Books

Here's a selection of books about Japanese baseball and the players who have done so much to raise the profile of yakyu in the United States, plus the latest edition of Wayne Graczyk's indispensable fan handbook and media guide. Most items on this page are sold In association with Amazon.com, and separate ordering and shipping rules apply.

2010 Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide
Compiled by Wayne Graczyk

Our Price: $16.95 (including shipping)

Editorial review: The Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide is the complete and only English-language guide to Japanese baseball. Now in its 35th year of publication. The book includes essential information such as 2010 league and team directories, schedules, team rosters, player photos, stadium diagrams, 2009 statistics, foreign player profiles and much more. Full color. Pre-order now for delivery in early April.

Price includes standard shipping from Japan.

2009 Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide
Compiled by Wayne Graczyk

Our Price: $16.95 (including shipping)

Editorial review: The Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide is the complete and only English-language guide to Japanese baseball. Now in its 34th year of publication. The book includes essential information such as 2009 league and team directories, schedules, team rosters, player photos, stadium diagrams, 2008 statistics, foreign player profiles and much more. Full color.

Price includes standard shipping from Japan.

Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide (back issues 1988-2008) Compiled by Wayne Graczyk

Our Price: $8.95 (direct)

Editorial review: The Japan Pro Baseball Fan Handbook & Media Guide is the complete and only English-language guide to Japanese baseball. The book includes essential information such as league and team directories, schedules, team rosters, player photos, stadium diagrams, statistics, foreign player profiles and much more.

Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball
Robert Fitts

Our Price: $26.95 $17.79

Editorial review: Wally Yonamine was both the first Japanese American to play for an NFL franchise and the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. This is the unlikely story of how a shy young man from the sugar plantations of Maui overcame prejudice to integrate two professional sports in two countries. In 1951 the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants chose Yonamine as the first American to play in Japan during the Allied occupation. He entered Japanese baseball when mistrust of Americans was high—and higher still for Japanese Americans whose parents had left the country a generation earlier. Without speaking the language, he helped introduce a hustling style of base running, shaking up the game for both Japanese players and fans. Along the way, Yonamine endured insults, dodged rocks thrown by fans, initiated riots, and was threatened by yakuza (the Japanese mafia). He also won batting titles, was named the 1957 MVP, coached and managed for twenty-five years, and was honored by the emperor of Japan. Overcoming bigotry and hardship on and off the field, Yonamine became a true national hero and a member of Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame.

Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written about the Game
Nanae Tamura (Editor), Cor van den Heuvel (Editor)

Our Price: $19.95 $13.57

Editorial review: Introduced to Japan in 1872, the quintessentially American game of baseball has inspired more than a century of poetry written on both sides of the Pacific in the quintessentially Japanese literary form of the haiku. An appropriately international partnership of editors-translators--one American, one Japanese--here bring readers a marvelous sampling of these haiku. Including work from 15 Japanese masters (including the acclaimed Masoaka Shiki) and 30 American poets (including the Beat genius Jack Kerouac), this anthology delivers unforgettable baseball experiences in striking imagery. Light rain raising puffs of dust from the infield, a drooping flag cueing a manager to shift his outfielders, a cricket serenading an outfielder in his lonely vigil--these and scores of other baseball moments live forever in the tight compression of these poems. The natural fit between baseball and haiku (and the closely related senryu) comes into historical and conceptual focus in an insightful introduction and afterword, where van den Heuvel ponders this cross-cultural intersection. A rare book, appealing to both die-hard fan and literary critic.

Sayonara Home Run!: The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card
John Gall and Gary Engel

Our Price: $18.95 $14.21

Customer review: Vintage Japanese baseball cards are among the most beautiful baseball collectibles in the world. I discovered these treasures over ten years ago during a trip to Japan and became an avid collector. My passion for the cards eventually led to a on-line card business and a career as a baseball writer. John Gall and Gary Engel's new book Sayanara Homerun! depicts hundreds, if not thousands, of theese beautiful cards. The book's presentation is wonderful. Cards are gracefully portrayed as art but the accompanying text will statisfy both baseball card collectors and fans of Japanese baseball.

If you are an American baseball cards collector, come see what you are missing. If you a fan of Japanese baseball, come see great pictures of your favorite stars.

I spend hours paging through this book and expect that you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Suitcase Sefton and the American Dream
Jay Feldman

Our Price: $22.95 $22.95

Customer review: Baseball, a beautiful girl, and a made-it-to-the-Show protagonist in search of meaning--what else is there? This book has it all. A plot which finds us driving the American south of 1942 scouting for star baseball players also offers a fascinating perspective on Japanese American life during the time of internment camps. Through Feldman's often lyrical prose, we face first-hand both racism run amok as well as the depth of human compassion and the intricate struggle for equality. But it is the personal story of loss and discovery that gives the book its greatest energy. Sefton, himself, is endearing, bumbling through what seems to be a first love, and always sincere. As rich are the characterizations of the Yamada family. It was spring, so I read Suitcase Sefton to celebrate the season. But I came away with a great deal more--enough to last through all the seasons of the human heart and wit.

Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History Of The Game
Robert K. Fitts

Our Price: $19.95 $17.95

Customer review: This is a very welcome addition to the growing literature on Japanese baseball. Oral history is hard work, but unlike the daily quotes of player pablum that fill newspaper game reports, reflections over long careers are often informative and moving (even if occasionally self-serving). The real virtues of this collection are the range of baseball people that Fitts was able to get to open up (from outstanding stars to working stiffs, from players to coaches, managers, and executives) and the range over time (with representative stories from six decades of Japanese professional baseball). Some of the most powerful chapters evoke the difficulties of Japanese-American players in the 1950s. Such range is extraordinarily valuable in demonstrating the surprising breadth of baseball experiences. It's a collection that instructs both the devotee and the neophyte to Japanese baseball lore.

Godzilla Takes the Bronx : The Inside Story of Hideki Matsui
Jerry Beach

Our Price: $24.95 $24.95

Customer review: As a loyal Yankee fan that was present for Matsui's historic performance on Opening Day 2003, the final game of the World Series, and many games in between, I highly enjoyed this book. Jerry Beach does a very good job of making the many unforgettable moments of Matsui's first year in pinstripes come to life. Dubbed Godzilla by his adoring fans back home, Matsui's signing with the N.Y. Yankees was international news. Beach's book takes us step-by-step through what it took to make such a deal happen, how fans and industry insiders on both continents took the news, and the subsequent season that had more ups and downs than your average roller coaster. Whether you're an avid Yankee fan, a fan of the Japanese phenom, or just a baseball fan that enjoys a good baseball book, this one is the one to get.

You Gotta Have Wa
Robert Whiting

Our Price: $14.95 $10.17

Customer review: Longtime Japan resident and journalist Robert Whiting's classic book on Japanese baseball is as fresh today as when it was published. The book begins with the arrival of Bob Horner, a 29-year-old bonafide all star who was still in his prime when he arrived to play for the Yakult Swallows. Waiting for him when he landed at Narita Airport were 200 journalists, a team owner who confidently predicted--and expected--that the overweight Horner would hit 50 home runs (Horner was assigned the number 50 on his uniform as a not so subtle reminder), and a year contract worth $2 million. What Horner did not know was how different yakyu (literally, field ball) would be from the baseball he knew in America. The regimentation of Japanese teams, the rules governing many aspects of life both on the field and off--and the adjustment of moving around the world to live in a very different culture--had been and still is the undoing of many players. Whiting's work is about more than baseball and sports; it is about how Japan and Japanese approach things, how that which is imported must first be Japanized. Highly recommended.

The Samurai Way of Baseball: The Impact of Ichiro and the New Wave from Japan
Robert Whiting

Our Price: $21.99 $19.79

Customer review: In this book, Whiting revisits the experience of Japanese baseball, only this time through the eyes of Japanese players playing in the US. The biographies are well-written and focused as Whiting chooses to elaborate only on the most interesting or most pivotal points of each player's experience. But perhaps most impressive is Whiting's balanced understanding of race, racism, and nationalism on both the Japanese and American sides of the Pacific. Whiting doesn't pull any punches when addressing these issues but then again he doesn't hit harder than is warranted.

I particularly liked this book because it covers the period of time during which I've been a resident of Japan (96 to present). While the earlier title "You Gotta Have Wa" was an excellent read, it felt a bit dated to me as it descibes an earlier period I never experienced firsthand. Japan has changed a bit since the bubble days and in this book Whiting manages to concisely convey many of those changes through several viewpoints. I highly recommend it even if you've already read "Wa."