Robert Whiting (1)

What better way to celebrate the Fall Classic than reading a baseball book. Though written two decades ago, Whiting gives us a peak into besuboru, or, Japanese baseball. One would think that the unchanging rules of the game would dictate a commonality, whether played in the United States, Japan, or anywhere else. However, that simplistic view is quickly eradicated when the author helps the reader take into account differences in culture and strategy. In Japan, baseball teams are marketing show more arms of corporations (that is, overseen by business people, not baseball people). Players are subservient to the team, and specifically, to the manager and coaches. They train almost year round, believing that the harder and longer one trains, the better player a person can become. Furthermore, Japanese baseball strategy is dictated on small ball, precision, and saving face, dragging games to four hours or longer, with the possibility of games ending in a tie. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is reading about the challenges in acculturation of imported (gaijin) players, mostly former MLB castaways. While Japanese besuboro can be defined by its spirit it ultimately lacks the soul so evident in baseball played in the West. show less

Surprisingly, considering all of my interest in Japan and in baseball, this is the first book on Japanese baseball that I've read. Like most good sports books, it's a pretty fast read, although unlike most baseball books, there's not really a central sports narrative. Instead, it's about what the sport is like in Japan, and how the players are treated, both native and foreign.

The answer seems to be, bad and worse. The culture is very punitive on the native Japanese players, with non-stop show more training and incredibly strict codes of behavior. Arguably, it's worse than most of the society in general, I'd say, although Whiting basically wants to make out Japanese baseball to be an extension of the society itself. Certainly, there's something to that - the chapters on the Koshien tournament and the Yomiuri Giants make the case pretty cleanly. The things you wouldn't be allowed to do in your company, like take leave to go to a parent's deathbed, or the general moral codes (always defer to the older and wiser ones, don't complain about pain, etc.) are here, too.

For the foreigners, there's the feeling of not really being wanted, of only grudgingly being part of the team, and of having to take all of the blame for things going wrong even when you did a good job. There's the additional part, too, of not wanting the foreigner to be too successful, and so they have to deal with widened strike zones, constant walking when they've been hitting well, etc.

Of course, it's not like any of this is news for people who deal with Japan, although I really wonder how much of what he describes still holds. For example, he talks about the travails of the foreign manager in Japan, but with Bobby Valentine and Trey Hillman having won championships now, it's hard to see. The loyalty to the team must have weakened, with more Japanese stars coming to the US. Other changes likely have occurred, as well; I'll look to his other work for that.

Anyway, it's a good read, and a nice intro to Japanese baseball; I look forward to reading some of his more recent work, to get a feel for what's going on these days. show less

I love baseball books, and I rather enjoyed Whiting's previous book on Japanese baseball, You Gotta Have Wa. This newer book of his, however, turned out to be rather disappointing. The quality of the stories is still all right, but the rest of it... sigh.

To be positive first, the book purports to take a look at the players that have left Japan and come to play in Major League Baseball: their stories, their impact here, and their impact on the sport and culture back in Japan. Whiting does a show more good job with the first two with several players (Murakami, Nomo, Ichiro, Hideki Matsui), but the latter was pretty hit-or-miss. The chapter on Murakami and how his playing in the 60s changed the relations between the US and Japan on baseball was good, and Nomo was the same, but the others were just hitting the "fans in Japan followed them religiously" notes. I also liked the chapter on Bobby Valentine and his first stint in Japan; Whiting got across the cultural clash quite well.

The style was all right, too, although I didn't like it as much as the first book, and thematically, it just wasn't as pointed. In the first book, everything got strung together well, but here, the stories didn't seem to all go in the same direction. So that didn't sell it for me.

But the worst part of this was the editing. This was, I think, the worst-edited professional book I've ever read. There are typoes galore, and while I can understand some of them if the person they had doing the editing didn't speak Japanese (so newamashi instead of nemawashi, and spelling some Japanese names wrong), I don't get how they missed doubling of articles, misspelling English names (Alex Rodriquez, anyone?), duplications of text (talking about Valentine, Whiting quotes someone with: "'He was something,' he said in amazement, 'he really opened his heart to Japan,' he said in amazement"), and just getting words wrong (abitration?). Just terrible, and these are just some random examples. There's a lot more where these came from. It was incredibly frustrating, and detracted from the reading experience greatly.

Anyway, if you're interested in Japanese baseball, go with Whiting's first book, and give this one a pass. Even if the mistakes don't bother you, it's not really worth it. show less

A classic. Read on the recommendation of a colleague who was assigned it when he was at the East-West Institute. I don't know how much sense it would make otherwise, but reading it while living and working in Tokyo ... it explained everything.