The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 4 | Issue 9 | Article ID 2235 | Sep 04, 2006

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The Samurai Way of Baseball and the National CharacterDebate

Robert Whiting

The Samurai Way of Baseball and theNational Character Debate

By Robert Whiting

Introduction by Jeff Kingston

In this essay Robert Whiting does what he hasdone in best-selling books such as You GottaHave Wa and The Chrysanthemum and theBat—use baseball as a window on Japanesesociety. He draws on his experience of living inJapan for some four decades, and on thirty-fiveyears of reporting on Japanese baseball for theJapanese press. In his work he has suggestedthat there are some distinctive traits andcharacteristics that Japanese ballplayersexhibit in their approach to the game. He hasreferred to this approach as “samuraibaseball”—a term meant to convey succinctlyand evocatively the discipline, devotion andsacrifice that can be seen on diamonds all overJapan, from school playgrounds up through theprofessional leagues. In Whiting’s view, onecan understand aspects of national character inthe way Japanese practice and play baseball.The frenzied year-round media coverage andthe organized fan groups reflect an obsessionwith the game that peaks during high schoolbaseball tournaments. In Japan, baseball ismuch more than a game.

Over the years, Whiting’s views on baseball andnational character have drawn sustainedcriticism from William Kelly, an anthropologistat Yale University. Kelly finds “samuraibaseball” an inadequate and misleading term,one that dresses up in the regalia of traditionwhat is essentially a set of traits that aremodern in origin and function. The debatebetween these two keen observers of Japanesebaseball speaks to the larger debate withinJapanese studies about the issue of nationalcharacter. Is it possible to discern a set of traits

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that can usefully be said to constitute anational character? If so, what is that characterand how is it evinced? How does this nationalcharacter debate relate to that concerninginvented traditions? How do traditions,invented or selected, shape and permeate themodern? Does baseball suggest somethingabout national identity? Is “samurai baseball”akin to “samba football” in relation to Brazilian-style soccer—a useful shorthand that succinctlyevokes certain attributes that a general readingpublic can understand? What kind of embeddedmeanings might lurk within such terms?

On the eve of the 2006 World Cup, hosted byGermany in June, hopes ran high for theJapanese national team, which interestinglyenough was called Samurai Blue. The mediamade a major event of baseball legendSadaharu Oh signing the team banner justbelow the name.

This essay draws on a speech delivered aconference hosted by Michigan StateUniversity in April 2006, which was alsoattended by Kelly. In a cover letter thataccompanied this essay, Whiting explained thathis views have been misrepresented and that,in essence, he has served as a “straw man” inKelly’s writing on Japanese baseball. Here the“straw man” responds. He writes, “WilliamKelly has attacked me in a long succession ofarticles on Japanese baseball in scholarlyjournals and other publications going back tothe mid-90s; he even introduced the term ‘theWhiting Problem’ in one of them. Not one of theeditors overseeing Professor Kelly’s work hasever asked me if I would like to respond. So I’mturning to Japan Focus for a chance to state mycase and correct Kelly’s misrepresentations.Moreover, as it happens, Professor Kelly’s workalso suffers from factual errors, seriousmisinterpretations and insufficient research.Since these shortcomings went unnoticed bythe editors of the aforementioned journals, Iwould like an opportunity to correct the recordon this score as well, lest these [Kelly’s]

writings be taken as gospel by students of thegame.”

The success of players like Ichiro Suzuki andHideki Matsui in the United States has onceagain demonstrated the power of sport incrossing national borders. With their stirringperformances on America’s baseball diamonds,these imported players have helped to createvast new markets for Major League baseball inJapan, while teaching Americans that there is anew and very different way to approach theirown national pastime. More importantly, theaccomplishments of these athletes have servedto influence the way many Americans andJapanese look at each other, and raised anewquestions about the role of culture in sport.

Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki

Not so very long ago, there were executives inthe highest echelons of American baseball whowere still talking privately, in not very niceterms, about keeping those Japanese in theirplace. [1] But that attitude has seeminglychanged in the wake of the impressiveachievements of recent imports. SeattleMar iner Ich i ro has put together anunprecedented string of 200-hit seasons,breaking George Sisler’s 84-year-old single-

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season-hits record, while spurring an influx oftourists from Japan that has brought millions ofdollars into the Northwest area economy.Matsui has become a popular, reliable fixture inthe New York Yankees outfield, while TadahitoIguchi played such an important role on the2005 World Champion Chicago White Soxsquad that his manager Ozzie Guillen calledhim the real MVP of the team. The subsequentemergence of an enormous new market forMariner, Yankee and White Sox telecasts inJapan has also helped. At the end of the 2003season, Major League Baseball (MLB) signed arecord $275-million TV contract with the giantJapanese advertising firm Dentsu, and thensent the Yankees and the Tampa Devil Rays toplay an opening-day game in Tokyo in 2004.Moreover, the MLB and the Major LeagueBaseball Players Association (MLBPA)enthusiastically promoted the establishment ofthe World Basebal l Classic (WBC), aquadrennial tournament that debuted in March2006, featuring national teams from 16countries—with American organizers going toextraordinary lengths to coax an initiallyreluctant Japan to join in. All in all, thatrepresents quite a transformation.

The Japanese team after winning WBC 2006

The Asahi Shimbun summed up the impact of

these events in Japan by editorializing,“Japanese were once seen in the US as a‘faceless’ people obsessed with exporting carsand consumer electronics. The excellent play ofthe Japanese baseball players and their positivepersonalities have changed the American imageof the Japanese.” [2] Team WBC certainlyhelped solidify that new image.

Finally, it might be said that the Ichiroexperience seems to have helped usher in anew era of acceptance of Americans in Japan. Ican’t count the number of t imes thatpeople—from ordinary fans to members of thejournalistic profession—have expressed theirsurprise to me that during Ichiro’s ultimatelysuccessful quest to break Sisler’s single-season-hits record, the Japanese star received almostuniformly positive treatment by American fansand media. This was puzzling to them becauseit was in marked contrast to what Americansluggers have experienced when chasingJapanese titles or attempting to break Japaneserecords.

For example, in 1965, Daryl Spencer waswalked eight times in a row—once with his batheld upside down—when he threatened tobecome the first American to win a home runtitle in postwar Japan. Said pitcher MasaakiKoyama, who walked Spencer four times on 16consecutive pitches, “Why should we let aforeigner take the title?” [3] Randy Bass, a big,bearded, popular Oklahoman, threatened ex-Giants star Sadaharu Oh’s single-season recordof 54 home runs going into the last day of theseason. But facing the Giants, then managed byOh, at Tokyo’s Korakuen Stadium, Bass too waswalked intentionally in four out of five plateappearances, reaching base only when he stuckhis bat out at an outside pitch for a fluke singleto the outfield. Tuffy Rhodes received similartreatment in 2001. Playing for the KintetsuBuffaloes, he was walked repeatedly in a late-season game against the Hawks of Fukuoka,also then managed by Oh. Said Hawks batterycoach Yoshiaru Wakana, “It would be

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distasteful to see a foreign player break Oh’srecord.” [4]

These incidents were indicative of a strain ofanti-Americanism that existed in Japan in thepostwar era. It has been one of the definingcharacteristics of the Japanese game since theearly 1960s, when former Major Leagueplayers began arriving on the scene in sizablenumbers, with hefty salaries and equally heftyegos.

There was ambivalence about Americanmanagers in Japan, as well. Wally Yonamine,Joe Lutz and Don Blasingame, among a handfulof others, managed in Japan but there was acertain amount of skepticism, because, amongother things, their American-style philosophieson training and discipline were too moderatefor most Japanese, accustomed as they were toa strict blood-and-guts approach to baseball.Blasingame’s departure in mid-season of 1980,after a policy dispute with the front office,prompted his Japanese replacement FutoshiNakanishi to comment that Blasingame simplycould not understand the Japanese way ofth ink ing , whi le the Centra l Leaguecommissioner remarked, “Foreign managersare simply not suitable for Japan.” [5]

However, it is worth noting that by the end of2005, with Japan basking in the glow ofinternational goodwill inspired by America’slove of Ichiro, there were suddenly no less thanthree American managers in NipponProfessional Baseball (NPB), an unprecedentedembarrassment of gaijin influence. Themanagers were led by Bobby Valentine, whobecame the first American to win a JapanChampionship when his Chiba Lotte Marinesswept the Hanshin Tigers in four straightgames, after defeating the Softbank FukuokaHawks in a five-game playoff. Valentine did thiswith a modified American-style approach and itcame, incidentally, a decade after he was firedby the same team after only a year on the job,and despite a strong second-place finish,

because of “philosophical differences.”

Bobby Valentine

Valentine emphasized proper rest and short,snappy practices, focusing on individualinstruction as opposed to the traditional way ofgroup-based, rote learning. He also eschewedthe kind of negativity seen in many Japaneseclubs where praise is rare, harassmentcommon, physical abuse not unheard-of, post-game hanseikai (self-reflection conferences) adaily occurrence, and special morning practice,along with banishment to the bench or the farmteam, a frequent result of bad play.

At the end of the year, Valentine’s methodswere being enthusiastically applauded in somecircles. He was the only foreigner listed in asurvey concerning the ideal boss, conducted by

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Macro Mill research company. A newspapereditorial by the president of Nippon Metalcalled on Japanese firms to curb their traditionof harsh management and overwork and begintreating employees the same way Valentinedoes. [6]

However, Valentine’s ways did not win him anyfriends among Japanese traditionalists. In thesummer of 2005, the Shukan Asahi publishedan article accusing Lotte players of drug use.There was no hard evidence, but in the piece,former Lotte executive Tatsuro Hirooka—theman who had once fired Valentine—was quotedas saying, “The players on Lotte are no good.They don’t practice hard. So the reason theyare winning must be drugs.” [7]

When spring training started in 2006, theforeign-managed teams practiced from 10 a.m.to 1:30 p.m., as MLB teams are wont to do,after which the players were left to their owndevices, which often meant hanging around forindividual instruction or simply going home. Bycontrast, the teams run by Japanese managerspracticed as a group until 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., orlonger, as NPB teams traditionally do, focusingon the finer points of team play: relay drills,sign plays, the push bunt and so forth.Venerable Katsuya Nomura, age 70, newmanager of the Rakuten Golden Eagles, madehis charges swing the bat a tiring 1,000 times aday in practice and forced his pitchers to throwas many as an arm-numbing 300 pitches in onego. Legendary slugger Sadaharu Oh, managerof the Softbank Hawks, was just as tough(except for the hair policy), and his veteranstars went even further on their own: hisslugging first baseman Nobuhiko Matsunakastarted his day lifting weights at 9 a.m. andfinished up at 6 p.m., after a solid hour ofswinging the bat. Also, during the season, mostJapanese-managed teams practiced more, withlengthier pregame workouts, longer pregamem e e t i n g s a n d t r a v e l o n p r a c t i c edays—something not done in the MLB.

Meanwhile, across the sea, hardworking Ichiro,famous for his lengthy camp and pregameworkouts, had taken his Seattle teammates totask for their overall lack of preparation andcommitment, and was trying to get his managerto adopt more Japanese-style methods.

Indeed, the smooth, much-praised performanceof Team Japan in WBC 2006, an event that waswidely watched in Japan, caused manyJapanese baseball experts to conclude thatafter all, their way was best. The manager ofTeam Japan was none other than theaforementioned Oh, a man whose name wassynonymous with backbreaking workoutsduring a storied career in which he hit 868home runs.

Sadaharu Oh at WBC 2006

Samurai Baseball

The brand of baseball Japanese play starts asearly as Little League, with games and practice11 months a year. Ichiro began daily workoutswith his father at age 7. In high school, he livedin a team dormitory and underwent a round-the-clock regimen that included corporalpunishment; it was three years of work that hecalled the “hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Hispro camps with the Orix Blue Wave in Japanresembled basic training for the Marines.

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Today, he still works harder than anyone elseon the Seattle Mariners team. He is the firstone at the park, arriving at 1:30, andundergoes a demanding pregame workoutroutine of tee batting, stretching, running andthrowing that has his teammates in awe.

The system in Japan dates back to the 19th

century and has been called samurai besuboruby many participants. Some critics object tothis appellation as too simplistic and scoff thatplayers of today bear as much resemblance tothe warriors of the past as the Marlboro mandoes to the original cowboy. But that is a falsecomparison, for it ignores the very realsimilarities and the grounding that the gamehas in budo or bugei, the martial arts of old,and its relationship to bushido with its lessonsabout dedication, self-perfection, submergenceof ego and development of inner strength.These are lessons that apply to life as well assports and have been passed down fromgeneration to generation by fathers, teachers,coaches and, in adulthood, corporate bosses,right to the present day.

Baseball was introduced early in the Meiji eraby American professors and became popularwhen the First Higher School of Tokyo, an eliteprep school for students aged 18–22, defeateda team of Americans from the YokohamaCountry and Athletic Club in a series of gamesin 1896, which received wide press coverageand turned the players into nationwide heroes.Ichiko, as the school team was known, wasmanaged by a 26-year-old named KanaeChuman, a former player, who believed that histeam should ignore the American way ofplaying and devise a system that suitedJapanese. This involved a year-round, oftenbloodstained training regimen, and two tothree months of practice before a team playedits first game. It centered around the martialarts idea that training, as demonstrated byfamed judo teacher Jigoro Kano [8] yearsearlier, should be an ordeal the player mustendure to strengthen him mentally as well as

physically. Chuman’s star player Jitsuzo Aoiwas known for a 1,000-swing drill performed atnight in the team dormitory. It evokedassociations with, among others, famed 17th-century swordsman Musashi Miyamoto, who, inhis classic work, The Book of the Five Rings,preached the Way of the Martial Arts,exhorting devotees to “put into practicemorning and evening, day in and day out.”“Surpass today what you were yesterday,” hewrote. “See to it that you temper yourself withone thousand days of practice and refineyourself with ten thousand days of training.”This approach was also evocative of the Ittoand Yagyu schools of swordsmanship datingback more than 500 years.

A commemorative work published by theAlumni Association of Ichiko in 1903 carriedthis introduction by an Ichiko alumnus, whichclearly stated what the baseball players weredoing: “Sports came from the West. In Ichikobaseball, we were playing sports, but we werealso putting the spirit of Japan into it . . . Yakyu(i.e., baseball, “field ball”) is a way to expressthe samurai spirit. To play baseball is todevelop this spirit. Thus our members were justlike the warriors of old with their samuraispirit.” [9]

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Record of game between Ichiko and theYokohama Amateur Foreigners Club,circa 1896. The final score is 32 to 9.

In the early part of the 20th century, Waseda’sSuishu Tobita, the most influential collegebaseball manager in the history of Japan,copied the Ichiko system, which he called“bushido baseball,” and which he declared was“the only true form of the game.” He invokedconcepts of loyalty, courage and honor andexhorted his players to “practice until you die,”or at least until they had “collapsed on theground and froth was coming out of theirmouths.” [10] Waseda graduate and Tobitaacolyte Sadayoshi Fujimoto, who becamemanager of the Tokyo Giants when professionalbaseball was established in 1936, led his teamthrough a camp solely designed to hone theplayers’ fighting spirit, not their baseball skills.It was so hard that it was nicknamed “vomitcamp.” It made what the New York Yankeeswent through seem like a spring vacation.Wrote one Giants historian, “It was from themud and sweat of this training that the soul ofGiants was born.” Practice at the HanshinTigers camp in Osaka was similarly intense,and featured participants walking barefoot onthe upturned edge of a long samurai sword, inan exhibition of mental control. [11]

With some exceptions, subsequent managers inthe professional as well as the amateur rankshave followed this system, or variationsthereof, as they attempt to catch and surpassthe standard of play set by Major Leaguebaseball. Tetsuharu Kawakami, the mostfamous postwar manager in the pros, and oneof the strictest, played for the aforementionedFujimoto. Like Tobita and many others, hethought the study of Zen an important tool fortraining his players. Kawakami star playersTatsuro Hirooka, Shigeo Nagashima andSadaharu Oh all went on to become successfulmanagers. They were famous for their own“hell camps” and their respect for bushido.Hirooka and Oh pract iced Zen whi le

Nagashima favored spiritual retreats to themountains to hone mental strength.

This history is the reason that pre-season procamps in Japan today are twice as long andtwice as tough as their major leaguecounterparts. It is also why some Japanese proteams hold intense “autumn camps,” somethingMajor Leaguers do not do. These harsh camps,like the kangeiko in judo, are a character-building ordeal to be endured, with 1,000-fungod r i l l s , m a r a t h o n r u n s a n d o t h e rsadomasochistic methods of honing spirit andmental strength. The Yomiuri Giants farm teamstarted off the first day of autumn camp inOctober 2005 with 10 hours of practice.

There have, of course, been exceptions to therule, like the freewheeling, nightlife-lovingNishitetsu Lions of the early ‘60s, whomanaged to win while having fun.But theIchiko-Tobita system, and variations thereof,remained the most popular because it was themost successful and the most in-tune,ostensibly, with Japanese sensibilities. In 2004,a team of Fuji-Sankei reporters conducted aninformal analysis of all pro managers since1936 (there were 105 at the time) and came tothe conclusion that some 90% of them werebelievers in, or followers of, seishin yakyu (or“spirit baseball”), as the system was alsocalled. [12] Managers and coaches, theyconcluded, were simply continuing thedemanding routines they had been subjected tofrom high school on up.

There are other reasons critics dislike thesamurai/martial arts metaphor applied tobaseball. They point to the fact that theprofessional leagues allow ties, instead ofbattling to the end, and ask where the samurai-like loyalty is in players who change teams.They charge that the artificiality of conjured-upimages of bat-swinging samurais wil ljeopardize our understanding of Japan—acomplex, densely populated country with a longhistory—perpetuate the stereotype of

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groupthink fascist collective baseball, andcause a “flattening of heterogeneity in favor ofneat and unequivocal contrasts andBenedictian oppositional dyads,” to use some ofthe academic lingo that seems to be in vogue.But these arguments seem to me to be besidethe point. And nitpicking. Ball players in Japandon’t wear kimonos or top knots either. Theydon’t carry swords. They don’t commit harakiri(although more than a few young players havebeen driven to mental hospitals by the demandsof their coaches, and some have even died fromthe shock of the experience). And unlike thewarriors of old, they don’t sleep with childrenin their free time—or at least I don’t think theydo. Not openly.

The metaphor may not be perfect, butmetaphor means resemblance, and so we mustconsider the ways in which it does fit—whichmeans portraying the concepts of constanttraining, perfectionism and development ofspirit to overcome physical limitations. To thiswriter, these characteristics represent theprimary virtues of the samurai and the reasonswhy Japanese players are better conditionedthan their American (North, Central and South)counterpar t s and are be t te r a t thefundamentals of the game. They are seen in theyear-round training system, which shows nosigns of abatement. It is not too much to saythat baseball practice of 2006 in Japan isfundamentally not all that different frombaseball practice of 1896 in tone and evencontent. It’s been part of the secondary schoolcurriculum for that long (and part of the prossince 1936). By and large the system hasremained because it works. The team thatbleeds most, generally speaking, wins, thosemanaged by Valentine and a few others aside.Indeed, players today may take as many as athousand swings a day in camp and require twoto three months to get ready for the reason,just l ike their ancestors did a centuryago—citing samurai influence.

Moreover, demonstrations of loyalty, another

samurai virtue, and the importance placed onhuman relations are seen—again and again andagain—not only in high school and college butin the pros, as well. Recently deceased MotoshiFujita, who played and managed for theYomiuri Giants in a long career, first joined theteam in the 1950s solely because his collegesenpai Shigeru Mizuhara assumed themanagerial helm and “ordered” him to sign upwith the club. Fujita pitched so often and withso little rest that he not infrequently collapsedin his genkan from exhaustion. But he nevercomplained, even though a subsequent sorearm forced him into early retirement. [13] Starpitcher Hideo Nomo rebelled against the pitch-until-your-arm-falls-off philosophy of hisJapanese manager Keiishi Suzuki, and defectedto the US (incurring lasting enmity in theprocess), but Ichiro, who could have followedthe same path, delayed his departure to theMajor Leagues out of fealty to his manager,Akira Ogi of the Orix Blue Wave. Certainly theactions of those pitchers who refused to throwstrikes to Bass, Rhodes and Cabrera reflected acertain kind of fealty to the boss.

Further evidence of the difference between theUS and Japan in this regard lies in the fact thatthe Japanese players union is far morecompliant than its aggressive US counterpart,and the movement of free agents from oneteam to another, though gradually increasing,is a fraction of what it is in the US. Unlike itsAmerican counterpart, the MLBPA, the NPBPArefused to strike for many years because itwould be “unfair to the fans and the owners,”as union head Kiyoshi Nakahata put it back in1986. Only strong public opposition to amerger of two teams in 2004 finally convincedthe union to stage a first-ever walkout inSeptember of that year—“in support of thefans” as NPBPA press releases put it. Eventhen, i t lasted but two days and wasaccompanied by tearful public apologies, freeautograph sessions and complimentary baseballclinics for kids over that historic weekend, byway of compensation. American MLB

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representatives who observed the scene couldonly smile in bemusement, and perhaps envy.

Whether players see themselves as samurai isbeside the point (although some players, likeNorihiro Nakamura of Orix, have the ideographfor samurai proudly written on their gloves);the historical connection is clearly there andthe term an appropriate shorthand for a way ofapproaching a game that is significantlydifferent from the way it’s played and practicedin America.

National Character

If bushido is a metaphor for baseball, howeverimperfect, then baseball is similarly a metaphorfor Japanese society. Look hard at Japanesebaseball and you can see the corporateconcepts of unpaid overtime, karoshi (deathfrom overwork), and group wa or harmonyachieved through daily meetings. As CarolGluck has pointed out, the code of bushido wasseen in some quarters as the ethical model forrural 19th-century Japan, where hard work,cooperation and obedience to the villageheadman were paramount. [14] Donald Rhodenhas written that baseball in 1896 “nourishedthe traditional virtues of loyalty, honor andcourage symbolized in the ‘new bushido’ spiritof the age” and further “nourished those valuescelebrated in rural Japan and the civic rituals ofstate: order, harmony, perseverance andrestraint.“ [15] Such values were reflected inthe Imperial Rescripts on Education and afterthat in the big corporations and smallbusinesses of modern Japan, as well as in thegovernment bureaucracies and even the yakuzaunderworld. Moreover, Eiko Ikegami, in herseminal books The Taming of the Samurai andBonds of Civility, contributed significantly toour understanding about the lingeringinfluence of the samurai ethos in modernJapan—which, incidentally, was seen asrecently as March 2006, when Kozo Watanabe,chairman of the Democratic Party of Japan’sDiet Affairs committee, cal led on his

subordinate Hisayasu Nagata, who wasembroiled in controversy over falsely accusingthe Secretary-General of the LDP of accepting abribe, to “act like a samurai and resign.”Watanabe recalled the story of the Byakkotai(White Tiger Squad); after losing a battleagainst the government in 1868, this band ofsamurai loyal to their feudal lord killedthemselves. [16]

Hisayasu Nagata

If there is one thing that baseball players,businessmen, bureaucrats, bartenders,beauticians, and boryokudan of the modern agehave in common, it is that they come from aprimary and secondary school system thatemphasizes uniformity, submergence of self-interest to that of the group, and gambaruseishin (all-out spirit, making the great effort,gutting it out). The thought processes behind“study until your eyes bleed,” “work until youdrop,” “practice until you die” and “the nailthat sticks up gets hammered down” all camefrom the same source.

I remember the great surprise my Japanesebrother-in-law, a chemical engineer assigned tohis firm’s Washington, DC branch, experiencedwhen he attended the first day of school withhis children in a Virginia primary school andthey were required to stand up, along withevery other student in class, and describe whatmade them different from others. “In Japan itwould never happen,” he said. “Kids are all

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taught to be the same as everyone else.” [17]

Indeed, students in most schools in Japan aretrained to listen quietly, to not disturb theteacher with questions and to not express theiropinions. They live in a culture of rules and ofsuperior-subordinate status relationships thatprepare them for entry into adult society, withall its strictures and behavioral codes—some ofwhich hearken back to the Tokugawa era.

Students are also immersed in a method oflearning that emphasizes repetition andperfection of minutiae. Students learn to writeideographs in a certain way, to arrange flowersin a certain way, and to swing a kendo stick ora baseball bat in similarly prescribed forms.This modus operandi naturally carries over intotheir adult work environment.

I’m familiar with the arguments of the anti-culturalists. I admit the concept of “nationalcharacter” is ofttimes used by racists or as astereotype that doesn’t go very far inexplaining the actions of a country’s citizensvery deeply. No one should argue that Japanesebehavior is instinctive, unique or withoutinternal contradictions, but to suggest thatthere is nothing different about the way thatthe average Japanese and average Americansee the world, and the way they articulate andact out values in a given situation, is to denyreality and throw the baby out with thebathwater. There is something more going onwith the 1,000-fungo drill than “personalcompetition among individual players causedby the small scale of Japanese pro ball and thecorporate ownership,” as some have written.What label you want to give it can be debated,and maybe “national character” is a passéterm, but something else is going on and it’snot “ideological decisions made in particularcircumstances,” as William Kelly of Yale hasput it.

Of course, things change. Jet travel, satellite TVand the Internet have all served to lessenJapan’s relative isolation, blurring the

differences and distinctions between the twocountries. Players have become moreAmericanized. The departure of superstars tothe MLB, something once unthinkable, hasbrought about great change. But at the sametime, you can still bet that 99% of the playerswill show up for voluntary spring training inJanuary and endure dawn-to-dusk trainingcamps. And there is a reason for that, just asthere is a reason that most Japanese will put inunpaid overtime or hang around the office afterquitting time just to avoid being the first one togo home. These gestures matter.

Since the samurai approach is still pervasive(indeed, one will often hear that once Valentineand the other gaijin managers depart Japan,Japanese baseball will return completely to theold ways), it seems a useful metaphor forunderstanding society and the way people viewthe world and act in it. People may attributedifferent characteristics to samurai based oncon temporary mores—wi tness theShinsengumi’s metrosexual samurai—but thereis a general sense of what those attributes areor should be and a sense that they are virtuousand worth emulating. Naturally, there is a gapbetween ideal construct and everyday practice,but there are clearly broad influences. I dothink that the gut-it-out approach to life, schooland work is still quite common in Japan, andthat such gestures are still expected andoffered because they matter—as an ideal, albeitone increasingly observed in the breach.

Setting the Record Straight

Finally, in this context, I would like to saysomething about the voluminous writings ofProfessor Kelly, the highly regarded Yaleanthropologist, and frequent critic of my work.I respect Professor Kelly’s scholarship and Iadmire his effort to put together an academichistory of Japanese baseball. At the same time,however, I must say that I find some of hisinterpretat ions of the game in Japanuninformed and believe that they undermine

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Americans’ understanding of it. ProfessorKelly’s account of fan behavior and his gattsugenealogy are two examples that I discussed inThe Meaning of Ichiro (see pp. 284–288 for theformer and for the latter, Chapter 3 and p.280).[19]

Kelly’s remarks on the autocratic TetsuharuKawakami represent another misinterpretation.In an essay on Sadaharu Oh, “Learning toSwing in Japanese Baseball,” published byCambridge University, Professor Kelly writesthe following:

Japanese organizations’ suppression ofindividual initiative and selfless commitment togroup objectives have always been stereotypicpieties mouthed by corporate flacks anda c c e p t e d a t f a c e v a l u e b y o u t s i d ecommentators and critics. In fact, however,postwar large organizations have always beendefined by the continual tensions between thevariable talents and motivations of individualmembers and multiple (even inconsistent) aimsof the hierarchically structured group. Groupharmony, hierarchical authority and individualmotivation have always coexisted uneasily inJapanese organizations, like organizationseverywhere.

This was certainly the case with the YomiuriGiants, despite their carefully polished image of“managed baseball.” Indeed, it was well knownthat despite that phrase, manager Kawakamiactually stressed individual effort to the players. . . (As Sadaharu Oh said,) “‘Kawakamibaseball’ was generally thought of as team-oriented rather than individual-oriented . . .Play with greed for victory, he taught, and thishe most particularly emphasized as anindividual thing. One strove for the highestindiv idual goals poss ib le and did sorelentlessly. He had an obligation to the team,but his obligation was best fulfilled by learningto use ourselves individually to the limit.”

Self-sacrifice, one might say, is a rather morecomplex disposition than that of a ‘cardboard

samurai’—and rather more like definitions ofeffort familiar to athletes in the United Statesand elsewhere. [20]

Tetsuharu Kawakami baseball card

To imply that the Machiavellian Kawakamistressed individual achievement is to stand theterm on its head. Kawakami was famous forsaying that individualism would destroy a team,that lone wolves were a cancer in anyorganization, and demanding that his playersall train the same way with the same intensity.What’s more, he regularly condoned the use ofphysical force on younger Giants players, by hiscoaches, to keep them in line. His dictatorial,harsh ways caused, in one infamous case, thenervous breakdown of a 20-year old pitcher,Toshiko Yuguchi, who entered a mental

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hospital in December 1972, after two yearsunder Kawakami’s iron hand. [21]

Kawakami was among the league leaders insacrifice bunts, despite having the mostpowerful 1-2 punch in Japanese baseball historyin Oh and legendary third baseman ShigeoNagashima. This strategy of sacrifice buntingat the earliest opportunity all too often left firstbase open when Oh came to bat, resulting in aninevitable walk, and literally taking the bat outof his star slugger’s hands. This practice, notuncommon in Japan but generally consideredcounterproductive in MLB by both managersand players, may well have prevented the greatOh from reaching the lofty 1,000 career homeruns mark.

Veteran observers recall the time, early in the1973 season, when Kawakami removed his acepitcher Tsuneo Horiuchi in the fifth inning of agame with two out, nobody on and a 10-runlead, thereby depriving Horiuchi of credit forthe official win. It was something no MLBmanager would do, but Kawakami did so, it wasbelieved, to demonstrate his power and teachHoriuchi—known for his surliness—a lesson inhumility. Horiuchi was surprised, but he did notprotest. At the same time, Kawakami alsooverworked his star, using him as a starter andin relief, in a way that won pennants, butdamaged Horiuchi’s arm and put an early endto his career. Horiuchi may have had individualgoals, but he was resigned to the fact that hewould have little say in how he was used. All inall, Kawakami’s regime was not quite “likeorganizations everywhere.”

Next, consider Professor Kelly’s recent essay“Baseball in Japan: The National PastimeBeyond National Character,” in which he slamsthe New York Times for its headline on theaforementioned Randy Bass incident, whichread, “The Japanese Protect Oh’s Record.”Kelly writes, “It was not the Japanese whowalked Bass, but rather the Giants pitchers,and I think they had more reason for doing so

than the simple fact that they were Japanese.”The first reason he cites goes as follows:

. . . the Giants wanted to win that final gamevery much, because they could salvage somepride by clinching the season series againsttheir bitter, long-standing rivals, the Tigers.One cannot exaggerate the intensity of whatwas for decades not only a rivalry of teams, butalso the pitting of second-city Osaka prideagainst the national-capital dominance, Thatyear, the Giants had been preseason favoritesto w in the l eague t i t l e bu t s l i ppeddisappointingly and embarrassingly, while theTigers were celebrating a rare success. Withthe Giants desperate for a victory, it wasobvious strategy for them to pitch around theTigers’ most potent hitter, who neverthelessbecame the second foreigner to win the TripleCrown. [22]

Randy Bass

While one might take mild objection to thegeneralization evident in the Times headline, itis inaccurate to say that “pitching around Bass”was an “obvious strategy.” The 1985 HanshinTigers had perhaps the most potent battinglineup in the history of the Japanese game.

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Bass hit in the third slot in the order. Battingfourth behind Bass was third basemanMasayuki Kakefu, who hit 40 home runs, 108RBIs and a batting average of .300. Hitting fifthafter Kakefu was second baseman AkinobuOkada with 35 home runs, 101 RBIs and a .342average. (Hitting leadoff was right fielderAkinobu Mayumi who had 34 homers, 84 RBIsand a batting average of .322.) Putting Bass onbase with such dangerous hitters coming upwas tantamount to throwing the game, whichwas perhaps why the Giants lost 10-2. Theargument looks even more suspect when oneconsiders the details of each at-bat. In the firstinning of the then-scoreless game, Bass cameup with one out and a runner on base, only tobe walked on four straight pitches, a violationof the baseball canon that says never put thelead run in scoring position. Next, Bass led offthe fourth inning, with the Tigers trailing 1-0,and was walked intentionally again, this time inviolation of the baseball canon that says do notput the tying run on base. In the sixth inning ofthat game, Bass came up to bat again with arunner on first, none out, and the Tigers stilltrailing 1-0. Incredibly, Giant starter MasaakiSaito, a young phenom who was leading theteam in wins, tried to walk him for a thirdconsecutive time. Bass threw his bat at a pitchwell out of the strike zone and hit a fluke singleto left. Kaekefu then singled and the Tigerswent on to score 7 runs. Bass came up for hissecond at-bat of the inning with another runneron first base, and was walked yet againintentionally. In the eighth inning, he was givena fourth intentional pass—in this instance withrunners on first and second base and the Tigersleading 7-2. Kakefu singled and the Tigersextended the lead to 10-2.

To call that “obvious strategy” for a team“desperate” to win the final game is the sort ofdisinformation one frequently gets fromYomiuri Giants front-office executives on loanfrom the Yomiuri Shimbun head office and whoare not entirely versed in the game. Such anexplanation falls in the same category as the

blatantly false and inflated attendance figuresthe Giants have regularly reported over theyears, which veteran sportswriters greet withlaughter. It was also characteristic of the sortof propaganda that Foreign Ministry officialswould feed foreign journalists to explain awaythe closed kisha (reporters) club system inJapan which effectively denies non-Japanesecorrespondents access to important pressconferences.

Professor Kelly goes on to discuss otherfactors:

Furthermore, the record the Giants’ pitcherswere protecting belongs to their manager, whowas standing in the dugout watching them.Manager Oh was perhaps rememberinganother controversial game against the Tigersfrom his own playing days, when Oh himselfwas thrown at twice by the Tigers’ pitchingace, Gene Bacque, known as the “Ragin’Cajun.” The second time Bacque threw at Ohproduced a bench-clearing brawl, during whichOh’s batting coach, Arakawa Hiroshi, stormedthe mound and was punched out by Bacque.Perhaps, too, Oh and his pitchers wererecalling the belittlement of Oh’s career homerun record by the American baseball world.

Most baseball fans, Japanese and American, feltit was unfortunate that the Giants pitchersavoided pitching to Bass. But the incident wasmuch more revealing about the Giants, theTigers and that season than it was about theJapanese as a people. Personal histories, bitterteam rivalries, city pride, and our nations’ pastinteractions were all part of what happenedthat evening. A simplistic interpretation solelyin the context of a broad-brushed nationalcharacter is not an explanation. A love of thegame and its pleasures should encourage us toappreciate the subtleties of baseball in Japanwith the same knowledge and passion that webring to the sport here at home.

I agree with this, but it is in the subtleties that Ifind Kelly’s analysis lacking, for here again,

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there are distortions. For example, anyone whoknows Oh knows that he and Bacque werefriends and that they often visited each other’shouses, before and after the incident. The onewho flew into a rage was not Oh, who simplystrode out toward the mound to tell his friendto stop throwing inside, but Oh’s mentorArakawa.

And as for the argument that walking Bass waspayback for Oh’s record of 868 homers beingbelittled in the American baseball world, thattoo is hard to swal low. In fact , Oh’sachievements won him the cover of SportsI l lustrated, a front page story in theWashington Post, a special display in the Hallof Fame at Cooperstown, and kudos from everymajor leaguer who had seen him play, includingTed Williams, Hank Aaron and Clete Boyer. Ohhimsel f has repeatedly sa id that h isachievement should not be compared withthose of MLB record holders because the twogames are so significantly different that it isdifficult to make any conclusive comparisons.One glaring example was that the compressedbats that Oh used were outlawed in the Statesbecause it was believed they gave the batter anunfair advantage.

In addition, anyone who knows the ever fair-minded Oh would know that he would neverissue such a walk order to his pitchers. WhenOh said that he had given no such orders to hisstaff to protect his record by intentionallywalking Bass, he was widely believed. But also,anyone who knows Oh would also know that hewould never countermand such an order fromthe front office. That would be disrespectful.Nor would he ever prevent his players fromdoing so on their own, out of respect for thetribute they would be paying him.

That the Giants wanted to protect their teamrecord is certain. Indeed, walking theopposition to protect a team record has been acommon if unsavory practice in Japanesebaseball, and if Oh’s challenger had been

Kakefu or Okada, those hitters would havebeen walked as well. American Keith Comstock,who pitched for the Giants that year, says hewas told by a team coach that there would be afine of a thousand dollars for every strikethrown to Bass, and most close observersbelieved those orders came from the frontoffice. [24] But when a foreign player isinvolved, there is usually more at work thanmere team loyalty, or at least there was then.How “most Japanese fans” felt about Bass’streatment is not entirely clear despite ProfessorKelly’s claim that most of them thought it“unfortunate” the Giants pitchers avoidedpitching to Bass. But having been on theground and in the trenches, covering Japanesebaseball during that era, I can make aneducated guess about the “national mood” atthat time. Government surveys annuallyshowed that roughly two-thirds of Japanese didnot want to associate with foreigners, with onlyabout one-fourth of the public favorablydisposed toward the idea of marriage with anon-Japanese. Moreover, the 1980s were a timeof intense anti-American feeling, because oftrade friction with the US, among other factors,and there had also been much criticism ofAmerican ballplayers after a series of high-profile walkouts by noted ex-big-leaguers whowere dissatisfied with their playing conditions.The Commissioner of Baseball at the time ofthe Bass affair, Takezo Shimoda, a formerambassador to the U.S., was openly hostile toAmerican players. He was famous for sayingthat foreign players didn’t belong in the gamein Japan, a remarkable statement for an ex-diplomat of such standing. “The gaijin areoverpaid, underproductive and generallyannoying,” he had said, this despite thepresence of many well-mannered players fromNorth America who more than earned theirsalary, like the easygoing Bass. [25] In 1983,Shimoda had even made the rounds of springtraining camps, urging Japanese players to stopdepending on their foreign teammates. “Afterall,” he said, getting down to the heart of thematter, “it is only natural that Japanese

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baseball be played by Japanese alone, as thegap between the respective levels of the Japanand American games narrows. Japanesebaseball will never be considered first-rate aslong as there are former major leaguers nolonger wanted in their own countries in keyspots in the Japanese lineup.” [26] Randy Bass,a former MLB benchwarmer, was one suchplayer. Shimoda, one is sure, did not feel it was“unfortunate” that the Giants pitchers avoidedpitching to Bass. Nor did the folks over at theright-wing-leaning Sankei Supotsu, which hadpreviously published a baseball series entitled“Time of Peril,” calling for a total ban onforeign players. In one article the Sankeireporter had written, “What the Japanese fansreally want to see is a big home run by aJapanese star, not a gaijin.” [27]

The smaller-than-usual afternoon crowd of30,000, cheated out of an epic confrontationbetween Bass and Giants ace Masaaki Saito,certainly protested the walks to Bass, but mostof those fans were there to support the Hanshincontingent and Bass, and the booing did notbegin until the fourth walk. Moreover, retiredHanshin slugger Koichi Tabuchi, nicknamed“Mr. Tiger” for his prodigious home run outputwith that team and a man who, as a Tigeralumnus, should have been rooting for Bass,instead sympathized with the opposing faction.

“It was us against them,” he said later. “Iplayed in the same era as Oh and we felt verystrongly about his record. At the time, I wouldconfess that people did not want anyone otherthan a Japanese to break the record.” [28]

Further evidence of this was seen in thecontemporary coverage of the Bass incident.Although a column in a late evening edition ofthe Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri’s arch rival,criticized the behavior of the Giants pitchers,sports papers the next morning were curiouslydevoid of outraged editorials or indignantquotes from fans and prominent NPBpersonages about the matter, including, of

course, the commissioner.

Rules existing at the time already limitedforeign participation in the regular season totwo players per team and in All-Star games aswell, a restriction that often kept leagueleaders from appearing. (The limit is now four.)Although such rules did not exist in the MLB,where there was a substantial Latin Americancontingent, few were protesting their existencein Japan.

In September 1986, the Asahi Shimbunconducted a survey that asked the question,“Are foreigners necessary?” 56% of the fanssaid yes. But only 10% of the players, four ofthe team owners and none of the managerssaid yes. The main complaint was not thatforeigners cost too much money or deprivedyounger players of a spot on a team or eventhat they caused too much trouble. It wassimply a Delphic “Japanese-only teams areideal.” In 1987, new NPB commissioner JuheiTakeuchi declared flatly, “Pure-bloodedbaseball is ideal. We have to have a WorldSeries between the Japanese and theAmericans. We can’t do that with foreignplayers here.” [29] Yomiuri Shimbun chairmanRisaku Mutai made similar statementsthroughout the 80s. [30] And in 1999, Giantsmanger Shigeo Nagashima, Japan’s nationalidol, declared to a group of supporters that his“ideal” for many years had been to field apurely made-in-Japan lineup. [31] A manager inMLB making such borderline racist remarkswould no doubt be censured or perhaps fired.Predictably, no one in the Japanese press or theNPB raised a voice to object about the remarks.

As mentioned earlier, when Ichiro moved to theMLB the situation appeared to have changed.The aforementioned Tabuchi sensed this aswell. He said, “Back then, the game seemedlike the Japanese versus the US. But now, withIchiro and Sasaki, people are watching a lot ofAmerican ball and have gained a realappreciation for it. There’s no prejudice

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anymore.” [32] In fact, Randy Bass had evenwritten a letter to Tuffy Rhodes during the2001 season, when Rhodes was threateningOh’s record, saying essentially the same thingand telling him his chances for success weremuch better than in Bass’s time.

As we have seen, this turned out not to be thecase. But at least the NPB commissioner onwatch at the time, Hiromori Kawashima, waswilling to denounce the unsportsmanlikebehavior that prevented Rhodes fromsucceeding in his quest for the record. Heissued a statement that said, “The decision ofthe Hawks to walk Rhodes was completelydivorced from the essence of baseball, whichvalues the supremacy of fair play.” [33] Thiswas in sharp contrast to the statements of hispredecessor and appeared to be widelysupported by the fans. However, Rhodes leftJapan convinced that there was a “code red”that kicked into action whenever a foreignplayer did too well. [34]

Tuffy Rhodes

In conclusion, it is ironic perhaps that althoughanthropologists are trained to see through thesurface appearances of society, in this case,Professor Kelly, normally a highly sophisticatedobserver of the scene in Japan, seems, howeverunderstandably, to have been taken in by them,while missing the fundamental realities. If weare going to talk about US-Japan relations, thenwe should address the dark side, for it certainlyexists.

Xenophobia may be slowly dying out, but it hasnot yet disappeared. Nor has Japan’s “nationalcharacter.” Baseball is still a good window forlooking at both of them. [35]

Notes

[1] Remarks of this nature were first heard inthe midst of lengthy, heated meetings between

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MLB and MLBPA officials in regard to thecontract of Hideki Irabu, during the winter of1995–96. San Diego had claimed the right toIrabu’s services via a trade with Irabu’s formerteam, the Chiba Lotte Marines, at the end ofthe ’95 season. Irabu claimed the trade wasillegal, that it amounted to “slave trade,” andhotly refused to sign, saying he would only playfor the New York Yankees. Irabu’s comments,which had been reported in the media, angeredsome officials and prompted an outburst fromone of the MLB executives involved, who toldGene Orza, attorney for the MLBPA, “we haveto keep baseball safe for people who look likeyou and me.” These remarks were conveyed tome and other individuals by Gene Orza, whohad been taken aback but, in the interest ofmaintaining a smooth relationship between theunion and management, asked me not to namenames. Irabu’s request to be released from thePadres’ claim on him was initially denied by theMLB executive council, but was then approvedsome weeks later during an appeal after Irabu’sattorneys had threatened litigation. Orza isquoted in The Meaning of Ichiro (WarnerBooks, NY, 2004) as saying, “If Irabu had hadthe name of John Smith, with blond hair andblue eyes, I do believe that all this would havenever happened.” It might be noted here that inOctober 2003, a Japanese employee of MajorLeague Baseball’s business arm in New YorkCity sued her bosses for fostering anenvironment, during her 18-month stint there,in which anti-Asian hostility thrived. In the suit,which was later settled out of court, theplaintiff, Juri Moriooka, claimed that “f---ingJaps” and “nips” were part of her immediatesupervisors’ everyday office lexicon.

[2] Asahi Shimbun, October 2, 2004.

[3] The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, by RobertWhiting, Dodd-Mead, New York, 1977, p.200.

[4] “Oh disgraces the Japanese game,” AsahiShimbun, October 3, 2001.

Said Wakana to the Deiri Supotsu, “Oh would

probably say ‘we shouldn’t walk Rhodes.’ But Ithink we should walk him because I doubt Ohwants to see Rhodes break the record in frontof him.” Deiri Supotsu, October 1, 2001.

[5] Deiri Supotsu, May 15, 1980. You GottaHave Wa, Vintage Departures, New York, 1990,p.158.

[6] Washington Post, Anthony Faiola,November 28, 2006.

[7] Shukan Asahi, August 19, 2005. The articlealso contained the Hirooka quote.

[8] Ichiko’s practice routine described in TobitaSuishu Senshu, Yakyu Kisha Jidai, BesuboruMagajin, 1960, pp. 30–31. Also see Koryoshi,pp. 799-810, Dai-Ichi Koto Gakko Kishukuryo,September 10, 1930, for summary of Ichiko-YCAC games. Accounts of Ichiko stars appearin Yakyu Nenpo published by Mimatsu ShotenNai Yakyu Nenpo Henshu-bu, 1912, pp.309–317 and Undokai #47, April 1912. KanaeChuman came up with the term yakyu (fieldball) for baseball and wrote the first book aboutit, entitled Yakyu, published by MaekawaBuneido Shuppan in 1897. About Jigoro Kano:According to historical accounts, Jigoro Kanohad resurrected the ancient and, at the time,largely forgotten art of jujitsu in the 1870sprimarily because he was tired of being beatenup by larger classmates in school. The fightingform he ultimately developed, judo, became apopular sensation in the 1880s after Kano’sjudo club met and defeated a jujitsu squadbelonging to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police—asquad that included much taller and heaviercombatants. This historic encounter (whichlater inspired Akira Kurosawa’s film SugataSanshiro) popularized the idea that a mancould defeat a much larger opponent with hardtraining, fighting spirit and brainpower. Theappeal of this concept to the players on theFirst Higher School of Tokyo squad, of whichKano was an avid fan, and who were trying tobeat physically larger American teams, shouldbe obvious. Kano, interestingly, was principal

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of Ichiko in 1893. See Kano Jigoro, Kodokan.Nunoi Shobo; Kano Jigoro, Zansei Koga,Kaneko Shobo; The Father of Judo, Brian N.Watson, Kodansha International; KanekoShobo. Sekai No Denki, Akira Kiribuchi, Gyosei;Kano Jigoro, Nihei Kato. Shoyo Shoin; A Historyof the Kodokan, University of Montana,www.bstkd.com/judohistory.

[9] From “Yakyu Bushi,” an article appearing ina commemorative work published by theAlumni Association of the First Higher Schoolof Tokyo, February 28, 1903, entitled YakyuBushi Fukisoku Dai Ichi Koto Gakko Koyukai.

[10] The Tobita philosophy can be found in thesix-volume collected works of the famouscoach, entitled Tobita Senshu. See volume 3,pp. 25–28. “Froth coming out of their mouths “appears in Gakusei Yakyu Ron, Vol. 2, p. 260.

[11] Tokyo Yomiuri Kyojin Gun 50-nen,published by the Yomiuri Group in 1985. Seepp. 191–195. The Morinji camp is described ineven greater detail in Nihon Yakyu-shi, Showa-hen Sono Ni, by Kyushi Yamato, BesuboruMagajin, Tokyo, 1977, pp. 261–270. It was alsodescribed by Osamu Mihara in the book Kyojingun to tomo ni, Sakuhinsha, 1949, pp. 23–30.

[12] The Fuji-Sankei reporters were Kozo Abe,Shuji Tsunoyama and Osamu Nagatani, whohad a combined total of over 100 yearscovering professional baseball in Japan.

[13] Interview with Motoshi Fujita, KeioUniversity

[14] Japan’s Modern Myths, Carol Gluck,Princeton University, 1985, pp. 180, 185.

[15] “Baseball and the Quest for NationalDignity in Meiji Japan,” The AmericanHistorical Review, Volume 85, Number 3, June1980.

[16] Asahi Shimbun, March 11, 2006.

[17] Fusakazu Hayano, PhD. Asahi Kagaku.January 2, 1995.

[18] “Same Sport, Different Structure,” W.Kelly, LOOK Japan, 44 (510 September)

[19] In “Sense and Sensibility at the Ballpark:What Fans Make of Professional Baseball inModern Japan,” an article about the noisyoutfield so popular in Japan, which originallyappeared as “An Anthropologist in theBleachers,” Japan Quarterly, 1997, Kellydeclares that, in Japan, in general, the “morenumerous infield audience . . . by and largebehaves rather like crowds at Americanballparks.” This account goes againsteverything I have encountered in 40 years ofwatching baseball in Japan, where the contrastbetween organized cheering groups in thebleachers and the more sedate fans sitting inthe infield is clear and is quite different fromthat found in American parks. To quote one ofthe many longtime observers who sees thesame thing I do, Ichiro Suzuki, a baseballplayer who spent 9 years in Japan and 5 in theU.S., “ I think Japanese fans, like the Japaneseplayers, suppress their emotions too. They arevery otonashi i (quiet) . You have thecheerleaders blowing trumpets and all. Butwhen they’re not doing anything, the stadium isreally quiet. American fans, by contrast, dotheir own thing—people stand up and dance.The fans get up and express themselves, theyshow their own individuality, just like theplayers. You get the feeling they are reallyenjoying themselves.” Asked why the Japanesefan is so quiet—was it courtesy or shyness?—heresponded, “I think it’s shyness. When I’msitting in the stands in Japan as a fan, I canreally understand that feeling.” In “The Bloodand Guts of Japanese Professional Baseball" byProfessor Kelly (appearing in The Culture ofJapan As Seen Through Its Literature, edited bySepp Linhart and Sabine Fruhstruck, StateUniversity of New York Press, June 1998), theprofessor argues, among other things, that“guts” did not become ideologically central in

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pro baseball until the V-9 era of Kawakami andthe Yomiuri Giants, 1965–1973. This would alsobe news to the men who participated in theMorinji “vomit camp” as well as to pitchersMotoshi Fujita, who pitched 359 innings forMizuhara and his Giants in 1959; TadashiSugiura, who pitched all four games of the1959 series against the Giants for the NankaiHawks, coming off a season in which he won 38games while pitching 371 innings; and anothercontemporary, Hiroshi Gondo, a pitcher whothrew 429 innings in 1961. These individualsuncomplainingly pitched their arms out fortheir managers, relying on guts when theinevitable pain from so much wear and tearmanifested itself in their elbows and shoulders.Their careers ended early, but as Gondo put it,“The code of bushido was strong. Many timesmy fingers and arms hurt, but I could notrefuse my manager’s request.”

[20] "Learning to Swing: Oh Sadaharu and thePedagogy and Practice of Japanese ProfessionalBaseball." In John Singleton (ed.), Learning inLikely Places, pp. 422–458. New York:Cambridge University Press.

[21] See Aku no Kanri Gaku, TetsuharuKawakami, Kobunsha, Tokyo, 1980. TetsuharuKawakami, President Magazine, “Za Man”series, October 15, 1987. Kyojingun NiHomurareta Otokotachi, Juntaro Oda.Shinchosha, 2000. Tsuguchi was the number-one draft choice of the Giants but found himselfpsychological ly unable to cope withKawakami’s strict regimen, as well asmemorize the dozens of complicated defensiveformations that the manager made his playersremember. After being severely rebuked byKawakami for giving up two home runs in ameaningless intra-squad game played on FanAppreciation Day in November 1973, duringwhich the Giants celebrated their ninth straightJapan Championship, Yuguchi went into adownward emotional spiral and sought medicaltreatment. After stays in two different mentalhospitals, he died of heart failure in March

1973. Kawakami’s response to the news ofYuguchi’s death was quoted in the above-mentioned Oda book as follows: “The Giantsare the ones who suffered. We invested a lot ofmoney, time and emotion in this player.”

[22] “Baseball in Japan: The National GameBeyond National Character” in Baseball inAmerica, pp. 47–52, Washington, DC, NationalGeographic Society (in conjunction with theNational Baseball Hall of Fame).

[23] From the official Central League box scoreof the game, played on October 24, 1985, at 1p.m. at Korakuen Stadium.

[24] Author interview with Keith Comstock, Oct25, 1985. “ . . . those orders came from thefront office” was the conclustion of a studydone by the editors of Takarajima Magajin-sha,in a special edition entitled “Kyojin gun TabuJiken Shi” 1288, December 1, 2005.

[25] Shimoda made his remarks at, amongother venues, a meeting of Japan’s professionalbaseball executive committee, November 14,1984. The remarks were widely reported at thetime by the Japanese media.

[26] From author interviews with Reggie Smithand Ichiro Tanuma of the Yomiuri Giants, whowere among those who listened to Shimdoa’splea, February 12, 1983, Miyazaki. Also authorinterview with Takezo Shimoda, May 10, 1983.Shimoda’s remarks were also widelydisseminated in Japanese press.

[27] Sankei Supotsu, December 5–15, 1980.

[28] The New York Times, September 15, 2001.

[29] Author interview, November 25, 1987.Takeuchi’s remarks were widely publicized.

[30] Author interview with Warren Cromartie,who attended the annual preseason teamdinners at which Mutai made his comments.March 15, 1990.

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[31] Nagashima’s videotaped remarks weremade on March 3, 1999, at a meeting of theSanSanKai (33 Association) in Tokyo.

[32] The New York Times, September 15, 2001.

[33] Nikkan Supotsu, October 2, 2001; AsahiShimbun, October 2, 2001.

[34] Author interview, October 8, 2002.

[35] I first went to Japan in 1962 with USmilitary intelligence, and I began my lifelongaddiction to besuboru, the national sport ofJapan. I attended Sophia University there,majoring in Japanese politics, taught Englishand tended bar on the side to pay my tuition,and then worked for a Japanese firm as the onlyforeigner in the company. It was there that Ilearned about 60-hour workweeks, unpaidovertime and ritualistic meetings designed onlyto foster wa. I discovered the importance ofproper form and respect—greeting your bossnot by name but by his title, having a readysupply of name cards indicating your rankwithin the organization, presenting andreceiving cards the right way—and thedifficulties involved in being the first one toleave at the end of the work day, even if it waswell after 6. Nothing I later saw at Time Life orany American company I worked with remotelyresembled Japanese counterparts. SportsIllustrated staff worked four days and, exceptfor closing day, everyone went home at 5. AtNumber, the Japanese equivalent of SI, themidnight lights were always on. I later did filmwork for the MITI, MOF and companies likeHitachi Metals. That experience revealed moreof the same.

I attended, or watched on TV, an estimated 100games a year. When I got to know the inside ofthe baseball world in Japan, it was just anotherversion of the Tokyo companies I’d worked forwith the long, exhausting hours on the practicefield, the constant pregame meetings and post-game hanseikai, and the self-sacrifice required.I cannot recall an American player on a

Japanese team I talked to who did not complainabout the experience. They might have enjoyedthe money and the friendships made withteammates, but not the regimentation of it alland the conflicts that inevitably ensued.

In 1972, I moved to New York, where I drew onmy experiences to write my first book, a look atthe Japanese culture through baseball, TheChrysanthemum and the Bat. My decision towrite such a book was inspired, in part, by myyears at Sophia where I studied the Japanesepolitical system and was required to read theworks of noted scholars such as EdwinReischauer, Hugh Patrick and Ruth Benedict.These were all distinguished by pages ofintelligent but dense, dry exposition and a totallack of passion. There were no flesh-and-bloodhuman beings and the books conveyed none ofthe raw energy and emotion that I hadexperienced in Japan.

I tried to tell people in Manhattan about thefactions of the Liberal Democratic Party, thelabor unions, the sarariman, but there was zerointerest. It was only when I started telling themabout baseball in Japan—that there was amagical home run hitter like Sadaharu Oh whohoned his skills with a samurai sword, or thatthere were star pitchers who would pitch threeor four days in a row without concern for theobvious potential damage to the arm, or thatspring training began in the freezing cold ofmid-winter, that people started payingattention. That is what prompted me to writemy first book, unprepared though I may havebeen to do it at the time.

I n 1 9 7 7 , a f t e r T i m e n a m e d T h eChrysanthemum and the Bat the best sportsbook of the year, I turned down offers to workat AP and McGraw-Hill in order to return toJapan, where I worked for Time Life, thenbecame a sports writer and columnist for anumber of Japanese publications, including theDaily Sports and the Shukan Asahi, as well asan occasional contributor to American

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periodicals like Sports Illustrated. Since 1982, Ihave divided my time between Japan andwherever it is that my Japanese wife, whoworks with the UNHCR, is posted, which thusfar has meant Geneva twice, Mogadishu,Karachi, Tokyo and Stockholm. I have written 5books in English; 15 books in Japanese, mostlycollections of columns; and a mountain ofmagazine articles in both languages. I haveinterviewed hundreds of players and coaches,both Japanese and American (and on both sidesof the Pacific) and watched more baseballgames than any human being should berequired to—so many that I found it necessaryto take a break in 1992 and spend 6 yearsworking on a book about organized crime. My

best-known book You Gotta Have Wa (1989), aproduct of 12 years of daily reporting on theJapanese game, is in its 18th printing, and thetranslated version is a best-seller in Japan. Itwas chosen as one of the 100 best books of alltime by a panel of Japanese literary experts(Hon No Zasshi, 10/1991). Tokyo Underworld(1999) is being made into a movie.

This article was written for Japan Focus. It wasposted at Japan Focus on September 29, 2006.

See also Charles W. Hayford, Samurai Baseballv s . B a s e b a l l i n J a p a n(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2398).