Yonamine’s orders, approved by the then Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, were simple: Go to Japan and play baseball, a celebrated national sport. With no formal command of the language or the intricacies of the culture, he dove in.

He made his professional debut in Japan in 1951, having earned himself a spot with the Yomiuri Giants. He had to adjust to a number of new factors: the food the team ate, how they traveled, the etiquette of practice, how to communicate with the manager, the hierarchy. All of it required time, and more importantly, a humble soul. Yonamine had to prove that as a teammate he could accept these traditions and rituals with an open mind.

To his credit, he adapted to team culture without trying to change it. He honored it, followed its rules, and endured hazing, which over time, led to him gaining his team’s acceptance, and ultimately something even more valuable: its respect. Once he gained the latitude to have more of a voice on the field, he played with reckless abandon, employing an aggressive style on the bases.

Robert Fitts, the author of the biography Wally Yonamine, The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball, explains Yonamine’s influence on the field. “Before he came,” Fitts says, “they played a passive brand of ball. The Japanese were shocked the first time Yonamine took out the pivot man on a double play, but soon his teammates, and then their opponents, began to imitate him.”

As Yonamine rose in the ranks, he never took his excellence for granted. On days off, instead of taking a well-earned break, he would work out with the minor-league team, often bringing his family along. If he didn’t get the results that he was looking for in the game, he would lean into a pitch from time to time to get hit intentionally just so he could get on base.

It wasn’t long before he’d earned the trust to mentor younger players, which sparked his passion for coaching and teaching the next generation. The legendary homerun hitter, Sadaharu Oh, got his big break after Yonamine was already established as a veteran player. Oh was a good young hitter who didn’t have a strong defensive position. Yonamine, as his teammate on the Yomiuri Giants, saw that Oh’s best position was the same as his, first base, so he suggested to the coaches that he play the outfield to help get Oh’s bat in the lineup. Oh would go on to hit a world record 868 home runs, and win nine championships, five batting titles, and two triple crowns.

Yonamine retained the longest consecutive tenure of anyone in the history of Japanese baseball. His life in Japan spanned 38 years between playing, coaching, and managing. During that time, he won eight pennants, three batting titles, and an MVP award in 1957. A lifetime .311 hitter, he was inducted into the Japanese Hall of Fame in 1994, the first American to achieve that honor.