Yosh Kawano

Chicago Cubs Clubhouse Manager Yosh Kawano retired in 2008 after an amazing 65 year run with the team. He was so beloved that when the Wrigley family sold the Cubs to the Tribune Company in 1981, the contract stipulated Kawano would always have a job with the team.

Kawano, a Japanese American and his family were held at Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona, during World War II. While interned Kawano wrote a letter to Chicago White Sox manager Jimmy Dykes who had befriended during his spring training stint as bat boy. With the assistance of Dykes’ intervention on his behalf Kawano was released from the internment camp and traveled to Chicago where was hired by the Cubs as a clubhouse assistant in 1943 and 1944 before enlisting in the U.S. Military where he served as an intelligence officer working as a translator in the Philippines and New Guinea. Kawano returned to the Cubs after the war and continued in his role as clubhouse assistant until being appointed clubhouse manager in 1953 after the departure (retirement) of long- time trainer Andy Lotshaw.

Kawano helped the Cubs move spring training operations from Catalina Island to Mesa, Arizona in 1952. He donated his trademark cap to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, after retiring.