Nomura, who is 75 years old and has managed for 24 years, is known as an astute baseball mind but is also associated with outdated ideas such as distracting opposing players by yelling through a megaphone and arguing against announcing starting pitchers in advance because it eliminates guesswork for opponents.
- Brad Lefton, New York Times.
OK, first of all, let me go on record as saying I’d do a lot less complaining about Jerry Manuel if he’d only pick up the ol’ megaphone to distract Shane Victorino every once in a while. I can’t believe that’s going out of style in Japan.
I love reading about the various local particulars of baseball in foreign lands. This article is awesome for that. Turns out Japanese baseball players consider fielding a ball backhanded taboo. Who knew?
Though it is not stated in the article, I have also been told that sacrifice bunting is much more prevalent in Japan — even among a team’s power hitters. And the person who explained it to me — a smart and respected baseball analyst — presented it as cultural: fear of failure runs so strong in Japanese culture that productive outs (ie not failing) are preferred to the risk of strikeouts or double plays.
I have no idea if that’s true or racist or anything, but I’m certain it’s fascinating. And I’d love to study baseball all over the globe to examine the various intricacies, on the field and around the game, and how they relate to local culture.
Doesn’t that sound like an awesome book? Plus you could catch up with baseball globetrotters like Jason Rees, an Australian fellow who played college ball in Kansas, then professionally in Israel and the Netherlands.
So in conclusion: Please someone give me a massive advance and I will gladly write the crap out of that book. And yeah, I realize that there’s no built-in market for something like that, and that it would be really expensive to fly me all around the world and put me up in posh accommodations (I have Champagne tastes, I should note), and that print is more or less dead. But you might as well go out with a bang.
Tedquarters 
I recall Japenese players not fielding a ball backhanded was an issue with Kaz Matsui, he had to be taught how to do that.
Dude, don’t you remember when Kaz Matsui came over and had no idea how to go to the backhand? They were teaching him how to do so, but the process was slow.
Everything hit on the ground to his right side handcuffed him. His glove would flip forehand/backhand 3 or 4 times before the ball got there.
Ted, on a side note: Do you think Rod Barajas hit that homer and two doubles last night because:
A) trying to send message to Mets management that he’s unhappy with the way he was treated
B) genuinely happy to be back in LA
C) difference in morale levels between the two clubhouses makes getting extra-base hits easier
D) baseball players usually try to get extra-base hits
Ted I’d recommend you hunt down a copy of Sadaharu Oh’s “A Zen Way of Baseball”. One of the best books I’ve ever read, but particularly fascinating in regards to the cultural differences between the way Japanese players view the game and their American counterparts.
There’s an appendix that contains nothing but quotes from MLB players and their reactions to playing against Oh and other Japanese players during a tour of Japan in the mid-70’s. Apparently their strategy against Oh was to intentionally walk him, but they didn’t know that intentionally walking someone in Japan is considered the most dishonorable thing you can possibly do, because you are depriving the opposing player of a chance to succeed. Someone gives a quote about how once the game was over they all had to run to the bus because the crowd was so offended that they were screaming for blood.
Also, thanks to that article, I’m naming my next Fantasy Baseball Team “Full Season, Full Power Analyzing Baseball.”
I remember during the first World Baseball Classic in 2006, the announcers were discussing the education of the Chinese players to baseball and how the sport was taught to them.
The announcers were saying they way they taught them the sport was by saying the Pitcher and Catcher were the mother and father of the team and as a fielder you had to do everything in your power to protect mom and dad and catch that ball.
Very fascinating.
Robert Whiting’s “You Gotta Have Wa” is 20-odd years old, but it delivers a lot of the spectacularly foreign baseball stuff you’re thirsting for, Ted. Sadly, it was written before the Agbayani/Valentine era in Japan.
And as for the big advance/foreign travel thing — I actually did pitch a magazine feature like that once, for basketball. The publication was very nice about not taking it, then went out of business before putting out another issue. And I don’t even have champagne tastes, per se — champagne of beers tastes would be more accurate. I just wanted to go to some crappy city in China and interview God Shammgod.