World Series ring, I don’t know. What a jerk. He was a terrible... not a good person. We ended up losing. We ended up finishing 2nd in our division, but we really had a good team. We had a chance.
MS: Is there anything else you’d like to add about this interview?
BF: About baseball?
MS: About anything.
BF: No, nothing about that. It’s lucky the way I've got to live my life, because it’s nice to do the things you like when you’re young. If you had the chance to do all those things, like I did to be able to play baseball, and then still have to make a living, it doesn’t make making a living seem like such a bad deal. I tell people, “I've lived my life backwards.” I got to spend my young time kind of having fun and then going to work. Whereas most people have to work real hard and then hope they have time to still have fun. I didn’t miss out on anything. Now I just go back and try to get my golf game back to where it was. Like baseball was. I just think I've had a really good life when it comes to that. The best thing to happen is to have a nice family; find a nice wife; end up with, including Luke, six nice sons.
MS: Thank you.
BF: You are welcome.