|
|
A Common Passion
| Article
# : |
17504 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
2,785 Words |
| Author
: |
Tomoko Watanabe and J.W.P. Traphagan
|
YOU GOTTA HAVE WA
Robert Whiting
New York: Macmillan, 1990.
353 pp., Illustrations. $ 19.95
MEN AT WORK: THE CRAFT OF BASEBALL
George F. Will
New York: Macmillan, 1990.
353 pp., Illustration. $ 19.95
"My opponents lifted my spirits and, in doing so, reminded me of something that I had spent twenty-two years learning. That opponents and I were really one."
- Sadaharu Oh (leading home run hitter of all time with 868 home runs)
One o'clock. Ninety-five degrees and humid. A siren announces the opening ritual. Two opposing columns of teenaged chasseurs face each other between home plate and the pitcher's mound. All wear snow-white baseball uniforms, symbolizing the purity of youth. In a single motion, the stiff-backed young men bow to each other and doff their caps, exposing indistinguishably close-shaven heads that betray a resolve of almost monastic devotion. Abruptly they shout "onegaishimasu!"; words wishing this game, a game that will never repeat itself, be played in the spirit of honor and good sportsmanship. Even before the bows have unfolded, ranks break and players fly to their positions.
Four o'clock, and the words "Mizusawa," the name of their defeated school, tearfully ring from the voices of young schoolgirls. Their team will not go to Koshien this year, but they did their best. And that is what matters most.
Koshien is a name synonymous with baseball. Well, not if you're an American. But in Japan no single word more completely captures the spirit of baseball, and the hearts of baseball fans, than Koshien. Japan's National High School Baseball Championship Tournament, which takes place every spring and summer at Koshien Stadium in Osaka, is even more of a national event than American's World Series or Super Bowl. Koshien accentuates the fact that baseball is Japan's national pastime. For many Japanese, it embodies traditional values of hard work and selfless group devotion. To stand upon the "sacred" ground of Koshien is an honor for which high school athletes willingly give their blood and sweat.
Robert Whiting's You Gotta Have Wa documents the differences between American and Japanese baseball, which embody two work ethics that he believes have little in common. Whiting also intends to go beyond baseball to expose dissimilarities between the two cultures.
You Gotta Have Wa combines extensive interviews of Americans playing in Japan (known as gaijin, a word which literally means outsider) with Japanese newspaper and magazine reports about those players. Whiting chronicles the gaijins' experiences in a subculture that is rich in tradition and difficult to penetrate.
The book opens with American ballplayer Bob Horner stepping off the plane in Tokyo to a barrage of reporters and cameramen. It was not what Horner expected when he
...
Read Full Article
|
|
