Cover art for the "American Pastime" DVD.

FRESNO — In partnership with ESPN Inc., the Nisei Baseball Research Project (NBRP) has announced that ESPN Classic Films will debut the award-winning film “American Pastime” on Friday, Sept. 26, at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

Released by Warner Brothers Films in 2007, “American Pastime” is a story about the dramatic impact World Wa II had on the home front as Japanese American families were uprooted from their everyday lives and placed into internment camps in the early 1940s.

Faced with a country that now doubted their loyalty and struggling with their new situation, they turn to baseball as a way to handle their plight and find the strength to stand up for themselves. The game becomes a symbol of honor and pride.

The movie was written and directed by Desmond Nokano (“White Man’s Burden”) and the cast includes such notables as Gary Cole (“Talledega Nights,” “Dodgeball”), Aaron Yoo (“Disturbia,” “The Wackness”), Masatoshi Nakamura and Judie Ongg (renowned actors/singers in Japan), and Jon Gries (“Naploeon Dynamite”). Also making a cameo appearance is John Kruk, former major-leaguer and host of ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight.”

NBRP founder Kerry Yo Nakagawa served as associate producer of the film and also played a ballplayer on the internment camp baseball team with his son, Kale.

Despite the serious subject matter of wartime incarceration, fans and critics have described “American Pastime” as “funny, sad, and even romantic” and ultimately as “life-affirming, spiritually uplifting and entertaining.”

The film is also used by history and social studies teachers in classrooms across the nation. A teacher’s guide for ‘American Pastime’ is now being implemented with many school districts becoming educated on Japanese American internment through the prism of baseball. While everyone is encouraged to learn about this important chapter in U.S. history, the film will be of special interest to those in the states where the 10 main internment camps were housed — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. This year marks the 65th anniversary of the first baseball games played behind barbed wire.

The main character of the film, Kaz Nomura, is loosely based on the real-life Kenichi Zenimura, a Japanese American baseball pioneer who competed on the same diamonds with Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Biz Mackey and Andy Cooper of the Negro Leagues during the 1920s and ’30s.

As an international baseball ambassador during this same period, Zenimura was also instrumental in exporting the American pastime to Japan. The fruits of his efforts are now reflected in the major-league presence of Japanese players like Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners, Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Red Sox, and Kosuke Fukudome of the Cubs.

For more information about ESPN Classic Films, visit www.espn.com. For more information about Japanese American baseball history, visit www.niseibaseball.com or e-mail nbrp@comcast.net.