Rating: 
Summary: Ya gotta luv it!
Review: This is a great book on one of the most beautifully esoteric topics out there. This is a subject that can be appreciated more now than ever. Japanese baseball rocks! Let's all just admit that. This history is academic and detailed, yet fun and nostalgic at the same time. In addition, it was written in an era that was void of any present day marketability or "hip", as oppossed to the era of Ichiro and Matsui Hideki, in which commmentaries will certainly contain those oppining in a way void of knowledge or appreciation of that which went before. Thank God that the pure and noble notion of this wonderful sport will always trancend the fraiailties of predjudice. Go The Tigers!
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite
Review: Whiting's first book on J-ball is tremendous but thsi one he relies to much on stereotyping stuff and pulling theories out of nowhere to fit his slant. It's certainly worth buying Wa just don't buy into all the opinions. The one saying that the PL and CL MVP awards were both given to foreigners in the same season due to some weird theory that it had to do trying to reduce with trade friction between the U.S. and Japan at the time is laughable. Like anyone back in the U.S. in those days noticed J-ball nor even correlated baseball with trade issues. The book though is spot on on capturing the spirit of '80s J-ball and the characters really come to life and especially for anyone who lived here during that era, it's a great read. Just take things with a grain of salt on his trying to tie other non-baseball issues in with the baseball bits.
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