Customer Reviews

Sadaharu Oh A Zen Way of Baseball

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I had always admired Sadaharu Oh from afar as a kid, simply because I knew that he put up incredible home run totals every year while playing only 130 games a season in Japan. After I read this book, I became a huge fan...both of Oh the ballplayer and Oh the man.

If you're a baseball fan, you'll find what you like. He was, after all a ballplayer, and a great one who deserves to be in Cooperstown. His is a great story, and there's a single chapter devoted to the unique batting style that changed him from disappointment to superstar. I've monkeyed around using his flamingo-style batting stance, and I can tell you it added 25-50 feet to my own hits...and I'm no ballplayer. It works.

More important, though, is that this book shows what a truly class act Oh-san is. Although he became the greatest home run hitter in world baseball history, he remained very humble and gave credit to hard work and the guidance of others for his success. There is no Barry Bonds in this man. He is truly worthy of being called a "hero," and that's a word I almost never use.

Get this book!!! I have three copies of it myself, and would never part with any of them. It is one of the best and most uplifting autobiographies I've ever read on anyone, in or out of sports.

This is not your run-of-the-mill sports book. It is a fascinating book about the great Japanese home run hitter, and how he had to struggle to over come his defects. Falkner brings Oh - and postwar Japan - to life. His writing style is simple, yet beautiful. You don't have to like baseball to like this book. It's inspiring to learn that Oh was on the brink of failure before becoming a very great hitter.

To me the theme of this book is that talent is not enough, that there are people and things outside of us that can help us find our way.

Sadaharu Oh is one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball. But what interested me about his career was not what he did on the field, but how he prepared off it. His intense training with the Japanese sword to improve his hitting is fascinating. I found myself underlining passage after passage. If you are a martial artist, read this book.

This book is nearly impossible to find, but those who manage to grab a copy won't be disappointed. Told in the first person as an autobiography, this text walks us through an entire different culture of baseball than anyone in the US is familiar with. We fight and argue about home run records here, but this book is written by a man none of our athletes even come close to rivaling!

IF you can find a copy of this book you won't be disappointed!