1. 1
Yakyū-dō: Japanese Baseball as a Microcosm of
National Character
By Mike Griffen
“Baseball is more than a just a game. It has eternal value.
Through it, one learns the beautiful and noble spirit of Japan.”1
- Suishi Tobita, Besuboru Magajin, vol. 2, 1960.
When Hideki Matsui announced his decision to sign with the New York Yankees in 2003
he knew it would not be a popular one with the notoriously ruthless Japanese sports media.
Matsui, affectionately nicknamed “Godzilla” for his prowess and power at the plate, knew
he would have to publicly explain his choice. He was the cornerstone of by far the most
popular team in Japan, the Yomiuri Giants, in a position analogous to the Yankee Captaincy.
1 Ikei, Masaru. “Tobita Suishu senshu,” Besuboru Magajin Sha., vol. 2. pp.30-31,1960.

2. 2
At the press conference, Matsui humbly apologized for his decision and expressed his
shame his selfishness stating simply, “I have to do this. Even if people think I’m a traitor.” He
had built up enough equity with his fans that they quickly forgave him.
Matsui was the perfect ambassador for Japanese baseball. He was a shining
representation of both the Japanese personality and the way they played baseball. He was
an unabashedly nice guy, polite and deferential; he trained extremely hard and sacrificed
for the sake of his team. He exemplified the Japanese yakyū-dō (“way of baseball”), a code
which whose tenets were derived from the core principles bushidō (“way of the warrior.”)
Players like Hideki and the various other aspects of Japanese baseball, provide a window
into the Japanese as a people. There, baseball is its own entity, overtly different from the
American game and uniquely adapted to fit the Japanese culture and life. And although the
country and the game hav seen a bit of shift since the 1980s, the philosophies encompassed
in yakyū-dō remain prevalent.
The Genesis and Assimilation of Besuborū
On May 23, 1896, Tokyo’s First Higher School, Japan’s foremost preparatory school,
crushed a team of amateur American ballplayers in Yokohama by the score of 29-4. For the
players of Ichikō, as the school was called, and the Japanese people as a whole, the
domination of Americans in their own game carried a significance that extended beyond
baseball.
The match was five years in the making. The Yokohama Athletic Club had
continually rejected the school’s semi-annual challenges, ostensibly due to ill-feelings
stemming an incident of violence involving an American reverend and members of the First

3. 3
Higher’s judo club during a match with a foreign run missionary school in 1890. Below the
surface, the foreigners in Yokohama viewed an engagement on the ballfield with a Japanese
team as an admission of cultural equality, a concession they were loath to make at the time.
The foreign squad had gone so far as to public declare the Ichikō players as culturally and
physically unfit to engage in athletic competition with foreigners. Their perception of
superiority over the Japanese ballplayers quickly imploded after the first game and
disintegrated entirely after each of the nine rematches. In the twelve games against foreign
competition from 1897 to 1904, Ichikō outscored their opponents by a total of 259 runs to
only 68 for the American teams.
For the Japanese, Ichikō’s dominance over the Americans in their own national
pastime during this period not only helped popularize the game in Japan but led to the
recognition of baseball as an effective tool for the rectification of national image and pride.
The players were hailed as national heroes. They viewed themselves as combatants in a
struggle for national dignity. Their victories were merely a service to the nation.
***
The genesis of baseball in Japan is relatively straightforward and generally accepted,
unlike that of its American progenitor. In the infancy of the Meiji Era, the new government
implemented a state-sanctioned modernization program recruited nearly three-thousand
foreign experts and teachers, known as oyatoi, as part of the country’s reluctant “opening”
up to the West. One of these oyatoi was Horace E. Wilson, a twenty-eight-year-old American
who started teaching at Tokyo’s Daigaku Nankō – which would later combine with other
schools to become the famous First Higher School – in 1872. There, aside from his

4. 4
classroom duties, Wilson taught military style calisthenics he had learned during his time
in the Union army. During recess and after-hours, he introduced a new game called
besuboru, played with a ball, bat, and bases. This new exotic spectacle was immediately
popular with the students, who enjoyed both watching and participating.
Prior to the “opening” to the West, the concept of exercise for exercise’s sake was an
alien concept in Japan. But within a decade, Wilson’s game, which the Japanese had begun
calling yakyū (field ball), had spread throughout the nation. Its proliferation was aided by
the reciprocal relationship between baseball and the government’s institution of physical
education in public schools, for which the game was partly responsible.
By the 1880s, formal teams began to form at the high school and college levels after
the formal solidification of a two-tier higher educational system consisting of three-year
prep schools and four-year colleges. This development gave the school system enough
stability to serve as an incubator for the Japanese game and allowed ground for the
application of Japanese philosophical, spiritual, and cultural ideology to the sport.
Doryoku to Gattsu: Effort and Guts
In feudal Japan, the land was dominated by the samurai, a warrior-class of nobles,
loosely analogous to knights. Nearly every aspect of the life of a samurai was guided by
bushidō or “the way of the warrior.” The code of bushidō is built on the concepts of extreme
self-discipline, endless training, unquestioning obedience, Zen spirituality, group harmony,
self-denial, selflessness, loyalty, and most importantly, honor. Despite the virtual extinction
of the samurai class around the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, the tenets of bushidō have
found a foothold, or in some cases been implanted, in a multiple sectors of Japanese culture.

5. 5
***
Yakyū-dō or “the way of baseball,” is a term commonly used among baseball
aficionados in Japan. What the term amounts to – as might be inferred – is bushidō on the
ballfield. In this way, baseball is one of the most conspicuous remnants of samurai ideology.
Yakyū-dō involves, among other things, the spiritualization of training, obsession with
form, mutual sacrifice for the sake of the team, complete deference to managers, coaches,
and those in positions of authority, and conservative highly thought out play.
One of the driving forces behind the development and spread of the yakyū-dō
philosophy was legendary manager Suishu Tobita, known in Japan as “The God of Baseball.”
Tobita had played for Waseda University during his college years in the early part of the
20th century and was an average player by all accounts. Nine years after he played his last
game for Waseda, the school offered him the managerial position. He accepted. Influenced
by his former Waseda coach’s philosophy that baseball could be a modern replacement for
war, Tobita approached the game with the mindset and intensity of a drill instructor and
treated the players as soldiers. His men were expected to act any soldier would. Nearly all
aspects of their lives were controlled by the coaching staff, down to minute details such as
how and when to brush one’s teeth. Players, in his view, should love their team in much the
same way that they loved their country. That meant complete and total obedience to
authority, in this case, the manager and his staff.
He deliberately incorporated tenets of bushido into his philosophy, putting
particular emphasis on the necessity of mental and spiritual fortitude and incorporated Zen
practices to create “morally correct athletes.” The result was exceptionally intense

6. 6
practices which were designed not so much for the honing of skills or even physical
conditioning but for the hardening honing of the spirit and the conditioning of the mind.
The training eventually became known as death training for its intensity and brutality. He
would make his players field ground balls, “until they were half dead, motionless, and froth
was coming out of their mouths.”
As Tobita himself described his methods:
“Thepurpose of training is not health but the forging of the soul and a
stronger soul is only born from strong practice.
To hit like a shooting star, to catch a ball beyond one’s
capabilities…such beautiful plays are not the result of technique but
good deeds. For all these are made possible by a strong spiritual
power.
Student baseball must be the baseball of self-discipline, or trying to
attain the truth, just as in Zen Buddhism. It must be much more than
a hobby. In many cases it must be a baseball of pain and a baseball
practice of savage treatment. If the players do not try so hard as to
vomitblood in practice, they cannot hope to wingames. Only withthe
constant cultivation of tears, sweat, and bleeding can a player secure
his position as such. One must suffer to be good.”2
To most Americans, Tobita’s method may seem shocking, even barbaric, but despite
the undeniable cruelty, Waseda won, a lot. His success elicited a turn away from the more
lax, “rational” American approached which some favored at the time, to Tobita’s seishin
yakyū (“spiritual baseball) as it sometimes called. Variations of his methods remain the
predominant approach to baseball in Japan, as evidenced by a 2004 survey conducted by
2 Robert K. Fitts. Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major
Leaguer. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2015.

7. 7
Fuji-Sankei, which found that over 90% of all professional managers and players in Japan
adhered to elements of “spiritual baseball.”
Take, for example, the story of Choji Murata, a highly successful pitcher in the NPB
in the 70’s and 80’s. Murata believed fervently in the idea of constant hard work. He
pitched over a hundred pitches a day, throwing all as hard as he could, and like many other
Japanese, he always tried to “pitch through the pain.” But in 1982, his elbow began causing
him incessant pain. He tried to pitch through it despite barely being able to lift it, and was
eventually put on the disabled list. Even so, he kept trying to throw, hoping to will the pain
away. His effort and dedication was undeniable, but so was the fact that none of his
attempts at treatment were working. He wasn’t getting better.
Over the course of his injure, Murata had tried acupuncture, electrical shock,
massage, even naked meditation under a freezing cold waterfall at the guidance of a Zen
priest. None of it worked. The priest told him that he must heal his arm himself, no one
could do it for him. Murata was desperate and finally turned to medicine. An American
doctor named Frank Jobe had repaired a pitcher named Tommy John’s torn UCL with a
revolutionary procedure and was willing to help Murata. Murata acquiesced at the behest
of his wife and Jobe repaired his torn UCL using a ligament from his wrist. Choji returned to
play the next season, where he went 17-5 and won Comeback Player of the Year.
In the years following his surgery, the revelation that modern medical techniques
could be applied to baseball and other athletic injuries led many players with similar
injuries to seek surgery right away. Murata criticized the increase in younger players who
he thought did not suffer long enough to build character from the experience before getting

8. 8
surgery. They lacked the self-discipline and self-control needed to resist the urge to fix the
pain without first learning and drawing strength from the experience.
Ballplayers or Sararīman?: Corporate Control Over Baseball
A common sentiment about Japanese ballplayers when compared to their American
counterparts is that, “Americans play baseball, Japanese work it.” The saying may be a bit of
an oversimplification but it is a reasonable assessment given the businesslike aura
surrounding the Japanese game.
In the years following the American Occupation, Japan began to emerge as an
economic powerhouse and by the 1980s, the country had become the second largest
economic power on the planet. Forming the foundation of Japanese corporate capitalist
success during this “economic miracle” was the sararīman or salaryman. A salaryman is a
particular breed of white-collar worker – usually male – in the large bureaucracy of a
corporate firm or governmental institution whose position is based on ability rather than
seniority. The lives of these workers are almost entirely defined by their jobs. Many are
hired directly out of school and are expected to stay with the company until retirement to
display their loyalty. They are known for working long hours –as many as eighty per week
in some cases – and expected to sacrifice their home life for the sake of the company, even
if it means forgoing efforts to start a family. Absolute subservience to their superiors is
expected. In many ways, a salaryman’s job is a lifelong commitment; their life is not entirely
their own.
The same workplace warrior mentality and structure extends to the baseball field.
Players are often treated like sararīman. Managers exert dictatorial control over them, just

9. 9
as a manager would in a corporate setting. Players are worked hard, often operating under
the same “work ‘til you drop” mindset and, until recently, most players were expected to
remain with their teams for the duration of their careers.
***
The incorporation of businesslike operations into Japanese baseball can be traced to
the pre-World War II era, when the game was beginning to evolve into the quasi-religious
spectacle it would one day become. For decades following the game’s introduction the
game was almost exclusively played on an amateur scale. Nearly every level of the school
system, from Middle school to High school to collegiate, enjoyed immense popularity.
It did not take long for private businesses to recognize the marketing opportunity
that school baseball could provide. Mizuno, Japanese first and largest sporting goods
producer, was the first to organize and sponsor a large-scale middle school tournament in
1913. Two years later, the Osaka Asahi Shimbun, a major newspaper, created the first fully-
national tournament, drastically increasing their distribution, readership, and brand
recognition numbers across the country. The Osaka Mainichi Shimbun quickly organized a
rival tournament – also held at Kōshien Stadium, only in the spring – to counter Asahi’s. In
the years that followed, corporate-sponsored tournaments popped up like dandelions, but
those sponsored by Asahi and Mainichi have evolved into nearly sacred events akin to
national holidays.
Industrial semipro teams also enjoyed immense success during this period. These
clubs were sponsored by successful companies, primarily in the steel and railroad sectors.
The semi-pro teams became the destination for many former college and high school stars.

10. 10
The players continued playing baseball almost full-time, with the assurance of a stable,
comfortable job after their playing days were over. Predictably, industrial teams were
(micro)managed in the same way that any other company employee would be. In this case,
the label “Work ball,” was literal.
***
The industrial semi-pro teams may have occupied the murky grey area between
amateur and employee, but there was little opposition to their continued existence. After
all, they were working for the company. They would join the workforce in due time. They
were working-athletes. The idea of an entirely professional team, let alone a professional
league, worried a number of fans who that play-for-pay would corrupt the integrity of the
game and diminish the purity some associated with amateurism.
In 1935, Matsutaro Shiroki, owner Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, created the first
professional team in Japan. He named it Dai Nippon Tokyo Yaku Kurabu (The Great Japan
Tokyo Baseball Club). Within a year he was able to persuade five other corporations, all
either railways or newspapers, to join his new league. The Japanese Baseball League was
an instant hit, even managing to emerge relatively unscathed after The War ended. The
success of the league reflected the nation’s perseverance and rapid recovery during those
years.
In 1950, the league underwent a transformation. The name was changed from the
Japanese Baseball League to the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) to reflect
national pride and solidarity in the wake of US Occupation - Nippon being the Japanese
name for their country. A team was established in Hiroshima in 1950, just five years after

11. 11
the city was obliterated by the atomic bomb, further reinforced the resiliency of the
Japanese people.
The addition of Hiroshima and six other teams helped solidify the NPB as a
legitimate professional enterprise. Unsurprisingly, the corporate capitalist cultural
explosion that gripped the nation during the years of the Japanese “economic miracle”
became the driving influence behind the way teams and the league itself was and still is
run.
Each team is owned and operated by major corporations, rather than a single owner
as is common in America. For most Major League owners, the team is their foremost
concern, their primary job. Most who own business ventures turn the organization over to
a trusted, experience professional while they focus on the team. Japanese teams are often
considered corporate subsidies, mere tax write-off for their parent companies. They are
run as if they were simply another branch of the company’s overall business operation, just
part of the bigger picture. Owners who have no real affection for the game acquire
organizations for purely promotional purposes. Teams are usually named after their parent
companies, rather than their cities, as is customary in American profession sports. This can
result in some grating and unattractive names such as Nippon-Ham Fighter, SoftBank
Hawks, or DeNA Bay Stars.
That this unabashedly direct method of promotion influences company business is
unquestionable. Whether the effect is always desirable or not is an entirely different
question. The visibility of the companies which own baseball teams and the level to which a
team’s identity is intertwined with that of the company can lead to adverse effects in sales.

12. 12
Statistical studies indicate that, when one team defeats another team – in a playoff series
for example– business in the areas where there is a heavy concentration of fans of the
opposing team plummets temporarily. This principle is evidence tenfold when the
opposing team is the Yomiuri Giants.
The Giants popularity in Japan has been compared to that of the New York Yankees
in America and Manchester United in the English Premier League combined. An estimated
60% of the country identifies as Giants fans. To be a Giants fan is, to many Japanese, like
being a member of an exclusive national club, one that anyone can join.
The effect of the Giant’s status as Japan’s “national team” has helped their parent
corporation, the Yomiuri Group, become the largest media conglomerate in Japan. The
company’s flagship subsidiary, the Yomiuri Shimbun, become the largest circulating
newspaper in the world, with over ten million copies purchased daily. The team’s
relationship with the newspaper allows ownership to create a clean, regal image for the
Giants, which further contributes the people’s love affair with the team.
Organized Cheering – The Oendan
Japanese baseball fans are of a different breed than their U.S. counterparts. The
basic aspects of fandom – pride, loyalty, investment of time and emotion, etc. – are present
in Japanese fans, only amplified substantially. An American baseball fan attending or
watching a Nippon Baseball League game is likely to see more similarities with a Premier
or Champions League soccer match than a Major League Baseball game.
The first and most obvious distinction when watching a game of besoboru in Japan is
the noise. Unlike at U.S. stadiums, where the noise level fluctuates according to what’s

13. 13
happening on the field, Japanese games feature a near-static roar though the duration of
the action. Thousands of men and women with noise-makers, drums, blow-horns, cow
bells, megaphones, and, of course, their vocal chords, drown out nearly all other sound.
They shout encouragement at their favorite players while refraining from insulting the
opposition. Between innings cheerleaders, often accompanied by at least one mascot of
some sort or another, entertain the crown with a performance that is sure to confuse
anyone unfamiliar with modern Japanese culture. Team songs and personalized player
hitting chants are sung over and over beginning prior to the first pitch, continuing
throughout the game and often into the streets after fan pour out of the stadium after
particularly special wins. For example, the chorus team song of the Hanshin Tigers goes:
The wind blows from Mount Rokko
The sun beats high in the sky;
The passion of youth is beautiful,
Oh, glorious Hanshin Tigers.
Ohh . . . ohh . . . ohh . . .
Hanshin Tigers,
Fure . . . fure . . . fure . . .
Hooray . . . hooray . . . hooray.
From “The Hanshin TigersSong”
lyrics by Sonosuke Sato3
At the core of all the ruckus is the oendan, a highly structured and boisterous
cheering section composed mostly of white-collar workers unwinding from a long work
day. Most fans, although highly engaged in the action on the field, tend to watch a game
quietly, “behaving with proverbial Japanese decorum, eschewing the sort of loud and
3 Robert Whiting. You Gotta Have Wa. New York, NY: Random House Publishers, 1988. 111.

14. 14
vulgar conduct common in many U.S. ballparks…Yet, put him in an [oendan]… and he
quickly sheds his traditional restraint…he becomes a veritable wildman, yelling and
screaming for three solid hours.”4
The majority of oendan members are corporate day-workers, seeking a respite from
their grueling jobs. Anyone can join. They are even free to form their own group if they
choose. However, for those with career aspirations who work for a corporation that owns a
NPB club, membership in an oendan is often a requisite for advancement within the
company.
Given these circumstances, it is no surprise to reason that the same sort of order
and group unity that defines Japanese would extend to group cheering. At present, the
number of oendans in Japanese professional baseball is in excess of 230 – the largest of
which has a membership of over 55 thousand fans. While some oendan are less organized
than others, the majority utilize a hierarchical system. At top is the cheerleader, who
usually stands in front of his group with a megaphone and conducts and coordinates the
cheering. Some assign seating and even require members to arrive at the stadium hours
before the game to “practice” their cheers. The oendan hierarchy, excluding those
controlled by corporations, is merit-based. Whoever makes the most noise can improve
their seating, even become cheerleader, regardless of background, age, or gender
(hypothetically, at least.)
4 Robert Whiting. You Gotta Have Wa, New York, NY: Vintage Books, (1989), 113-14.

15. 15
A Sluggish Transition into a New Era
Ask an average oendan member about yakyū-dō and there’s a good chance they’ll be
familiar with it, they may even be a proponent of it, at least in theory. But it is becoming
more and more evident that the modern game and the way it is played is slowly but
inexorably changing. The doryoku to gattsu (blood and guts) mindset and method of
management has by no means, died off. However, it is being toned down due in part to
modern medical advance, Japan’s cultural shift starting in the mid-1980s, and most
importantly, the departure of Japanese players to the MLB.
At the beginning of the 1980s, a new generation of Japanese youth began to emerge.
They were dubbed the shinjin-rui or “New Breed.” They brazenly embraced Western
concepts of individualism while openly rejecting long accepted Japanese cultural values
such as self-sacrifice, subservience to superiors, and unflinching loyalty. The New Breed
infiltrated baseball in Japan, just as they did every other aspect of society. A number of
these players began to stand up to accepted tradition. They questioned the logic (and
sanity) of extreme workouts in which players injured themselves for the sake of building
mental fortitude. They scoffed at blind loyalty, deference to superiors, and advocated
individualism both on and off the field. The banner-men for this new type of ballplayer
were a brash, overweight infielder with a golden bat.
***
Hiromitsu Ochiai is considered by some to be the best Japanese ballplayer of the
1980s. In his nineteen year career, the third baseman would belt over 500 home runs, hit
over .300 ten times and set the single season record for batting average and win three

16. 16
Triple Crowns (all of which he publically predicted prior the season.) He did all of this
while flatly refusing to take part in any of the team training, showing up late to spring
training, and delighted the media with his immodesty.
Ochiai baffled the Japanese. He was a purebred native of Japan, yet he was so-unlike
any other homegrown athlete they’d seen. He had a low threshold for self-denial and
believed in conserving energy for games rather than exhausting himself in pre-game
workouts. While his teammates labored on the hot field and took hundreds of swings
before the game, Ochiai sat on the sideline and relaxed. “I only need ten swings,” he would
tell his manager, and he was always right.
His self-confidence was always on display whenever the talked to the media. He
once caused a stir with his analysis of the Japanese game by telling a reporter:
“The history of Japanese baseball is the history of pitchers throwing until their arms
fall off for the team. It’s crazy. Like dying for your country – doing a banzai yell . . .
with yourlast breath. That mentality is why Japan lost the war. . . . Spirit, effort, those
are words I absolutely cannot stand.”5
Despite Ochiai’s immense success and popularity with the younger generation, very
few players followed his example at the time. A few players, such as Suguru Egawa, the
volatile, outspoken pitching ace for the squeaky clean Giants, diverged from the traditional
mold. But things did not really start to change until a young flamethrower named Hideo
Nomo came along and changed the Japanese game forever.
Nomo was due a new contract from his team, the Kintetsu Buffaloes, following the
conclusion of the 1994 season. Nomo had always dreamed of playing the MLB. He was fed
5 Robert Whiting. You Gotta Have Wa. New York, NY: Random House Publishers, 1988. 203-04

17. 17
up the intensity of Japanese baseball, which prioritized harmony and training over the
health and future of the players. After a heated contract dispute Nomo’s agent, Don
Nomura, exploited a loophole in the outdated Japanese Uniform Players Contract. To this
point, the situation for Japanese baseball players was much the same as that of the
sarariman. Players were expected to remain with the team that had drafted them for the
duration of their careers. Free agency was unheard of. The “voluntary retirement clause,”
as the loophole would be known, made it possible for players to become free-agents if they
declared their retirement. Kintetsu management, unaware of the situation and fed up with
the futility of the contract talks, challenged Nomo to do just that. Nomo enthusiastically did,
then signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Initially, the Japanese sports press were outraged by Nomo’s bait-and-switch. They
labelled him an “ingrate,” a “traitor,” even gaijin (Japanese for “outsider” or “foreigner.”)
But when the MLB season began the Japanese sports media began singing a different tune.
Nomo was extremely successful as a rookie. He won Rookie of the Year, made the All-Start
team, and finished fourth in Cy Young voting. Suddenly, Nomo was a source of Japanese
pride, a national hero. A scene which would become familiar in the years to come played
out around Nomo. The Japanese media fawned over him and throngs of journalist followed
him, documenting his every move. It appeared that he had open Pandora’s Box, but only a
crack.
The NPB reformed and rewrote the rules for player contracts, allowing certain
players to leave for the United States after a prescribed amount of years playing in Japan.
Teams who wish to talk to a player were to pay an exorbitant fee to the Japanese team

18. 18
currently holding his rights. The massive sums of money that this “posting system”
required MLB clubs to divulge for the possibility of signing a player has not stopped them
from signing Japanese stars.
Some of the biggest stars in Japanese baseball have made the leap. Ichiro Suzuki, one
of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball at any level, became the first position
players from Japan to go the Majors. He signed with the Seattle Mariners in 2001. In his
first season he would lead the Mariners to the best record in the history of professional
baseball (116-46) while leading the league in hits, batting average and stolen bases, making
the All-Star team, winning Rookie of the Year, a Gold Glove, and being named the league’s
Most Valuable Player. He set the single-season record for most hits in a season in 2004 and
is poised to pass the 3,000 hit mark in the Majors and Pete Rose for all-time combined hits
record this upcoming season.
Despite the enormous Major League success of Nomo, Ichiro and players like Hideki
Matsui, the rate at which are players leaving Japan has been more of a trickle than the
deluge that some expected. Since 1995, fifty-nine Japanese players have played in the
Majors, a rate of just 2.38 players per year. In 2015 the well appeared to temporarily dry up
when, for the first time since Nomo, no player made the jump. Granted, a number of
extenuating circumstances contributed to this conspicuous absence but it is indicative of
the fact that not all players have abandoned the old ways of loyalty, dedication, and yakyū-
dō.

19. 19
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Documents
Japanese Sources
Ikei, Masaru, “The Ichiro Effect,” New YorkTimes, July 9, 2001.
Marantz, Ken “Clash of young starstakes center stage Matsui, Ichiro whip up frenzy for Series,” Daily
Yomiuri, October 19, 1996.
Marantz, Ken “Seibu’s Matsui caught MLB skipper’s eye,” Daily Yomiuri, November 17, 1998.
NikeeiWeekly editors, “Japanese baseball revived by record breakingslugger: Ichiro bringsfans back to
the game with hittingstreak,” Nikkei Weekly, September 26, 1994.
Other Sources
Curry, Jack “Stepfather says Irabu isthe Son of an American,” New YorkTimes, July 15, 1997.
Eisenbath, Mike, “Assaultsand batteriesaside, Suzuki hittingearlystride,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April
15, 2001.
Engel, Mac and Ridder, Knight, “’The Japanese Elvis’ enjoys American stage; 1st position player from
Japan in Majors relisheshis ‘space,’” Washington Post, April 15, 2001.
Hickey, John, “To get hitsor to get hits; Japan’sIchiro Suzuki may find hisstyle painful,” Hamilton
Spectator, March 16, 2001.
Jacob, Mark, “Pro baseball going through a slump in Japan,” Chicago Tribune, August 6, 2006.
McKenna, Barrie, “Sun startingto rise on Japanes baseball, Big-league teamsexpect influx of talent to
increase substantiallyveryshortly,” Globe and Mail (Canada), July 14, 1999.
Peterson, Gary, “Expertsbat .000 against Ichiro,” Contra Costa Times, June 20, 2001.
Weber, Rick, “The importance of beingIchiro,” Scotland on Sunday, September 30, 2001.
Vancouver Providence editors,“Ichiro picks up the lingo,” Vancouver Providence, July 10, 2001.
Secondary Sources
Brown, Bill. “Waging Baseball, PlayingWar: Gamesof American Imperialism.”In Cultural Critique. vol. 1,
no. 17. Minneapolis,MN: Universityof Minnesota Press, Winter 1991-1992.
Fitts,Robert K. Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game. Carbondale, Illinois:
Southern IllinoisUniversityPress,2005.
Fitts,Robert K. Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan.
Lincoln, NE: Universityof Nebraska Press,2012.
Fitts,Robert K. Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major
Leaguer. Lincoln, NE: Universityof Nebraska Press,2015.
Fitts,Robert K. Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball. Lincoln, NE: Universityof
Nebraska Press,2008.

20. 20
Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri. TranspacificField of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the United States and Japan in
Peace and War. Chapel Hill, NC: Universityof North Carolina Press, 2012.
Ikei, Masaru. “Baseball, ‘Besuboru, Yakyu’” Comparingthe American and Japanaese Games,”In Indiana
Journal of Global Legal Studies. vol. 8, no. 1. Edited by Masaru Ikei. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press,2000.
Kelly, William W. “Blood and Gutsin Japanese Professional Baseball,”in The Culture of Japan as Seen
Through its Leisure. Edited bySepp Linhard and Sabine Fruhstuck. Albany, NY: State Universityof New
York Press, (1998), _____________
Kelly, William W. “Caught in the Spin Cycle: An Anthropological Observer at the Sitesof Japanese
Professional Baseball,”in Moving targets: Ethnographies of self and community in Japan. Edited by S.O.
Long. Ithica, NY: Cornell UniversityPress, (2000)_________
Kelly, William W. “The Hanshin Tigers & Japanese Professional Baseball,”in Baseball Without Boarders:
The International Pastime. Edited byGeorge Gmelch. Lincoln, NE: Universityof Nebraska Press,(2006),
22-42.
Kelly, William W. “SamuraiBaseball: The Vicissitudesof National SportingStyle,” in The International
Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 26, no. 3. Oxfordshire, UK: Taylor and FrancisPublishing, Winter 2009,
429-441.
Kelly, William W. “Sense and Sensibilityat the Ballpark: What FansMake of Professional Baseball in
Modern Japan,” in Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan. Edited by
William W. Kelly. Albany, NY: State Universityof New York Press,(2004), 79-106.
Kelly, William W. “The Spirit and Spectacle of School Baseball – Mass Media, Statemaking, and ‘Edu-
tainment’in Japan, 1905-1935,”in Senri Ethnological Studies 52. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology,
2000, 105-115.
Miller, Aaron L. “Bushidō in Japanese Sports,” in Japan at War: An Encyclopedia. Edited byLouis G. Perez.
Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-ClioPublishing, (2013), 47-48.
Roden, Donald. “Baseball and the Quest for National Dignityin Meiji Japan,” in The American Historical
Review, vol. 85, no. 3. Oxford, UK: Oxford UniversityPress(June 2004), 511-534.
Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri. TraspacificField of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the US and Japanese in Peace.
Chapel Hill, NC: Universityof North Carolina Press, 2012.
Whiting, Robert. You Gotta Have Wa, New York, New York: Random House Publishing, 2009.
Whiting, Robert. The Samurai Way of Baseball: The Impact of Ichiro and the New Wave from Japan. New
York, New York: Time Warner Book Group, 2005.
Whiting, Robert. The Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style. New York, New York: Avon
Books, 1983.
Zeiler, ThomasW. Ambassadors in Pinstripes: The Spalding World Baseball Tour and the Birth of the
American Empire. Plymouth, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2006.