Remembering Japanese BaseBall An Oral History of the Game Robert K. Fitts Foreword by Robert Whiting     March paper, 0-8093-2630-2, $19.95 cloth, 0-8093-2629-9, $50.00 288 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4, 25 illus. Baseball  / Writing Baseball Richard Peterson, series editor   Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game transports us onto diamonds and into dugouts on the other side of the globe, where the vigorous sportsmanship of the game and the impassioned devotion of its fans transcend cultural and geographic borders and prove that baseball is fast becoming an international pastime. Called Yakyu, baseball has been played in Japan since the 1890s but has only recently gained a substantial global following. Robert K. Fitts chronicles the nation’s distinctive version of the sport as recounted by twenty-five of its players. Fitts’s careful choice of subjects represents the experiences of a mix of American and Japanese players—including stars, titleholders, and members of the Japanese Hall of Fame. Informal, candid, and remarkably specific, these recollections describe teammates and opponents, corporate owners and loyal fans, triumphs and frustrations, collectively capturing all the spirit and emotion engendered by the game from decidedly personal vantage points. Throughout, readers glimpse the unique traits of baseball in Japan and discern how the game has evolved since its inception as well as how it differs from its American counterpart. An unparalleled introduction for an American audience, Remembering Japanese Baseball is augmented by photos of its twenty-five interviewees and a timeline demarking milestone moments in the game’s Japanese history. Robert Whiting, author of You Gotta Have Wa! and The Meaning of Ichiro, provides the foreword. “The fact that such different cultures could share a similar love for a simple ballgame first sparked attention when American players began having second careers in Japan. Now that stars from Japan are joining stateside teams, the pertinence of what Fitts has done is clear. Through these narratives Fitts grants us unrivaled firsthand knowledge of Japanese baseball from old- and new-timers alike.”—Jerry Klinkowitz, author of Owning a Piece of the Minors and Basepaths Excerpts from Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game “Many Americans comment that we Japanese practice too much, but they don’t fully understand the situation. Americans have a complete organizational system where young players enter the minor leagues and are taught baseball. By the time they climb to the Major Leagues, all they have to do is concentrate on their performance in the games. We don’t have much of a system for youths in Japan. We get young rookies who have just entered the game on our clubs, so we have to educate them and we have no choice but to do that. Therefore to win games, we have to do a lot of practice. Of course in Japan, we have major teams and farm teams, but the difference is much clearer in the United States.” —Masaaki Mori, from Chapter 17 “I always remember the Japanese fans. They had those flags and drums going all the time and cheerleaders. It was like being at a football game with all that excitement. The first time I heard that I was like, “Be quiet! I’m trying to concentrate!” But after a while, you get used to it. If you hit a home run, they absolutely go bananas out there! So it was great! Everywhere I went in Japan, even if we went out to the countryside in the middle of the boondocks, there was always a cheering section for us. Somebody was rooting for your team all the time. That was a great thing for me, knowing that no matter how well or how poorly we did, you always had somebody cheering for us. In the States, you just don’t see that. You root for your home team and you boo the away team.” —Ralph Bryant, from Chapter 21 Robert K. Fitts has written on Japanese baseball for Tuff Stuff Magazine, Vintage and Classic Baseball Collector, and MLB.com; he has been featured on ESPN.com, Asahi.com, in Beckett’s Baseball Card Monthly, Sports Collector Digest, Shukan Baseball (Japan), Kansai Time Out (Japan), and in several television documentaries. www.rememberingjapanesebaseball.com

Paper   Cloth Featuring Cappy Harada Hirofumi Naito Wally Yonamine Futoshi Nakanishi Takashi Iwamoto Dick Kashiwaeda Satoshi “Fibber” Hirayama Glenn Mickens Gene Bacque Masanori Murakami Daryl Spencer Gordy Windhorn Don Blasingame Gene Martin Clyde Wright Leron Lee Masaaki Mori Greg “Boomer” Wells Brad “Animal” Lesley Rick Lancellotti Ralph Bryant Orestes Destrade Jack Howell Alonzo Powell Eric Hillman