Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0446531928, Hardcover)

In this extraordinary work, bestselling author Bob Whiting examines how Japanese baseball players are impacting and re-inventing America's major leagues. Matsui....Nomo....Sasaki....Ichiro.... the so-called American 'National Pastime' has developed a decidedly Japanese flair. Indeed, in this year'sAll-Star game, two of the starting American League outfielders were from Japan. And for the third straight year, Ichiro-the fleet-footed Seattle Mariner-received more votes for the All-Star game than any other player in the game today. Some 15 years ago, in the bestseller You Gotta Have Wa, Robert Whiting examined how former American major league ballplayers tried to cope with a different culture while playing pro ball in Japan. Now, in THE MEANING OF ICHIRO, Whiting reverses his field and reveals how select Japanese stars have come across the Pacific to play in the big leagues. Not only have these Japanese imports had to deal with the American way of life, but they have individually changed the game in a dramatic fashion. Much more than a baseball book, The Meaning of Ichiro presents the merging of two very distinct cultures-and reveals how this traditional game has become a metaphor for the globalization of two different societies.