Tokyo Junkie

Home of Robert Whiting, best-selling author and journalist

Tag: article

  • 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…

  • The Fans in Japan: Why they’re happy when baseball players go on strike

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    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…

  • Billion Dollar Blueprint

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    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…

  • Tobaku

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    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…

  • The Umpire Strikes Out

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    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.…

  • Equaling Oh’s HR record proved difficult (part 3 of 3)

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    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…

  • Oh’s career sparkled with achievements as player, manager (part 2 of 3)

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    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…

  • Whiting pays tribute to Boyer, Halberstam

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    Robert Whiting (Jan 20, 2008) This is a tribute, long overdue, to Clete Boyer and David Halberstam, two class individuals who died last year. The former was an All-Star baseball player, one of the greatest fielding third basemen of all time. The latter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who was perhaps the greatest reporter of…

  • Coronavirus and the Olympics

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    Robert Whiting (April 2008) – Yukan Fuji When I arrived in Tokyo in 1962, working for the CIA as a 19-year-old member of the U.S. military, the city was an unsightly sprawl of ramshackle wooden houses, rickety  shanties and cheaply constructed stucco-covered buildings that had mushroomed from the wartime detritus left by American B-29 Superfortress bombers. Living conditions…

  • How Japan Stacks Up – Los Angeles Times on You Gotta Have Wa

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    1 October 1989 The image below can be expanded by clicking it.