5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Living Historical on Japanese Baseball, September 12, 2008
This review is from: Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball (Hardcover)
The following is my book review, also available at:
http://www.japanesebaseball.com/forum/thread.jsp?forum=20&thread=54709
The full title of the book is "Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Change Japanese Baseball."
There have already been a few things about this book put on the web. Starting off with the official home page of the biography [http://www.wallyyonamine.com/], you can read some blurbs from others about the book, get the table of contents, and read a short excerpt. Cards and photo galleries are also available there, so you should be able to get a taste of what's in store for you there.Then there was Wayne Graczyk's promotion for the book [http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20080907wg.html]. While I don't doubt the sincerity of his write up, it just reads like a PR piece, like he had to write something up about it before he was able to actually finish reading it. What he says is all true! But there's something intangible that bothered me about his review.
But this isn't about what other people said. And I'm most likely doomed to repeat others as well. But I'd like to really give you a feel for the book, and the emotion that a book like this can draw out of you. And I think that that's what's lacking in some of these other blurbs - that this biography is capable of stirring emotion.
First of all, there's the subtitle - "the man who changed Japanese baseball." I showed this book to a friend of mine and he said, "Yeah, right. Some gaijin really had that big an impact. It's just an empty statement to sell the book." My friend could not have been more wrong. I take to to pages 244 and 245:
"The fans wanted to see the league's new stars. In 1958 and 1959, an incredibly talented crop of exciting rookies entered Japanese professional baseball. These players did not play the slow, passive game of the 1940s. They had grown up watching Yonamine and his Giants while playing high school and college ball during the 1950s. They were faster, stronger, and more aggressive than their predecessors -- and the fans loved them. [...]"
Wally joined the Giants in 1951, and less than a decade later, Yonamine's style of play had gone from being the exception to the norm as the next generation of players came up. You could argue that other foreigners had brought over similar dynamics, sure. But none had the national exposure that Yonamine had with Yomiuri's vast media empire.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first three chapters deal mostly with Wally growing up a football star. What I found most fascinating was how different Japanese nisei were treated in Hawaii than on "lower 48." There have been a number of books and movies about how the internment camps during World War II were run, but this was the first I'd read about how things were in Hawaii. Take this excerpt from pages 26 and 27 for instance:
"Yonamine's success came at an important time for the Nisei community. With World War II raging, anti-Japanese sentiment was high. Japanese Hawaiians were not treated as poorly as mainland Japanese Americans, as their sheer numbers made them vital to the economy, but they still faced discrimination and hostility. Over three thousand people, mostly community leaders, were incarcerated and many Japanese Hawaiians faced hiring discrimination as well as racial slurs. There were not many Japanese American football players -- many Japanese parents, not wanting their boys to get hurt, discouraged football and pushed them toward baseball. Wally's triumphs made him a celebrity in the Nisei community and a source of pride in that troubled time. [...]"
One of the truly interesting thing about this biography is how Fitts-san will tie in what is going on in Wally's life within the social and historical context of the time. I can't say that I really learned much about history growing up. At least, it doesn't seem like it when I feel that I've learned more about history from watching The Discovery Channel than in middle and high school. This biography brings even more history to light, and makes it relevant as one watches Wally grow up in the midst of these social changes.
I think that at this point it's important to say that I'm not a passive reader, who just reads the words and notes them as facts to be pulled out as trivia at a later date. I like books that say something about society, give insight into how others think - be they real or fictional characters.
Following Yonamine from his sugar cane plantation roots, through his maturing as an athletic star in Hawaii during WWII, to his role in bringing nisei back into American society by playing football and later baseball in the minor leagues after The War, until his move to Japan, there is a constant undertow of social change going on.
Those who have read the Interview with author Rob Fitts at East Windup Chronicle [http://eastwindupchronicle.com/wally-yonamine-book/] may recall Rob stating, "I was a professional archaeologist specializing in 19th century New York City [...]." Reading this biography, you really get the feel for Fitts-san's background in history. I can't say that I've ever been much of a history buff (with the usual exception of dinosaurs and mummies as a kid), but the way that Rob brings history alive in this book is gripping.
The story about becoming a San Francisco 49er is interesting. As mentioned above, this adventure helps to heal a lot of wounds in the nisei communities in America. An injury sidelines that career, and Wally goes into baseball. After just missing the cut with the San Francisco Seals, Wally opts for the Salt Lake Bees where he does more good in integrating back the nisei to their communities.
One thing leads to another and Wally finds himself a Yomiuri Giant. And this is where all of the Jackie Robinson comparisons start coming in. Like the title that seems to be hyperbole, the Jackie Robinson comparisons seem to be another point where those who do not read the book find contention.
Have you ever thought about what kind of person it took to break the color barrier to MLB? I know that I never did before reading this book. I figured it just needed to be somebody really good at playing baseball. But reading how careful the planning was to choose Wally as the first post-war foreigner, I realize that the selection of Jackie Robinson was most likely similarly scrutinized. Both men had to bear the responsibility that if the "experiment" of their employment didn't work out, that there probably wouldn't be another for a long time. Both had to endure a great deal of taunting from the crowds. And in Yonamine's case, there were actual riots erupting on the field on numerous occasions.
Anyway, chapters 7 through 16 chronicle the Giants year by year while Wally played for them. If you like to watch a pennant race unfold, the pennants in the 1950s were absolutely incredible! The detail of various games, as important as the Emperor's game, to as little as one where Wally went 0 for 4 or broke out of a slump. Each game has its point. Each game makes you feel as though you were there in the stands. Even the most anti-Giants of fans will be swept away in the excitement and start rooting for Yomiuri to prevail. And, no, knowing the ending (how the seasons ended in the 1950s) already doesn't ruin the excitement of reading about those incredible past seasons.
Once Wally becomes a coach, then manager, the pace of the book picks up until it reaches its conclusion of Wally being inducted in the Japanese Hall of Fame. In stark contrast to the beginning of the book where any and every minor detail is included to reveal Yonamine's development into the person he became, the last few chapters just kind of skim over the rest of his career in a bit of a blur.
Of course, it's probably much like life. One develops and works hard to become defined by ones job, just to fall into a routine as the years go by. In that respect, I suppose that the final chapters did a good job in reflecting what eventually comes to us all - appreciation from the ones we care about (family) while leading rather anti-climatic lives.
Rather than ending on that note, I'd like to take you to perhaps my favorite passage in the book (page 107):
"One day, perhaps on this home stand, an eleven-year-old boy stood in the crowd. He had tried many times to get players to sign, but, as he remembered later, 'The players would walk past me as though I didn't exist. My brother would tease me because I always wound up feeling so hurt that I wanted to cry.' On that day, too, the players walked by him. Then the last player, Yonamine, stopped, looked directly at the boy and smiled. 'He took my board, asked my name -- which I could barely get from my lips -- and signed his autograph.'
"Sadaharu Oh still treasures that shikishi. [...] Oh commented, 'When I became a player it was always remarked how readily I gave autographs -- which is true -- but I did so for the best of reasons: because of the joy Wally Yonamine brought into my life one afternoon in my boyhood.'"
Excuse me while I blow my nose. I was on the train when I read that passage, and had to do my best to restrain my swelling eyes. With this one selfless act, it seems to me that Wally did much more than just change Japanese baseball.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Man Who Changed Japanese and American Baseball, February 24, 2009
This review is from: Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball (Hardcover)
Wally Yonamine was born in Hawaii of Okinawan and Japanese parents. As a child and young man, he worked to help support his family in the sugar cane fields of Maui. In school and in all his spare time, he played football and baseball. His hard work, great athletic ability and calm demeanor made him a success playing both sports in high school and college.
After a brief career playing football for the San Francisco Forty-Niners he decided to concentrate on baseball. His outstanding baseball ability and personal qualiities led to his being chosen by the American occupation forces in Japan to integrate Japanese baseball after World War II.
Yonamine's Asian appearance both helped and hindered him in Japan. Away from the diamond he might have been expected to fit into Japanese society because he looked like everyone else. But he didn't speak the language or know the customs. Sometimes he was seen as a tongue-tied Japanese guy with no manners. There are amusing stories in the book about the attempts of Yonamine, and later, other American players, to fit in. On the diamond, Yonamine endured insults and having things hurled at him from the stands both during home games and on the road. He did well and became loved and accepted for his playing and for his personality - much like Jackie Robinson with whom he has been compared.
Yonamine has been called "The Jackie Robinson of Japanese baseball." But more than just integrating the game, he played it aggressively in the American style, ignoring the somewhat passive, ritualized style of Japan. At first, the aggressiveness was not understood by players and fans. But when they realized its effectiveness, the American style caught on and became the norm.
In time, Yonamine's success as a player and then as a manager and coach, led to other Americans playing, coaching and even managing in Japan.The changes in Japanese baseball due to the work of Wally Yonamine made possible the American baseball careers of great Major Leaguers such as Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui (who contributed a very nice comment for the book's dust jacket). And I would imagine Bobby Valentine is grateful to Yonamine as well.
Aside from Yonamine's story, the book has many interesting stories of other foreign players who played in Japan. Among them were Victor Starffin, a Russian player who was accused of spying for Russia during the war and imprisoned. His story sounds as though it would be a good book in itself. There are also stories of games in Japan with visiting American teams and visits by great American players like Joe DiMaggio. I learned things I hadn't known about my childhood heroes the Brooklyn Dodgers who toured there, and that my favorite, Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe, played first base for the Chunichi Dragons when his career with the Dodgers was over. Yonamine was not only the batting coach but he served as Newcombe's "cultural advisor."
I like this book very much and recommend it to all baseball fans for its historical information, good storytelling and relevance to modern Major League baseball.
It's not a tell-all book in the current trash-talking style. It's a sports hero story in a rather old-fashioned way. The last sentence reads, "Wally Yonamine reminds us all how a true sports hero should behave."
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