Category: Articles
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Unfair Trade Advantage: Stadium Subsidies (Part 1 of 4)
by Robert Whiting (April 2008) – Yukan Fuji MLB enjoys certain benefits under U.S. law and custom that give it a decided advantage over the NPB in competition for the international market for players and for fans. NPB teams may be poor at making money through baseball, but the gap between them and MLB teams…
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You Gotta Have ‘Wa’ – Sports Illustrated original magazine scan
24th September 1979 At the time of publication, this article was the longest in Sports Illustrated history. The images below can be enlarged by clicking on them.
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Advice column – Letter to Ichiro Suzuki
2010, Yukan Fuji – Robert Whiting Dear Mr. Whiting: As you know I recently passed my 10th consecutive MLB season of achieving 200 hits, which tied a record held by Pete Rose. Many people in the American media have been comparing me to Pete Rose, since then. Some say he was superior because he won…
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Can you speak English?
Ozzie Guillen, Asians and Latinos – previously unpublished in English Yukan Fuji, 2010 – Robert Whiting In a country of people with big mouths, Ozzie Guillen, the manager of the Chicago White Sox, has one of the biggest. He frequently makes the news with controversial remarks and his most recent salvo is no exception. Earlier…
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Japan’s passionate affair with baseball
by Robert Whiting – September 25, 1982 Asia (magazine) September/October 1982 page 10-15 An aficionado explains why the unique customs of besuboru cause many American ballplayers to strike out. “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…
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Spring Koshien cancellation crushes baseball players’ dreams
First time since Second World War that high school tournament has been scrapped Players of Toho high school and Narashino high school play in the final of the national high school baseball invitational championship at Koshien Stadium on April 3, 2019. © KyodoROBERT WHITING, Contributing writerMarch 13, 2020 16:07 JST Few things in Japanese…
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Agony and ecstasy: Why Japan is obsessed with high school baseball
The annual Koshien Stadium competition is the closest thing to a national festivalROBERT WHITING, Contributing writer NIKKEI ASIA REVIEW JULY 24, 2019 14:30 JST TOKYO — The biggest sporting event of the year in Japan is a high school baseball tournament held each August at the Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, near Kobe, on the north…
Tokyo Junkie 