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March 13, 2007

Live From Akita City

The Nippon Professional League

by Mike Plugh

As a resident of Akita City in northern Japan, I am treated to the spectacle of junior high school students, in full practice uniform, traveling to school by bicycle in the snow. High school players are at school early everyday, grooming of the field and preparing the clubhouse. They run, stretch, and practice with the same level of concentration as their more famous professional counterparts. A Japanese player will always tip his cap and bow upon entering or exiting the field. This goes for the elementary school practice field and the professional stadium. Why? Because the field is the place to pursue perfection. It is the temple of self-mastery, and should be treated with the respect afforded such places.

The top high school teams occasionally achieve an even greater level of dedication than the pros, and are therefore among the most celebrated heroes of the nation. The Koshien High School Summer Baseball Tournament is the be-all and end-all of athletics in Japan, and young boys everywhere dream of leaving their blood out on the hallowed grounds of that stadium or taking home a bag full of its dirt as a symbol of their victory.

On his tour of Fenway, Matsuzaka bowed as he entered and exited, much to the surprise of the American media. In his 1989 book You Gotta Have Wa, Robert Whiting gives us an anecdote from 1891 about a popular English teacher named Robert Imbrie--he was beaten by students of Ichiko High School for climbing their wall to enter the field after arriving late to the start of a game. Their field was their “dojo,” and not a place for such a disrespectful act. This is serious business.

The wave of successful Major Leaguers from Japan has turned the spotlight on the Japanese game. Each year a new set of names enters the arena, but even so, the sample size is still incredibly small, and despite our best efforts to provide accurate statistical comparisons and translations, it remains a rough process. Perhaps in a few seasons, we will have seen enough players of varying ability enter the U.S. game that we will be able to predict a range of performance at a more refined level.

Understanding the context of the numbers is highly dependent on keeping cultural factors in mind as we attempt to project from one league to the other. Why do the Japanese bunt more? Do Japanese managers pitch around foreign players to keep them from setting home run records? Is the cultural imperative to finish what you start a factor in understanding the role of the relief pitcher in Japan?

Baseball has been played in Japan since the 1870s, when it was introduced to high school students by missionary academics like Horace Wilson. The early days of the sport saw players wearing traditional “hakama” (men’s traditional clothing) or “geta” (wooden sandals). Baseball, or “yakyu,” is as much a national pastime in Japan as it is in the United States, and has been played nearly as long. On the surface the sport looks the same, but there are many fundamental differences in the product on the field, as well as among the reactions of fans in the stands. Over time, a lot of information has become available to us about the nature of the sport in Japan. Much of this work has been provided by the likes of Robert Whiting, Jim Allen, Michael Westbay, Jim Albright, Wayne Graczyk, Sergei Borisov, Bob Bavasi, and Gary Garland, not to mention the many excellent English-language reporters and columnists who follow the games and behind-the-scenes action every day.