Forfatter billede

Om forfatteren

Robert K. Fitts is the author of Wally Yonamine (Nebraska, 2006) and Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game.

Værker af Robert K. Fitts

Satte nøgleord på

Almen Viden

Køn
male

Medlemmer

Anmeldelser

A fine and well researched book about a player who was once little more than a SABR entry level trivia question. Mr. Fitts hit it out of (a tiny - RF power alley avg. 349', CF avg 395', LF power alley avg. 346') Japanese park.
 
Markeret
JNSelko | Apr 20, 2016 |
A true story offering a very interesting mix of history, diplomacy, politics, and baseball.
 
Markeret
Sullywriter | May 22, 2015 |
This is the sort of book that I usually really enjoy: old baseball players telling stories about the game and their life in it, and afterwards. The twist here, of course, is that this one is on Jpaanese baseball, rather than American, which certainly does make for a change. On the plus side, all of the stories are new; on the minus side, I think the focus is really in the wrong place. If we're talking about Japanese baseball, maybe it would make sense for the focus to be on the Japanese experience. Instead, the focus is mostly on the foreign players.

Sure, Fitts starts at the advent of pro Japanese baseball, with Cappy Harada, who helped get the whole system off the ground, and then had interviews with famous Japanese players like Nakanishi Futoshi and Iwamoto Takashi, along with the first nisei in the league, Hall of Famer Wally Yonamine. And you do get some interesting insights about how life was early on - they did get paid much, travel was really hard, in sleeper train cars where they were on the sleeping on the floor, etc. The view of the Yomiuri Giants, where the ones on it thought it was great and helped them, and the others thought it was better for them that they were on a different team, was interesting, too.

But the focus of most of the book was on the foreign players, even from early on. First it was with the nisei players, and then many of the foreign players. It's not that they didn't get interesting, famous foreign players - they got Boomer Wells, they got Orestes Destrade, they got Leron Lee, etc. It's that past the first few Japanese players, they basically have very little contact with that side of the game. They have Murakami Masanori, but he's largely of interest because he was the first Japanese player in the major leagues; and they have Mori Masaaki, but more in the manager's role. I'd really have liked one where we get the stories of the actual Japanese players; as it is, the story of Japanese baseball is a bit skewed. Maybe they have a book like that in Japanese; they should get one for English, as well.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
WinterFox | Jan 1, 2009 |

Hæderspriser

Statistikker

Værker
9
Medlemmer
93
Popularitet
#200,859
Vurdering
3.8
Anmeldelser
3
ISBN
16

Diagrammer og grafer