Images courtesy of Robert Klevens; www.prestigecollectibles.com 22 ANS OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL IN THE U.S. no longer blink when a talented Japanese player F arrives and makes an immediate impact on the game. Ichiro Suzuki is a record-setting, first-ballot Hall of Famer who became a fan favorite in Seattle. Hideki Matsui was a superb all-around player who helped the New York Yankees win the 2009 World Series. Koji Uehara is a lights-out closer who played a key role in the Boston Red Sox World Series victory in 2013. Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka are young pitchers with immense talent and nasty fastballs. In all, a dozen Japanese players compete in the major leagues today. A mask featuring legendary star player and manager of Yomiuri Giants, Tetsuharu kawakami. NOT FOR HEAVILY RESTRICTIVE FREE-AGENT rules in Japan, there would undoubtedly be more. The long-held belief that Japanese players were less talented than their American counterparts has been supplanted by respect for the quality of Japanese baseball. And yet, some of the cultural aspects of the Japanese game remain entrenched. Like twins separated at birth, Japanese baseball and American baseball share many traits. Both emerged in the late 19th century in their respective countries — born in the U.S.A. and transplanted to Japan by American ed- ucators living in Tokyo. Both gained popularity during a period of industrialization and urban growth. The game itself, mesmerizingly complex, graceful and replete with bursts of exciting action spaced between strategic and sometimes achingly slow intervals of inaction, held a tantalizing allure for fans in both countries. Played on open green fields under wide blue professional leagues emerged in the late 1800s, and skies, surrounded by grandstands baseball quickly became the national pastime, revered filled with cheering men, women in cities east of the Mississippi and populated with and children, baseball took on a players who became fan idols. Stars like Cy Young, profundity that spurred deep al- Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner emerged as baseball legiances, impassioned excitement, prospered, and their worship became a foundational literary tributes and a hold on the element of the American game. The team mattered, players and the watchers that de- and winning was paramount, but the individual players fied simple explanations. had a unique stage on which to display their skills and The American love affair bask in success. Owners trying to cultivate fan interest with baseball has been well understood the attraction and influence of these star documented. Less well known is players and did everything to encourage their distinc- the Japanese obsession with the tive popularity. game, which many observers and Conversely, in Japan, the game, like the nation’s scholars point out is perfectly culture, embodied collectivism over individualism, and suited to a culture that has long discipline and loyalty instead of wealth and celebrity. praised baseball’s martial arts – In Japan, professional baseball leagues didn’t appear like discipline, its selfless spirit until 1935. Until then, the game was confined to high and moral code, and its bright school and college teams and local industrial leagues. illumination of humility and According to Sayuri Guthrie Shimizu, a history dedication. professor at Rice University and author of “Transpacific The game and its basic tenets were Field of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the United States Above, th Suishu Tobita, the same, but at the end of the 19 and Japan in Peace and War,” Japanese collegiate teams a formative century, these two baseball ideologies began touring Hawaii and the U.S. mainland in the early manager in early took divergent paths. In America, 20th century. And because the Japanese game developed 20th-century Japan who became known as the “god “Baseball is more than just a game. It has eternal of Japanese value. Through it, one learns the beautiful and baseball.” noble spirit of Japan.” — Suishu Tobita 24 Sadaharu Oh, the “Homerun king” of Japan. as a school and company sport, “it was very firmly based on a regimented structure, and the emphasis was on the group accomplishment as opposed to individual stars.” Indeed, high school baseball, while an integral part of America’s game, is not remotely as popular as its Japanese counterpart. The annual Koshien high school OBERT WHITING, an American writer who has tournament, played each August before packed stadiums lived in Japan for much of the past four decades, of often weeping fans, has been described, in terms of has written extensively about Japanese baseball and has popularity, as a combination of the World Series and authored several books on the subject, including the the Super Bowl. While the games are being played, more 1989 best-seller “You Gotta Have Wa.” than 60 percent of Japan’s TV sets will be tuned in. Whiting’s insight into the Japanese game is widely When the pro leagues began, Japan had its stars, admired. In “You Gotta Have Wa,” he pointed out, “The but the philosophy and execution of the game bespoke United States and Japan have had a long relationship a vastly different cultural attitude. In Japan, the game marked by a clash of values: American individualism on came to mirror the national identity and moral phi- the one side, the Japanese focus on wa, or harmony, on losophy inextricably tied to Japan’s pride in itself. the other, as well as a contrasting work ethic.” 25 Over time, in a culture where the group supersedes the individual in so many aspects of life, Japanese baseball came to epitomize many tenets that the Japanese hold dear. In Japan, the saying goes, “the tallest nail gets hammered first,” and on a baseball diamond, there was little room or tolerance for the kind of individualism displayed by Americans like Dizzy Dean or Barry Bonds. Selflessness, discipline, backbreaking hard work and practice, respect for the team and the manager, the deep belief in saving face — all are woven into the tapestry of Japanese baseball, even to this day. Given Japan’s geography and history, its cultural identity is tied to mores built upon centuries of isolation, homogeneity and a large population living in limited space. Japan, an archipelago made up of four main islands, is home to 126 million people. But more than 80 percent of the archipelago is mountainous and un- inhabitable. So the population inhabits just 4 percent of the land area, which means a population density of 850 people per square mile, compared to 58 people per square mile in the U.S. Forced to live in congested urban areas, the Japanese long ago learned that harmony was based upon cooperation and conformity. Despite its isolation, Japan became adept at importing foreign culture after Commodore Perry pushed open the closed Japanese markets in 1854. In so doing, the nation was able to industrialize and adopt such foreign passions as baseball. In fact, Japanese collectivism may well have arisen from simple pragmatism. For example, a recent University of Virginia study published this year in Science found that people from rice- growing regions such as Japan “think in more interdependent and holistic ways than do those from wheat-growing areas.” According to the study, “it takes much more cooperation and overall effort to grow rice than wheat. To successfully plant and harvest rice, farmers must work together to build complex irrigation systems and set up labor exchanges. Over time, this need for teamwork fosters an interdependent and collectivist psychology. East Asian nations like Japan and South Korea have a long history of rice-growing, and their populations are more interdependent and less individualistic than those of other countries with comparable wealth.” According to Fred E. Jandt in “An Introduction to Intercul- tural Communications,” “The Japanese do not have the same perception of self as an individual that is typical in the United States; instead, the Japanese feel most comfortable with others who empathize. To be completely understood, people have to cooperate in the same context, and in doing so, there can be no differentiation of individuals. In such an extremely homo- geneous society, you are not seen as an individual, nor do you regard individualism as a positive trait.” If selflessness was born in the rice fields, it was on the baseball field that it came to be exemplified. While the cultural founda- tion of its people surely had some role in shaping Japanese base- ball and its team-first view, the game had its own philosopher/ managers who played a role in its development. According to Whiting, for example, post-war Japan and later the legendary Suishu Tobita helped crystallize such manager of the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s thinking in Japanese baseball when he answer to the New York Yankees. Under became coach of the Waseda University Kawakami, the Giants won 11 Japan Series team in 1919. Tobita “believed that championships in 14 years, including nine players should love their teams in the in a row from 1965 to 1973. According way that one loved one’s hometown or to Whiting, Kawakami created a widely one’s country, that they should show The u.S. is a copied managerial philosophy called kanri total allegiance and obedience to their land where yakyu (controlled or managed baseball) that manager and that they should never, ever the stubborn combined Zen Buddhist principles with complain,” Whiting wrote. “He compared individualist Machiavellian tactics. baseball to Bushido, the way of the is honored As a manager, Kawakami took over Samurai in which only morally correct and where his players’ lives, on and off the field. He athletes could excel, and saw Zen ramifi- instructed players’ wives what to cook and cations in the sport.” “doing your feed their husbands and told them to shut Tobita himself said, “The purpose of own thing” off the TV sets in the evening so they would training is not health but the forging of is a motto of get enough sleep.