Customer Reviews

Sayonara Home Run!: The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Vinatge Japanese baseball cards are among the most beautiful baseball collectibles in the world. I discovered these treasures over ten years ago during a trip to Japan and became an avid collector. My passion for the cards eventually led to a on-line card business and a career as a baseball writer. John Gall and Gary Engel's new book Sayanara Homerun! depicts hundreds, if not thousands, of theese beautiful cards. The book's presentation is wonderful. Cards are gracefully portrayed as art but the accompanying text will statisfy both baseball card collectors and fans of Japanese baseball.

If you are an American baseball cards collector, come see what you are missing. If you a fan of Japanese baseball, come see great pictures of your favorite stars.

I spend hours paging through this book and expect that you will enjoy it as much as I have.

This could've been featured in our collector's section or even our sports section, but is presented here for its powerful artistic survey of Japanese sports through its lovely baseball card art. SAYONARA HOME RUN! THE ART OF THE JAPANESE BASEBALL CARD features player history, card art, and loved and hated baseball teams alike. It will attract any with an interest in world baseball or in collectible ballgame cards - and many a browser with an interest in neither!

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

If only there were more books like Gall's comprehensive appreciation of Japanese baseball cards! This is a must-own for any collector of the weird, the odd, and the beautiful. Japanese baseball cards, like their American brethren, are steeped in the pop culture of their country. In fact, it's nearly impossible to determine that which is more influential on the other.

It's not quite a catalog, nor a mark-your-place narrative. Instead it's just a great addition to the collector's library. Gall's exhaustive research and extensive color plates are invaluable. Not just as a cheat-sheet for collectors looking to make headway into the rapidly exploding Stateside interest in Japanese baseball, but as a complete, self-contained history of the genre.

Sayonara Home Run! The Art Of Japanese Baseball Card is a lovely book that gives you the history and development of baseball cards and related baseball collectibles. While it does not really get into a detailed history of the game itself it does give you a basic background of how it got started in Japan and, if you know American baseball, does compare how it is different or similar. Not knowing the history of American baseball or understanding how they rate players a lot of it went over my head. I can't really blame the book for that and do plan to correct my lack of information by reading a book on the history of American baseball. They even have small bios on the base Japanese players and some team histories.
BUT the book itself does have a flaw. The pages are thick, heavy paper, sown together and very solid. But the wonderful cover is glued on and came right off after only a few days. I am NOT rough with my books and there is really nothing that could explain this outside of the fact that the glue became too dry to keep the cover on the book. This is a shame because if the book had a better cover or maybe was a hard cover book it would have made a great coffee book and a great gift to those interested in either baseball cards or Japanese baseball. It is kind of sad that they went cheap on such a major detail.

This is a wonderful book, a collection of vintage Japanese baseball cards and a bit of the history behind them. I've been picking through baseball memorabilia and artifacts all my life (and have written two published books on the sport) and this ranks among the most fascinating books I've ever seen. I just discovered this book today at the bookstore of the Japanese American National Musuem in Los Angeles. To the authors: Grand slam, guys.

This could've been featured in our collector's section or even our sports section, but is presented here for its powerful artistic survey of Japanese sports through its lovely baseball card art. SAYONARA HOME RUN! THE ART OF THE JAPANESE BASEBALL CARD features player history, card art, and loved and hated baseball teams alike. It will attract any with an interest in world baseball or in collectible ballgame cards - and many a browser with an interest in neither!

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch