Tokyo Junkie

Home of Robert Whiting, best-selling author and journalist

Tag: article

  • Divorce, MLB Style – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2009) What does divorce law have to do with Major League Baseball? Well, a lot if you happen to live in California. The Los Angeles Dodgers—present home of Hiroki Kuroda—have been turned upside down as a result of the impending divorce of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and his wife, Dodgers CEO Jamie…

  • Albatross – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2009) “It has been the best of times and the worst of times.” These days, for Japanese baseball in the United States, Charles Dickens’ opening line in “A Tale of Two Cities”—may be the most fitting. On the one hand, Japanese baseball’s reputation in the USA hit an all-time peak in the…

  • Remembering Hideki Irabu – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2011) Hideki Irabu, once considered to be one of the best pitchers in the world, has died as most of you know by now. He led a troubled life and his time in major league baseball was marked by turmoil. But he also had an historic impact on U.S.-Japan baseball relations and…

  • 2020 MLB season postponed – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2020) PART I The MLB season has been postponed, thanks to the coronavirus,  and may not start until midsummer, if at all. With New Yorkers, among other big city residents,  ordered to stay home for 90 days beginning March 21,  an order which includes the New York Yankees players and those of…

  • Oh in Athletic top 100 – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2020) As discussed in a previous column, the popular digital sports magazine The Athletic  has been running a series of essays by veteran writer Joe Posnanski, on the top 100 MLB players of all time. #100 was Ichiro Suzuki which occupied a previous column. +++ Llisted at #85, in the series so far, is  Sadaharu Oh,…

  • The 100 pitch limit mistake – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2019) It’s been 44 years since the first  so-called Tommy John surgical procedure, which occurred September 25, 1974, and, according to the popular  website 538, half of the recorded surgeries have occurred in the nearly six and a half years since April 1, 2012.  Why is that? Some American commentators say that the…

  • Valentine’s Way: book review – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2021) Bobby Valentine, the former manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines, has published a memoir, with some interesting observations about Japan in it, among other things. The memoir covers Valentine’s covers his entire career as player, manager and media personality that started in 1969  when Valentine was a star high school athlete…

  • Spaceman Shinju Kantoku – Yukan Fuji

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    By Robert Whiting (2021) I have seen a lot of strange appointments to the post of manager of an MLB club in my long career as a journalist, but perhaps none so strange as the Nippon Ham Fighters front office decision to hire Tsuyoshi Shinjo as their field  manager for the 2022 season. Shinjo, a…

  • 150th Anniversary of Baseball in Japan – Yukan Fuji

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    by Robert Whiting (2022) The coming year will mark the 150th Anniversary of Baseball in Japan. The game was introduced  to the Japanese in 1872 by an American professor named Horace Wilson, who had been invited to come to Tokyo and teach at Kaisei Gakko. He was one of many foreign teachers and technical advisors recruited by the…

  • Shohei, Boog and Big Mac

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    By Robert Whiting YUKAN FUJI (2018) ESPN analytics whiz Sam Miller did an extensive evaluation of Shohei Ohtani, 2018 Rookie of the Year, as a batter and came to the conclusion that the MLB player most like is former Baltimore Orioles slugger Boog  Powell, Powell, 6’3” 235 pounds in the prime of his playing days, was a line drive hitting first baseman who averaged 30…