In the Japanese Ballpark

“You begin reading Robert Fitts’s book with a walk. Each step is another intimate first-person portrait that is an integral part of the collective Japanese game of baseball. You feel the honor, the soul, the sheer attention to detail in every page. Each turn was a revelation of what seemed almost confidential. I never stopped learning from start to finish and when I completed the final chapter I found a full tapestry of a beautiful game where every stitch made by every person was deeply consequential. I loved this book.”—Doug Glanville, Emmy award-winning journalist and baseball analyst and author of The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View “Thanks largely to Robert Fitts, we’ve learned a great deal about Japan’s greatest ballplayers. But now Robert has given us a penetrating, necessary look at the game off the field, too, and every page is filled with insights and delight.”—Rob Neyer, award-winning baseball writer “Inside the Japanese Ballpark fills an important gap in baseball literature with passion, wonder, and deep research and legwork. Through the voices of agents, cheerleaders, umpires, journalists and mascots, as well as players and managers, Robert Fitts uses the best kind of oral history to bring alive the vibrant and unique culture of Japanese baseball, from its old-fashioned samurai ethos where the word ‘ouch’ was once forbidden to the modern game of packed stadiums and the world’s best player, Shohei Ohtani. You can taste the fresh sushi and cold beer delivered straight from kegs and hear the crack of the bat on a Sunday afternoon at the Tokyo Dome. It also comes with a fantastic comprehensive guide to attending and following the Nippon Professional Baseball league. A homu ran.”—John W. Miller, author of The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball