In 1919, Japanese migrants in Sydney gifted a silver cup to the New South Wales Baseball Association.

The cup was “in appreciation of the friendship and good feeling accorded to the Nippon (Baseball) Club since it joined the association”.

The Nippon Baseball Club was a team of Japanese migrants who played in the NSW Baseball Association from 1917-1919.

My new research published late in 2025 reveals how sport helped them overcome prejudice and discrimination.

Previous Australian research on sport’s ability to foster inclusion has typically focused on migration after the second world war.

It has also emphasised the experiences of European migrants playing sports such as soccer.

The forgotten history of the Nippon Baseball Club provides a much earlier example of integration during a hostile era.

By 1917, Australia’s discriminatory White Australia policy was in its second decade.

The federal government passed the Immigration Restriction Act (later nicknamed the White Australia policy) in 1901, mainly over concerns about Japanese and Chinese migration to Australia in the 1800s,........

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