Sportswriter Rains takes an in-depth look at seven-time batting champion for Japan's Pacific League Ichiro Suzuki, who went on to play for the Seattle Mariners and led the team to its best start in franchise history. Rains also looks at the new wave of talented Japanese players, including last year's Rookie of the Year Kazuhiro Sasaki, and others.

Tokyo, 1890. Toyo is caught up in the competitive world of boarding school, and must prove himself to make the team in a new sport called besuboru. But he grieves for his uncle, a samurai who sacrificed himself for his beliefs, at a time when most of Japan is eager to shed ancient traditions. It's only when his father decides to teach him the way of the samurai that Toyo grows to better understand his uncle and father. And to his surprise, the warrior training guides him to excel at baseball, a sport his father despises as yet another modern Western menace. Toyo searches desperately for a way to prove there is a place for his family's samurai values in modern Japan. Baseball might just be the answer, but will his father ever accept a Western game that stands for everything he despises?

Almost right from the introduction of baseball to Japan the sport was regarded as qualitatively different from the original American model. This vision of Japanese baseball associates the sport with steadfast devotion (magokoro) and the values of the samurai class in the code of Bushidō, in which greatness is achieved through hard work under the tutelage of a selfless master. In Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball Keaveney analyzes the persistent appeal of such mythologizing, arguing that the sport has been serving as a repository for traditional values, to which the Japanese have returned time and again in epochs of uncertainty and change. Baseball and modern culture emerged and developed side by side in Japan, giving cultural representations of this national pastime special insights into Japanese values and their contortions from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Keaveney explains the origins of the cultural construct “Samurai baseball” and reflects on the recurrences of these essentialist discourses at critical junctures in Japan’s modern history. Since the early modern period, writers, filmmakers, and manga artists have alternately affirmed and debunked these popular myths of baseball. This study presents an overview of these cultural products, beginning with Masaoka Shiki’s pioneering baseball writings, then moves on to the long history of baseball films and the venerable tradition of baseball fiction, and finally considers the substantial body of baseball manga and anime. Perhaps what is most striking is the continuous relevance of baseball and its values as a point of cultural reference for the Japanese people; their engagement with baseball is a genuine national love affair. “A fascinating study of samurai baseball and the culture it represents viewed through historical and contemporary literature, poetry, manga, and movies. An important, original work that is full of insights. Christopher Keaveney has put enormous effort into researching this book and he is to be congratulated. I learned a lot by reading it.” —Robert Whiting, author of You Gotta Have Wa and The Meaning of Ichiro “Keaveney’s book offers a nuanced introduction to the Japanese model of samurai baseball along with an analysis of many of the works that treat the guiding principles of that model. A fresh look at Japan’s national pastime.” —Bobby Valentine, former MLB player and manager and former manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball “Christopher Keaveney effortlessly combines a thorough knowledge of Japanese baseball—its players, managers, fans—with the cultural productions surrounding it. The result is a nostalgic trip through history and an edifying survey of literature, film, and manga.” —David Desser, professor emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Explains the importance of baseball in the national life of modern Japan and the ways in which the Japanese have brought some of the traditions of Bushido and Kabuki to this American-born game

Ichiro...Nomo...Hasegawa...Hideki Matsui...one by one they have come to America and made their mark as incredibly gifted and popular ballplayers. But this new wave of athlete-led by the sensational Ichiro Suzuki, whom many refer to as the best all-around player-is just the tip of a fascinating iceberg. Illuminating a deep and very different tradition of baseball, Whiting shows why more Japanese players will be coming to America...and how they will forever transform the way our game is played. Grandly entertaining and deeply revealing, The Samurai Way of Baseball is a classic book about sports, business, and stardom-in a world that is changing before our eyes.

In Baseball Samurais, take a look back at Ichiro Suzuki's sensational rookie year...from the top spot in Japan to the Seattle Mariners' right field. Seven-time batting champion for Japan's Pacific League, he was a paradoxical combination of modesty and ego, calling himself simply "Ichiro." But when the Seattle Mariners signed him to a fourteen-million-dollar contract, scoffers said the 5-foot-9 inch, 156-pound Ichiro wasn't even in the ballpark. He proved them wrong. With fast legs and an even faster bat, he led the Mariners to their best start in franchise history. Now, sportswriter Rob Rains takes an in-depth look at Ichiro and the \wave of talented Japanese players, including former Rookie of the Year, Kazuhiro Sasaki of the Seattle Mariners, and Hideo Nomo of the Boston Red Sox, former Yankee Hideki Irabu and Mets outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo. American fans are learning what the Japanese already know--these amazing players are already mapping out baseball's future, proving that this grand slam Asian invasion is here to stay... Includes 8 pages of thrilling photos.

This biography of the first foreign-born samurai and his journey from Africa to Japan is “a readable, compassionate account of an extraordinary life” (The Washington Post). When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan’s martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society. In the four hundred years since, Yasuke has been known in Japan largely as a legendary, perhaps mythical figure. Now African Samurai presents the never-before-told biography of this unique figure of the sixteenth century, one whose travels between countries and cultures offers a new perspective on race in world history and a vivid portrait of life in medieval Japan. “Fast-paced, action-packed writing. . . . A new and important biography and an incredibly moving study of medieval Japan and solid perspective on its unification. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Eminently readable. . . . a worthwhile and entertaining work.” —Publishers Weekly “A unique story of a unique man, and yet someone with whom we can all identify.” —Jack Weatherford, New York Times–bestselling author of Genghis Khan

"In Seeing Stars, Dennis J. Frost traces the emergence and evolution of sports celebrity in Japan from the seventeenth through the twenty-first centuries. Frost explores how various constituencies have repeatedly molded and deployed representations of individual athletes, revealing that sports stars are socially constructed phenomena, the products of both particular historical moments and broader discourses of celebrity. Drawing from media coverage, biographies, literary works, athletes’ memoirs, bureaucratic memoranda, interviews, and films, Frost argues that the largely unquestioned mass of information about sports stars not only reflects, but also shapes society and body culture. He examines the lives and times of star athletes—including sumo grand champion Hitachiyama, female Olympic medalist Hitomi Kinue, legendary pitcher Sawamura Eiji, and world champion boxer Gushiken Yokoō—demonstrating how representations of such sports stars mediated Japan’s emergence into the putatively universal realm of sports, unsettled orthodox notions of gender, facilitated wartime mobilization of physically fit men and women, and masked lingering inequalities in postwar Japanese society. As the first critical examination of the history of sports celebrity outside a Euro-American context, this book also sheds new light on the transnational forces at play in the production and impact of celebrity images and dispels misconceptions that sports stars in the non-West are mere imitations of their Western counterparts."

Ichiro Suzuki was the first Japanese position player (non-pitcher) to make it into the American Major Leagues. People thought that the Japanese couldn’t handle the power and speed of American pitchers. Ichiro proved them wrong. Now in his fourth season, Ichiro has shown that he can hit anything thrown his way and is as good, if not better than many of his American contemporaries. His love of the game, amazing skill and crowd pleasing antics have won him a following of fans around the world.