The Meaning of Ichiro (55 page)

It was a good season as well for the international pastime, especially for Takatsu and Otsuka who submitted standout rookie
years, prompting the
Asahi Shimbun
to editorialize: “Japanese were once seen in the U.S. as a ‘faceless’ people obsessed with exporting cars and consumer electronics.
The excellent play of the Japanese baseball players and their positive personalities have changed the American image of the
Japanese.” They opted not to mention Kazuo Matsui’s error-laden, injury-ridden summer of discontent.

On the other side of the Pacific there was also good news. Both Trey Hillman and Bobby Valentine had their teams in playoff
contention, made it through the entire year without incident and were invited back for 2005. Lotte fans even erected a shrine
to their American manager near the stadium. That, one could say, was progress.

I
n researching and writing this book I conducted over 100 interviews, traveled nearly 100,000 miles, read nearly 100 books
and waded through countless newspaper and magazine articles. Specific sources for all the material in
The Samurai Way of Baseball
and accompanying notes can be found in the extensive End Note section on a special
The Samurai Way of Baseball
Web site set up by Warner Books at
www.twbookmark.com
. What follows here is but a brief sampling.

The All-Time All-Star Team

According to a poll conducted to determine Japan’s All-Century baseball team, Ichiro was the fans’ favorite selection, leading
all candidates including Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh, with 587,426 votes. The lineup consisted of Atsuya Furuta at catcher,
Oh at first base, Hiromitsu Ochiai at second, Nagashima at third, Kazuo Matsui at shortstop, Hideki Matsui, Isao Harimoto,
and Ichiro in the outfield. Yutaka Enatsu was the pitcher
(Kyodo News,
October 19, 2000).

About TV Ratings

With a few exceptions, all of the Seattle Mariners games were telecast on NHK’s satellite channel system, which was established
in the ‘80s and was not as diffuse as the terrestrial TV system used by most houses in Japan. NHK did not give out ratings,
or even the number of households that had the new system installed. Thus, the impact of the Mariners telecasts was difficult
to accurately gauge. However, the vast outdoor crowds that watched the games on Hi-Vision screens around Tokyo and Osaka and
other major cities, and the slippage in the ratings, were clear evidence that a dramatic change had occurred. According to
Video Research, which took over the TV ratings from Japan Nielsen, a terrestrial rating of one point equaled 1.2 million viewers.
Thus a 15 percent rating for a Giants game meant that 18 million people watched it; 30 percent meant 36 million viewers. On
October 31, 2003, The
Wall Street Journal
reported that there were only 4.41 million houses with satellite TV in Japan, a country with a population of 127 million.
The
Wall Street Journal
estimated that there were an average of 1.5 million viewers for a satellite gamecast. In games occasionally shown on NHK
General, their terrestrial network, ratings sometimes reached 10 percent, or 12 million viewers, which was quite remarkable
for an early morning telecast.

About the Early History of Baseball in Japan

Baseball was a by-product of Japan’s all-out effort to learn from the West. In its nascent years, baseball was considered
less a “sport” than a kind of competition, like archery or shooting, where the object was to hit a target.

The first game ever played in Japan is believed to have been a contest between the crew of the U.S. battleship
Colorado
and foreign residents in Yokohama in September 1870
(Mainichi Daily News,
Sunday, May 7, 2000, “Baseball history blasted into past” by Akio Nikaido). The first game played by Japanese was said to
have been organized by an American professor named Albert Bates at Kaitaku University in 1873. What was perhaps the first
game ever played between Japanese and Americans was a pickup affair involving unequal sides of university students and visitors
from the U.S. which took place in 1876. The first organized baseball team, with uniforms, was the Shimbashi Athletic Club
Athletics, formed in 1878 by railway engineer Hiroshi Hiraoka, who had recently returned from a stay in Boston where he became
an avid Red Stockings fan. Hiraoka, according to historical accounts, was the first person in Japan to throw a curveball (NPBHoF).

The Ichiko practice routine was described in the following manner by Suishu Tobita in
Tobita Suishu Senshu,Yaky
Kisha Jidai, B
sub
ru Magajin-sha,
in 1960 (pp. 30-31). “For their practice, there was no snow or hail… If it snowed, the team would clear the field … Then
they started practice. And the word ‘ouch’ was prohibited for the members of Ichiko during practice. For ordinary people,
there was no doubt that they would express their pain by screaming, however in their (Ichiko’s) case, there was no word uttered.
The pain was overcome. In case it wasn’t, the word
kayui
(it itches) was used … The balls were thrown against the cold chilly wind and occasionally their fingers were colored with
blood, and the balls, being thrown left and right, were also covered with blood. This was the way of practice … Balls that
hit their shins and feet felt like iron.”

An Ichiko alumnus has written this spirited summation of the philosophy of his school’s adopted and highly popular pastime.
“Sports came from the West. In Ichiko baseball, we were playing sports, but we were also putting the spirit of Japan into
it …
yaky
is a way to express the samurai spirit. To play baseball is to develop this spirit … Thus, our members were just like the
warriors of old with their samurai spirit.” From
“Yaky
Bushi,”
an article appearing in a commemorative work published by the Alumni Association of the first Higher School of Tokyo, February
28, 1903, entitled
“yaky
Bushi Fukisoku Dai Ichi Koto Gakk
Koyukai.”

The Ichiko triumphs, no less significantly, also represented the first step in making baseball accessible to the masses. Up
until that time, baseball had been a game played and watched by a relatively affluent and socially advanced elite. Early in
the Meiji Era, social inequities were still so pronounced that some families had to resort to selling off their daughters
to the brothels of Yoshiwara just to put food on the table. For the average person, mingling with foreigners was out of the
question. There were only a handful of senior high schools in Japan, and they were elite schools like Ichiko—far removed from
the sweaty realities of the hoi polloi. But the Ichiko victories served to make baseball the number one sport in the nation’s
middle schools as well, spreading out to all corners of the archipelago. They helped popularize terms like
“seishin yaky
.”