A new exhibit opens later this month in Tempe to shed light on Japanese American incarceration and a link to baseball.

“Rebuilding Home Plate - Baseball in Arizona’s Japanese American Incarceration Camps” opens 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 26, at the Arizona Heritage Center, 1300 N. College Ave., Tempe.

The exhibit tells the stories of Japanese Americans who were stripped of their constitutional rights during World War II and how baseball was a way to escape their imprisonment.

In the early 1900s, Japanese American baseball was an attraction across Hawaii and the West Coast among first-generation Japanese Americans and their children, according to a release announcing the Tempe exhibit.

But after Executive Order 9066, Americans of Japanese descent were forced into 10 incarceration camps across the U.S., two of which were in Arizona - Gila River and Poston.

“Baseball became a way for some to rebuild their homes in the Arizona desert,” the release stated.

Among the items on display are the hand-carved home plate made by the “Father of Japanese American Baseball” Kenichi Zenimura used at the Gila River incarceration camp, the 1943 Butte Camp Tournament Champions banner, the 1921 State Championship Trophy of the Japanese American Fresno Athletic Club, the 2003 MLB All-Star bat used by Ichiro Suzuki and Yosh Kawano’s signed bucket hat.

The exhibit is presented in partnership with the Nisei Baseball Research Project and the Arizona Baseball Legacy and Experience.

The Arizona Heritage Center is open 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

For tickets and more: https://arizonahistoricalsociety.org/