Category: Articles
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After quake and tsunami, public split on baseball’s return to Japan
by Robert Whiting (Apr 11, 2011) – Sports Illustrated Besuboru is finally back in Japan, after a delay caused by the worst earthquake in the nation’s history and an ensuing tsunami that ravaged Northeastern Honshu. The Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) launches its season on April 12, 15 days later than scheduled, and Nippon leaders…
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The Fans in Japan: Why they’re happy when baseball players go on strike
by Robert Whiting (Sep 29, 2004) – Slate They said it would never happen: A baseball strike in harmony-conscious Japan? Yet two weeks ago, after lobbying unsuccessfully to block the proposed merger of two of the country’s 12 professional baseball teams, the Nippon Professional Baseball Players Association walked out for the first time in 70…
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Pitching From Behind: The sad road of Japanese pitcher Hideki Irabu
by Robert Whiting (Aug 1, 2011) – Slate Last week, former New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead in his Southern California home, having apparently hanged himself. The 42-year-old Irabu, a baseball sensation in his home country of Japan, had a short, tumultuous career in the United States. In his 2004 book The Meaning of…
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Billion Dollar Blueprint
Robert Whiting (May 8, 2012) Money. Money. Money. MLB is rolling in it, as indicated by the recent sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers for an astonishing $2 billion, an all time record for a major league team. The $2 billion figure is more than double the previous record for an MLB franchise sale, which…
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Tobaku
Robert Whiting (Oct 21, 2015) I have been reading with interest about the gambling scandal in professional baseball. Kyojinfarm team pitcher Fukuda has admitted he bet on baseball and has lost a considerable amount of money at it in the process. A couple of weeks later, two other players on the ni-gun(the farm team) followed suit. An…
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Otani and Nippon Ham
Robert Whiting (Dec 9, 2012) Congratulations to Nippon Ham for making a successful attempt to convince Shohei Otani to stay in Japan instead of going to the MLB as he earlier vowed to do. It had been widely believed that Otani was going to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers, after he said he would…
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‘Besuboru’ Booming in Japan
Robert Whiting (March 1983) “This country has got its national flag all wrong,” remarked one bemused visitor from New York recently during his brief stay in Japan. “Instead of the Rising Sun in the center, there should be a baseball.” The multitude of American tourists who annually visit Japan find the same amazing phenomenon: a…
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The Umpire Strikes Out
Robert Whiting (Jun 23, 1997) In these days of “borderless” nations, few Americans blink at the idea of a Japanese baseball player like Hideki Irabu crossing the Pacific to pitch for the New York Yankees. But another transoceanic story is a reminder that globalization of the baseball diamond hasn’t ended national antics in the game.…
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Equaling Oh’s HR record proved difficult (part 3 of 3)
Robert Whiting (Oct 31, 2008) The one big black mark on Sadaharu Oh’s reputation was, of course, the unsportsmanlike behavior of the pitchers on his team whenever foreign batsmen threatened his single season home run record of 55. The phenomenon had first surfaced in 1985, when American Randy Bass playing for the Hanshin Tigers, who…
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Oh’s career sparkled with achievements as player, manager (part 2 of 3)
Robert Whiting (Oct 30, 2008) I watched Sadaharu Oh through much of his career with the Yomiuri Giants, living as I did in Tokyo, first as a student, then as an employee in a Japanese company and after that as a journalist. During that time it was impossible to miss what was going on with…
Tokyo Junkie 