Boys of Summer Reading: The Meaning of Ichiro

Music has Madonna and Cher, cinema had Bogey and Marilyn, but since the demise of the Babe baseball has had few one-named superstars - at least until Ichiro arrived. Although Fox television announcer Tim McCarver still wages a subtle rhetorical war against Ichiro’s own jersey – the announcer carefully enunciates “Suzuki” each time the Mariner right-fielder makes a play – it is somewhat ironic that McCarver’s is nearly the only one whose tradition remains hide-bound. Despite Japan’s own reputation of being devoted to tradition, it was this fresh face from that country that broke the major league taboo against players having their jerseys stenciled with their first names.

Today, nearly everyone else in sports embraces the one-namer from Japan, reflecting the timeliness of Robert Whiting’s recently released book The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of our National Pastime. Ichiro has left his mark on the sports culture in America, and Whiting has thoughtfully gauged Ichiro’s impact on the game. But the book is more than just an analysis of Ichiromania, Robert Whiting writes a follow-up to his 1980 bestseller, You Gotta Have Wa, where he alerted the average American to the brand of baseball being played across the sea in Japan.

In his new book, Whiting gives a Cliffs Notes version of his 1980 tome, then recaps the last 20 years of baseball in Japan. He chronicles the defection of Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu, as well as other events that culminated in the release of Ichiro upon the unsuspecting U.S. baseball world. The book first looks Ichiro’s formative years, then finishes with the rise (and sometimes fall) of other Japanese stars in the MLB.

The book’s strength is the extensiveness of Whiting’s research, which yields references from interviews with Japanese Professional Baseball (JPB) insiders, media figures, school coaches, and also draws from extensive writings by Ichiro’s father. The description of Ichiro’s childhood is worth the price of the book alone. The sheer willpower displayed by both father and young son is the stuff that amazes both Americans and Japanese alike: 5-6 hours a day of batting and pitching drills from the age of seven until middle school at the age of 12, 360 days a year.

Whiting also does a good job explaining the origin of Ichiro’s cool demeanor – the bushido-like training instilled by his father, which stressed balance and concentration. This training may be at the heart of a recent vintage Ichiro quote, in which he responds to a question about his astronomical .390 career batting average for the month of May. “In April you are so excited to get playing the game,” Ichiro said. “Your body sometimes can’t catch up to the way you feel. In May, your feelings are together. It’s a good balance. You can just naturally go out and play the game.”

Whiting’s book is most impressive in its grasp of the relation of baseball to Japanese society. Like its 1980 predecessor, the book details the assimilation of baseball in Japan in the mid to late 1800s. From the beginning, baseball has been a mirror of the tendencies of Japanese society. Whiting writes about the development of seishin yakyu (spirit baseball) where players were rigorously trained in an attempt to instill inner strength (much like a martial art). This development coincided with societal backlash against Western ideology in the late 1800s. In contrast to the American game, Whiting writes that the game in Japan has developed over the years to emphasize harmony at the expense of individual glory. The sacrifice bunt, recently the subject of much scorn in America’s rising class of statistical baseball analysts, is viewed as one of the most significant stats a player can accumulate. Whiting describes the breaking of the sac bunt record in Japan as a celebration on a scale similar to Cal Ripken’s eclipse of Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. Player attitudes reflect the tendencies in Japanese society; no one complains about pay, threatens to strike, or even argues publicly with management. Consider it as if major league baseball had thirty Seattle Mariner-like ballclubs, where clean-cut groups of non-complaining players lay down sac bunts willy-nilly. Anyone complaining about the situation is no longer dealt with or shipped out (e.g., Jeff Nelson).

Of course, the whole romantic collectivist dream doesn’t quite hold true – either in Japanese baseball, or in Japanese society itself. In the book’s endnotes, Whiting mentions that scholars have begun to refute the stereotype of Japan as a mass of homogenous thinkers marching along to the same drum. The stereotype indeed grows less accurate each year. More individualistic tendencies and the effect of imported cultures have begun to diversify the society. Indeed, it is likely that the changes in Japanese baseball over the past decade or so – most notably the incorporation of limited free agency – reflects a bit of the change seen in the last few years in Japanese society. Even the crumbling of the Japanese Professional Baseball League’s (JPB) resolve to keep Japanese talent on Japanese shores, although partly a result of economic pressures coupled with the success of Hideo Nomo’s defection, can be interpreted as a reflection of a rise in individualism in Japanese society.

Whiting shows an in-depth knowledge of Japanese society and a keen grasp of the Japanese character. His thesis about the future of baseball in Japan is worth reading. Unfortunately, his discussion of how Japanese players have impacted the American major leagues lacks the insights offered by the sabermetric revolution. Whiting trumpets the successes of the NPB’s brightest stars in the MLB, but he gauges the success of Hideki Matsui and Ichiro primarily the traditional stats of batting average and RBI, then salts his opinion with more qualitative – and more questionable – measurements, such as the “ability to move a runner over.”

Though spoken of highly in the book, Hideki Matsui’s initial season was actually barely more than disaster. Signed on as the Japanese Sammy Sosa and expected to put up power numbers, Godzilla’s 2003 line of .287/.353/.435 was respectable, but hardly worth the hype – not to mention the $7 million he was paid. Hideki is playing better this year, but still isn’t really showcasing anything extraordinary. Is nevertheless startling to consider that Japan’s best slugger over the past decade managed a measly .788 OPS in his first year in the majors.

Kazuo Matsui, also touted in Whiting’s book, appears to be meeting a similar fate as Hideki Matsui. Perhaps unfairly marketed as, in Time Magazine’s words, “the Alex Rodriguez of the Japanese game,” he has struggled to show power in his first 70 games, posting a line of .255/.329/.381. The future impact of Japanese players in the MLB will hinge largely on Hideki and Kazuo Matsui’s ability to turn around their games and prove they can put up power numbers. If they are unable to show the ability to adjust after spending a year or two in the league, the scouting and recruiting in Japan will likely dry up, and the Japanese presence in the big leagues will not expand at the dramatic clip predicted by some coaches, players, and even Whiting himself. The Japanese brand of baseball will also unlikely make any lasting impression on the way the game is played in America; anyone hoping for a revival of the sacrifice bunt and the player respectful of management had better start cheering for a Matsui to make his presence felt.

That leaves us with a return to Ichiro, who, at 71 games into the season, has a line of .318/.370/.399. Nothing to be ashamed of and many clubs would love to have him, but a SLG of .399 and an OBP of .370 is not the type of numbers expected of a right fielder commanding a contract of $11 million dollars a year beginning in 2005. Many teams consider right field to be a team’s power position, and as fun as it can be to watch Ichiro play, he isn’t going to single-handedly win a whole lot of games for a club. It is clear from the Mariners’ present travails that Ichiro is cannot solely fill the role of “sparkplug” for the Mariners’ offensive scheme. Instead, he is an excellent singles hitter who needs younger versions of Edgar Martinez, Bret Boone, or John Olerud batting behind him to drive him in.

So where will the impact of Japanese players be felt in the coming years? From a cultural perspective, baseball’s captivation with Ichiro will wear off, with the process already being accelerated due to the Mariners’ misfortunes and the two Matsui’s ho-hum performances. From an economic perspective, a Japanese player’s value to a ballclub will wear off as the novelty of a Japanese player in America wears off and tourism from Japan drops.

With all of these points in mind, it is difficult to forecast any lasting impact of Japanese hitters in the MLB, which probably explains why Whiting’s book astutely focuses more on the negative effect on the NPB of losing Japanese players. Though Whiting predicts that a comeback of team-oriented, small-ball will enter into the MLB, that is harder to see. Especially since a poor track record of Japanese hitters will drive away potential MLB bidders from the NPB, especially since Japanese players will always command premium free-agent dollars.

On the other hand, Whiting is right to point out that Japanese pitchers continue to excel in the MLB, and probably will in the future. The best pitchers in Japan are more than capable of playing in the MLB. Nomo, Tomo Ohka, and Kaz Ishii have all shown that they are worthy of a rotation spot on nearly any club, and Japanese relievers have also shown All-Star caliber success. Compared to training regimens in Japan, the relative ease in America on a pitcher’s arm and the subsequent increase in career length are bound to drive more Japanese pitchers to these shores. It is here that we may feel the largest impact in the American game, especially if pitcher comes who can throw the shouto baru, the gyroball. It’s only a matter of time. When it happens, gyro-mania will rival Ichiro-mania for the amount of column-inches expended in fine sports publications.

In sum, The Meaning of Ichiro is a good read, particularly if you’ve missed out on The Meaning of Wa or have an interest in understanding some of the complexities of Japanese culture. But unless recent Japanese imports start living up to their hype, it’s best to not place much stock in his predictions regarding how the game will be affected in the States.