Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu is the first Asian-American to manage a major league baseball team. His paternal grandparents, residents of Hood River, Oregon suffered through internment along with 100,000 other Japanese Americans during World War II. They never discussed that time with Wakamatsu until he pressed his grandmother, now 91, about it two years ago. Don’s father was born in the Tule Lake internment camp in California and it was his father’s receipt of a reparations check that clued Don in to the unspoken family history. Two of the walls in his grandparents’ house are built with lumber from their internment camp’s barracks. Wakamatsu’s parents (his mother is of Irish descent) plan to escort the senior Wakamatsu couple to see their grandson’s first home game at Safeco field on April 14th.