Henry Lees "Harry" Kingman (April 3, 1892 – December 27, 1982) was a

first baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. He played briefly for the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

in 1914. In later life, he worked against racial discrimination while working within institutions associated with the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and in retirement.

Early life

Harry Kingman was born in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

to two western

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

.Timmermann, Bob
"Harry Kingman"
''bioproj.sabr.org''. Retrieved 2010-12-27. In 1899, his father became a

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a Minister (Christianity), minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a laity, lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secularity, secular institution (such as a hosp ...

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...

, and Harry eventually attended school there, becoming a star in five sports: baseball, basketball, tennis, track, and swimming. He signed his first major league contract, with the Washington Senators, in June 1914.

Major League Baseball

Before making his major league debut, Kingman was traded to the

. He was originally a first baseman, but manager

Frank Chance Frank Leroy Chance (September 9, 1877 – September 15, 1924) was an American professional baseball player. A first baseman, Chance played in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs (initially named the "Orphans") and New York Yankees from 18 ...

attempted to convert him into a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

. That did not work out and Kingman eventually appeared in only one game in the field and three as a

pinch hitter In baseball, a pinch hitter is a substitute Batting (baseball), batter. Batters can be substituted at any time while the dead ball (baseball), ball is dead (not in active play); the manager (baseball), manager may use any player who has not yet ...

during July and August 1914. He went 0-for-3 at the plate with two

strikeout In baseball or softball, a strikeout (or strike-out) occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means that the batter is out. A strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is deno ...

s and one

walk Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults ov ...

. Kingman was the first major league player to have been born in China. Until 2016, he was the only MLB player to have been born in China.

Austin Brice Austin Robert Brice (born June 19, 1992) is an American professional baseball pitcher in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. He has previously played in MLB for the Miami Marlins, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Red Sox, and Pittsburgh Pirates. He is ...

, who debuted in 2016, was born in

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

in 1992. Kingman was the only Asian-born player from any country to appear in MLB until Japanese pitcher

Masanori Murakami Masanori "Mashi" Murakami (村上雅則, ''Murakami Masanori'', born May 6, 1944) is a retired Japanese baseball player. He is notable for being the first Japanese player to play for a Major League Baseball team. Sent over to the United States ...

pitched for the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...

in 1964. Kingman stood at 6'1" and weighed 165 lbs."Harry Kingman Statistics and History"
''baseball-reference.com''. Retrieved 2010-12-27.

Later life

Kingman left baseball after the season was over and got a job in Stiles Hall (originally the Berkeley YMCA) at the

. From 1921 to 1927, he traveled to China and Japan and worked as a missionary, while also playing and coaching baseball. Kingman married his wife Ruth in Shanghai in 1922 and they had one daughter. He returned to Berkeley in 1927. He helped found the

Berkeley Student Cooperative The Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) (formerly known as University Students' Cooperative Association or the USCA) is a student housing cooperative serving primarily UC Berkeley students, but open to any full-time post-secondary student. The BS ...

in 1933, whose founding antidiscrimination goals included to offer: "low-rent housing to all university students, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin, and thus influence the community to eliminate prejudice and discrimination in housing." For the next 24 years, he worked at Stiles Hall. While its general secretary during World War II, he and his wife "helped dozens of Japanese American students escape internment by relocating them to schools in other parts of the country"."Stiles Hall, Always in Style. From the beginning, Stiles Hall has been a safe haven for students. By Maddy Weinberg"
''berkeley.edu''. Retrieved 2020-12-24. Kingman also coached the university's junior varsity baseball team until his retirement, and maintained an active interest in baseball. After retiring in 1957, Kingman and his wife Ruth moved to Washington D.C. to work as civil rights lobbyists, until they fully retired in 1968. He died in 1982, at the age of 90, in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

References

External links

Guide to the Harry Lees Kingman Papers, 1921-1975
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingman, Harry 1892 births 1982 deaths Major League Baseball first basemen New York Yankees players Major League Baseball players from China Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens baseball players Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens men's basketball players Sportspeople from Tianjin Pomona College alumni