"In the Japanese Ballpark" author Rob Fitts - Ep. 708

We're happy to bring you what we think is a special episode today with author Rob Fitts who's going to tell us about Japanese baseball, his experiences book that he just wrote in 2025 called In the Japanese Ballpark. We're kind of lucky to have him and we're very interested in Japanese baseball and we're excited to read the book. So we think you'll really enjoy it. Stay tuned.

We are very lucky to be joined today by author Rob Fitts, a former archaeologist, which we do have to ask you about as we get through here, but who is now in 10 different books on Japanese baseball, including the absolutely wonderful In the Japanese Ballpark, which is a collection of different essays, vignettes, if you want to say, but just different accounts of what it was like being a part of Japanese baseball. has been something that we have loved.

Absolutely so much and there's so much more you've done over here that we do want to bring out bring up with you including your stuff about Rob's baseball card, Japanese cards and some of the stuff that you've worked on in terms of setting up the Sabre Agents baseball committee. So welcome to the podcast, Robert. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me here tonight.

Well, we brought you on here because

We both have actually talked about, know, on the podcast here over the last six years of doing it, we've gained more and more interest in Japanese baseball, especially being exposed to not only some of the great players that have been coming over here, but seeing and hearing more and more about it on Twitter, being posted online, and then the world baseball classic really elevating Japanese and foreign baseball to a new level. So when this book came out,

it was kind of a perfect opportunity for us to dive in and learn a little bit more. And I'd say we've learned a whole lot from this. Good. I'm glad you did. was the reason. One of the reasons I wrote the book was really to introduce Japanese baseball to an American audience, to try to spread the word about how much fun it is there. It came out that, you know,

Do you think that American fans and you were right, think, because I read this book going, okay, right. Most fans don't know this. And so instead of you could have gone way deeper, but you kind of kept it sort of like, here's what the experience is like, because most Americans have no, I've been to Tokyo. missed the one time I had a chance to go to the Tokyo Diamond Sea game. We didn't get to go, unfortunately, but I just was surprised at how little I knew. And so I really liked the fact that you had that underlying thought about doing the book.

Yeah, I I came up with the idea of writing the book actually at a game. So I've written about the history of Japanese baseball for about 20 years now. All my previous books have focused on what happens on the diamonds, know, the way most baseball writers focus. And about two years ago, I'm sitting at a game and we'll probably talk about this, but for fans who don't know this, you do not go and stand in line to get a beer in Japan.

Instead, there are hundreds of young ladies dressed up in these bright costumes that have kegs on their back. And we, they're known as beer girls. And when you want a beer, you get one of their attentions and they come over and they pour you an ice cold tapped beer. And what happened at this game is I ordered a beer from one of these young ladies. And throughout the game, I noticed the same girl jogging up and down the stairs carrying this

40 pound keg on her back. And I'm thinking, oh my God, what a job. That's a workout. Incredible workout. I couldn't keep up, probably never could. And I'm thinking, what's it like for her to go to work? I mean, I can see what she's doing, but when does she refill the keg? How does she deal with foreign customers if she doesn't speak English? How does she deal with bad comments by cr-

my guys who've drunk too much, all these things about her job. And then I realized, you know what? I don't know much at all about what happens in Japanese baseball other than the players. I don't know about the umpiring, about the general managing, about the trainers. How does it differ from US baseball? So that's where I wrote the book. I sought out about 30 people who worked in Japanese baseball and I asked them about their jobs and I asked them, how does that differ from...

what goes on in the U.S. and I got them to tell their stories. So it was such a wonderful learning experience for me. And reading the book, think one of the things that really stands out to you most because you saw it echoed from every different level of people. saw it from the, I saw it when you were reading Matt Merton's chapter and he talked about it when you were reading the chapter from the super fans and the cheerleaders and even then the front office people, all of them talked about the level of fan investment.

and just how intense it is. I think that was really what stood out to me, that it is the same game on the field. Strategically, it is different. Maybe some of that is different, but in terms of the fan relationship to the team specifically, I don't think Americans get it at all. I don't think I really got it until I start reading this book. And I'm like, I probably still won't really get it until I go and watch a game there. Really? mean, Japan, the atmosphere is so wonderful. I like to say, ⁓

The American fans go to a baseball game to hang out with friends, family, and watch baseball, where Japanese go to participate in the baseball game. And so a real Japanese fan will go and participate in all the cheers, and they are intense. I mean, not everybody, right? But the majority of them will be know exactly what the count is. They'll know who's up. They'll know something about the player. They're cheering.

The cheers over there are done ⁓ in a group. You know, don't cheer by yourself. You don't yell random things. So you've got to know the songs. You've got to look for the cues. So it's a real fan team experience, right? Fans being part of the team. And ⁓ the only thing that's similar here would be maybe college basketball between two rival teams, two rival football teams in college.

and maybe a playoff or World Series baseball game, maybe, but I would say the Japanese regular season games are still more intense from a fan. And I think something that even stood out to me is that you might get that same kind of atmosphere in America, but in Japan.

Each one of those teams have their own very unique and individual culture to everything about what they do that's very specific to them. Like, whereas in America is a lot more general of it's just a really intense, exciting environment where everybody's locked in. Right, exactly. And where you sit, right, in the ballpark, unwitting American me, would go, if I didn't know better and go, well, there's a seat, you know, I'll go by and like,

where the heck am I? I didn't know this was going to happen here. And so why don't you talk about that a little bit about the differences in where you sit, meaning in your fan experience. Absolutely. So in a Japanese ballpark, the cheering section, the official cheering section called the O-and-Don is down. The home team sits on the right field outfield and the away team sits on the left field. If you come in wearing the

home of the away team jersey they will not let you sit on the right field you are not allowed to because they're afraid of some conflict not that there's ever that much conflict in Japanese baseball is not now once upon a time yeah it was a more violent game now it's very calm. ⁓ But nonetheless they separate the fans and if you sit out in the new the and on ⁓ in these right field bleachers you're expected to participate.

Like if you just come there and you want to talk on your cell phone, people won't ask you to leave, but they'll give you glares. You know, you're expected to be a participating fan if you sit out there. If you want to not participate and just enjoy the baseball game, keep score or talk to your friend, sit in the infield. You know, that's okay too. I mean, a lot of times I don't usually sit out with the fans and participate in the cheers. I just go.

to soak up the atmosphere. So I usually sit in the infield where I can just relax and take pictures of what's going on around me. And that's the way to do it. Now, a lot of foreigners will go out and sit in the outfield knowingly and say, I'm gonna do it. And they'll go buy their gear and they'll get into it. And the vast majority of Japanese fans sitting around you will kind of adopt you, right? And they'll...

They'll teach you the cheers and say, all right, you know, you're part of us tonight. So I have found the Japanese fans to be so welcoming if you really show interest and want to get involved. One of the things I saw in their book was that, you know, Japanese women are a big part of being fans in Japanese baseball, I'd say, without knowing it more than in the US, certainly in their level of dedication, and that they're responsible for

50 % of the merchandise sales. So that blew my mind when I saw that. Exactly, even a little bit above 50%, although we don't know exactly above, but yes. So they're not 50 % of the paying customers. They're fewer than that, but they're 50 % or above of merchandise sales. And so that's really interesting. the Japanese marketing people have come up with a whole line of items focusing on young women.

because teenage to young 20s women is a big group for them. And so we're all familiar with Hello Kitty. And you probably know the concept of kawaii, which means like super cute. ⁓ So Japanese baseball gear, there's a lot of super cute stuffed plushie.

I don't know what, I wouldn't call them animals, but they're things like backpacks that could be little rabbit ears or hamster ears you might want to wear at the ballpark. There's a lot of things focusing on teenage girls and young women ⁓ that guys wouldn't buy. And so that's a whole marketing concept that we rarely have over here, I think. No, I mean, it's one of the things I think teams get kind of criticized for is they've never really kind of evolved in terms of the merchandising aspect besides like what we've got branded bats.

Brandon balls, Brandon gloves, Brandon jerseys, shirts and hats. I think we've covered everything we will ever need. You wouldn't believe these, these merchandise stores. mean, I have to admit the Yankees new store has a lot of stuff in it now. I mean, I think they even have like Lego Yankees kits. mean, they were really pretty close to a Japanese one with all these little doodads you can buy and stuffed animals, but a Japanese,

Some of these stores are not only huge, but they have everything. They have like packed curry with the team's players names on it. Like so you can take it out and drop it in some hot water and put it on your rice and you have a curry lunch, but it's, you know, Matt Merton curry or you know, you name it. You could have a curry that you've, that's branded with your favorite player, which I think just gives.

the way to integrate the fandom into your daily life outside of just watching the game. There's not really a lot of ways to engage with the team and feel like you're part of the fan community in America outside of watching the game. And then if you're an actual crazy person, probably going and talking with other people online about it. That's true. But you know, one of the things that when you throw this out is it's not part of Japanese culture. So here,

If you wanted to show that everybody you're a Yankees fan, you might wear a Yankees hat all the time or a jersey or one of those great, what do they call them? Collegiate jackets, the leather jackets, right? They don't do that in Japan. So their fans are crazy and loving during the games, but it is not part of the culture to wear baseball gear in your daily lives. If you're a kid, it's okay.

But if you're an adult, basically usually do not wear baseball gear unless you go into the ballpark. With the exception that you'll see Dodgers caps and Yankees caps, but that's more part of a style look. Right, right. Cause it's almost seen as more of a fashion statement than supporting a team. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And how you choose your team, it's not like here necessarily, like, you you might choose based upon the culture and the way the team is.

that you adopt them, you know, and it might not be anywhere near where you live. I thought that was really interesting, right? That, you know, we're all so grounded in when we live in New York, we're Mets fans. So actually we know what it's like to be a long suffering fan and not win anything. that, you know, that, that you talk about that in the book a little bit. So yeah, talk about that, that, you know, that the people adopt teams and you like for reasons that are not the same as they are here. Yeah. Well, part of that has to do with Japanese geography. So you have a country about the size of California.

And the teams are really concentrated. So you have five in the Tokyo area, and then you have two in the Osaka area, and you only have 12 teams. So that's seven right there. Then you have down south, you have one in Fukuoka, which is all the way south, one in Hiroshima, which is about an hour north of that. And then in the north, you have one all the way up in Hokkaido, which is completely island. You have to fly there. ⁓

And then one in Sendai, which is about maybe an hour and a half, maybe two hours north of Tokyo. So with the exception of going to Fukuoka down south and, ⁓ the Hokkaido team, the Nippon hand fighters, you can take a train pretty much to any game. It's four hours from Tokyo to Hiroshima. So you kind of have to stay overnight after the game. But other than that, you can like take a two hour ride and go watch a game and come back at night. So as a result.

And also because Japan's population is concentrated in Osaka and especially Tokyo, a lot of people from all over the country code of live in these countries and these cities. So as a result, you can kind of pick whatever team, right? Because there are so many in your area that you can follow, ⁓ that it kind of gets mixed up. So when you go to the Tokyo dome and the giants are playing the carp, there are 5,000.

Maybe 10,000 people wearing red, cheering the carp in the middle of Tokyo. And it's really great to see that much of a away team presence at these games. Yeah, only in MLB, we got New York, we've got Chicago and LA that have multiple teams. And so when you go to any other city, somebody's talking about this, talk about Philadelphia and Boston and all the sports going.

anybody that's in Philly is gonna be a Phillies fan, an Eagles fan, know, but in New York, you're not sure. could be a Met fan, could be a Yankee fan, could be a giant fan. So Tokyo is kind of like that a little bit more than it is like, well, your geography determines who your fandom is gonna be. Yeah. The biggest difference I noticed is Hiroshima, which I became a fan of Hiroshima Carpo over the last few years. And that-

city is loves baseball. You get off the Shinkansen in the main station and the first thing you see is welcome to Hiroshima home of the carp. know, baseball and Hiroshima go together. And so that is a crazy carp town. But that, in my opinion, is really the only city that is so intertwined with the baseball team.

I wanted to go to talk about this before you know what was a long ago that we both watch Mr. Baseball I don't I think it's because that was the we were doing a baseball movies thing and it was like the one we had watched. So we have some familiar with it and when I watched it and you know and I went to to to Japan in the 90's and all that stuff I looked at it not going well that was the way that baseball was in the 1990's and where where a lot of the American ball players after that would go to Japan and go I watched the movie on the flight over.

to try to tell me what was going on in Japanese baseball. don't you tell us how different it is and how that is not the way that it is or it is the way that it is. Well, you know, it's changed a great deal since the 1990s. There's still elements of Mr. Baseball. Japanese teams still practice a lot harder than American teams. They still emphasize the fundamentals a lot more than we do. It's still a game based on small ball. ⁓

So the games have least one run fewer statistically than American games. So you're more likely to see, you know, three, two games, four, two games than you will hear. So a lot of those things they talk about in the movie, Bunting, there's still ties there, that still exists. ⁓ But Japan's become more international. Japanese baseball has become more international.

So some of the things that Tom Selleck goes through that real kind of alienation of being the only foreigner on the team, I don't get that feeling that that happens that much anymore. A lot of the Japanese players speak a smattering of English. And one of the things that's so important that I discovered when was writing this book is we all know that Hideo Noma comes over to the States in 1995, the second Japanese player in the major leagues, but the first one in many years.

And that puts Japanese baseball on the map in the U S and all of a sudden fans are aware of how big the good, leagues are there. And the GMs are aware of how good the leagues are. And they start looking for more Japanese buyers, but something else happened when no most started pitching for the Dodgers. They started showing all his games on Japanese TV. And so starting in 1995, you get an entire generation.

of kids who are watching Major League Baseball at least once a week. And it ends up becoming more popular, so now there's Major League Baseball on almost every day. So prior to 95, Japanese people would see Major League Baseball now and then on TV. So it was very different. Once it's on TV at least once a week, if not every night, now the games are starting to become closer to go certain style because

the young kids who become players like Otani grew up watching Major League Baseball. Right? So when Otani said ⁓ as a high schooler, think even junior high school, I want to be the greatest Major League Baseball player ever. That was something he thought about. Sadahara would never have crossed his mind because it was an impossibility. He wasn't familiar with it. So that's made the two leagues come closer together in style and in ⁓ ability too.

And certainly we've seen that kind of the evolution you're seeing more and more Japanese players. It's no longer the drop-ins based around single bunch of the guy over one run at a time. They've not completely gone away from that, but there's much more understanding of, wait a second, having a guy like Otani or some of the other, especially some of the foreign players they bring in that are there to really provide power in the lineup occasionally. They recognize, wait a second, home runs are good too. And we need them. Now, maybe not, but.

The thing what's interesting is how much we've taken from their game that that were pitchers now, know, a pitch much more in the style of Japanese pitchers than we used to. Yes, very much so. And I've spoke to some person, I don't remember if this made it in the book or not. I think actually maybe Matt Merton talks about this, that with

Americans go into Japan in the middle of their careers and then coming back to Japan and being successful, which has happened a number of times. They bring back a Japanese style of pitching and the two different styles are traditionally an American will attack with the fastball, set up the batter with the fastball and then use the off speed or the splitter for the final pitch to get them to chase. You know, that's oversimplification, but that's the model. Whereas Japan

The kind of oversimplified model is the Japanese pitcher will use your off speed in the beginning of the count to keep your player guessing and is likely to throw six straight off speed pitches. You may never see the fastball if that pitcher feels like you could hit the fastball well. There's no reason to throw a fastball. Their control is so good, you might as well work the outside of the plate. And if you walk him, who cares? He doesn't hit or home run. You know, I'll get the next guy. ⁓

So American players, pitchers are starting to use that style more than they used to. Well, and I wrote an article about the split figure fastball. And what I didn't realize, I guess, is that it fell out of favor here in the Major League Baseball because there was an underlying fear of injury. Like they somehow correlated some of the guys that threw it that got hurt, which didn't necessarily turn out to be true. It just was sort of a myth. And so the Japanese never got that message.

So they've been throwing the splitter for 30 years. And if you notice the guys that are having great success in the major leagues, not just in Japan, are guys who have integrated that pitch. And so all of a sudden the splitter has been reborn again here in major league baseball as a result of Japanese pitchers having so much success with it. Yeah, it's, it's definitely, and when you watch a Japanese game, their top pitchers, I mean, you'll see that pitch again and again, and it's so well developed there. Yeah.

Yeah, and we also mentioned power. And so I think Kazza Kimoto and Munezaka Murakami are changing the paradigm here for saying, besides Shohei Otani, who you can't talk about because you prefer to a unicorn. But these are guys that, well, can these guys hit home runs in the major leagues? Yes, they can. They sure can. And Murakami is surprising the heck out of me. I expect, well, I did expect him to be like a Rob Deere model, know, 200 plus strikeouts.

and a bunch of home runs, but I did not expect him to be ⁓ adapting so well to Major League Baseball hitting. mean, the batting average is low, but he's more of Carl, of a Kyle Schwaber. ⁓ And Adam Dunn, I Well, you know, I don't recall Adam Dunn having a high on base percentage. No, actually it was higher than you think. No, wasn't. Considering he couldn't hit for average at all. That's the only way you got on with him hitting a home run.

But yeah, I'm really impressed with Murakami and I certainly wish him the best of success and I hope he can continue. But a lot of times with any rookie, know, the league catches up. We'll see how he's doing once he hit August. It is just so interesting that so many of the things at least in regards to him, know, oh, can he catch up to the fastball? It's like, okay, well, the thing everybody thought was going to be the first check on him, he's blown by. So now...

They're having to adjust in a way I don't think they ever expected to have to adjust being like, okay, well wait a second, there's stuff we thought we could throw and we can't and well, we don't want to throw him the other stuff because he's already good at hitting that. Yeah. you know, it's interesting. I just, this thought just occurred to me. Japan is primarily a, you know, an off-speed curve ball league. I wonder if

his mediocrity in the last few years in Japan was due to that. And so he's really thriving now that he's in a fastball league because that's where it went to me. Yeah, I wonder. I really don't know the answer to that question, it makes sense. The book does a nice job of getting perspective, like Gordon said, from the umpires, from general managers, from the

first female owner in ⁓ Japanese baseball history. I want to focus a moment on managers only because you had Trey Hillman, who we were familiar with here as a ballplayer in Major League Baseball, and his experience and the individuality. I think Japanese managers still have a level of authority that ⁓ Major League Baseball managers have lost to a degree. Absolutely. ⁓ I think we can say this pretty

straightforward. Japanese managers have a lot of authority at times have been like a God like authority. It certainly hearkens back to the strong managers of the body Cox who just passed away. You know, like there's a perfect example of the old school. Yeah. Or, even before I would think so. So yeah. So when a Japanese manager says this is what happens, that happens. There's no talking back. One of the problems that some foreigners get into

is they start questioning the manager and then sometimes a rift will start out. One of the that players that I've interviewed always talk about is, you know, there's more give and take in the US. If a manager tells you to do something, you know, change that batting stance, you know, work on this, and you really disagree, you can go to them and discuss it, even if he wins in the end. In Japan, yeah, that just doesn't happen. ⁓ Now, in general, the Japanese managers will leave the Americans alone.

they figure they've already been trained in the States in general. Bob Whiting has written a wonderful book, You Gotta Have Wa, most baseball fans will have come across it. And he does talk about back in the 70s and early 80s, some of the Japanese managers who tried to change, know, some of the great ball players from MLB who are close to the end of their career and know what they're doing. But that's not what I think happens anymore.

Another manager and we're very familiar with him here in Connecticut where we live in the New York area is Bobby Valentine and famously obviously managed I think two separate tours in Japan. ⁓ But I want you to verify what I think is probably an apocryphal story about Bobby Valentine. Maybe you know this and maybe you don't so apparently in a drill when I think it was in his first go around where they were teaching the guys to throw behind the runner to try to get him going a second.

the Japanese players, I guess, misunderstood the translation and started throwing the ball at the rear ends of the guy on first base. Right. I don't know you've not heard that story before. I haven't heard that. But next time I see him, I'll ask him about that. I'm to know if it's true, because it would be great if it was. It is great. Yeah, that's a good story. I'll ask him. That's funny. He's the conclusion of my book. Bobby is so interesting.

He knows Japanese baseball so well and ⁓ he really did help revolutionize part of Japanese baseball. When he went back there again in 2005, same year, yeah, second time was 2005, Chiba Marines brought him over not only to manage but to help turn the franchise around economically. So he came over officially as manager but also acted a little bit like GM.

And he, got new marketing people. He brought over some American friends that were good at marketing and they really started integrating the fans more into their ⁓ franchise. And he talks about this a little bit in the book, but if you read the book, it's not just Bobby. was lucky enough to, ⁓ interval interview a guy named, Shigeo. ⁓ of course now I'm, I'm like having a senior moment and blanking on his name, Iraqi.

Shigeo Araki, who was Bobby Valentine's marketing person. And he talks about how they changed the franchise around economically when Bobby was there. So fascinating stuff to me, at least. Yeah, he worked with Bobby, right? They worked very closely together and he was so impressed because the things that Bobby was telling us, stuff that just hadn't been tried in Japanese baseball before. such as kids running the bases after a Sunday game. The field was...

Even today, you can't get down on the field. I mean, when I go, don't have, sometimes I'll have a press pass. Sometimes I won't, but I'll know somebody often at the ballpark. I can't get down on the field before the games. You're not allowed. Only baseball employees are down in the field. The media now, the media used to be allowed down the field. Now they're not. So it's a very different atmosphere there. So when Bobby allowed kids to run the bases, he said that was it.

The pushback he got was incredible, but he finally allowed it to happen.

I thought one of the interesting things also reading about the press was in there how different the relationship was sort of between the press there and how I remember what I think was Matt Merton talking about how in America, the press, you know, they have to stay out in the locker rooms for 30 minutes after the game, but then they're allowed to head in there and ask questions and do whatever. In Japan, no, they don't go into the locker room at all. The second you step outside in that hallway to start heading out, they are on top of you asking questions. It might only be one person asking questions, but they'll be like,

three people, four people around him taking notes on everything that you're saying. Absolutely. My opinion is, I'm sure some people would disagree, but I feel that there's more of an adversarial relationship between the baseball players and management in Japan and the press than there is here. You know, in general here, the press are part of the marketing of the team and the team understands that. And some players and press will

get very close, they'll have good relations. mean, things happen, of course, would upset that. But in general, they work together. In Japan, I really get the feeling that there's a real split, almost a wall, where the team goes to minimize the press's access to players, which is definite. ⁓ One of the examples is when I wrote this book and I got the players, I'm sorry, the team's permission to talk to their employees.

They approved the questions I could ask during my Zoom interviews, and then they had to see and be allowed to ⁓ edit my final draft. That's the only way they would do it. And that's the way it's often done over there. There isn't that kind of freedom of press the way we have here where that would be seen as almost immoral to do that.

Do you see that changing? think in MLB, the players have sort of learned how to advantage their relationship with the press to push their own cause, give their own notoriety. And I'm sure that in Japanese baseball, that hadn't been the tradition before. It was very much about the team and not about you personally. But does it change? I does it move more towards a little bit more? How many Tiochi Shinjos can there be in baseball?

You know, that's a wonderful question and I can't answer it because I'm not fluent in Japanese. My Japanese is poor. ⁓ and so I used a, a, interpreter for my Japanese interviews. So I can't read the newspapers and see what the players are saying in the native tongue. I can only, I can only read it in translation. And when it comes out in translation, it seems like the players rarely say anything against the team.

rarely say anything controversial. It happens now and then, but also a lot of times, ⁓ like I said, there's an adversarial relationship. So a lot of the Japanese baseball news is kind of ⁓ tabloid like. Pitcher Ono is seen out with new girlfriend, you know, as an article.

Uh-huh. page six stuff, right? Yeah, you know, but that's on in the news in the sports newspapers as if it's real news. ⁓ so I do not see that, but but I but I truly don't understand. Wonderful question. I'll ask one of my Japanese reporter friends. You're really into that. Basically every paper there is that is pulling a New York Post on a daily basis.

But some of the newspapers are owned by the same parent company or collomerate that owned the team. So the most famous is the Yomiuri Giants. Yomiuri is the newspaper that owns them. And that's how they were set up from day one. So the Yomiuri newspaper, of course, reports on the Giants. They get access, right? Because if you're a reporter and you report negatively on the Giants, guess who's working for another newspaper, right? So.

Yeah. So there's some newspapers that are not going to attack the team at all, but they do get more access. So you probably would get a little bit more inside official information. The corporate nature. I'm glad you brought that up because I I wanted to mention that. Right. So, you know, major league baseball, pretty much, you know, if you're a billionaire, you have a chance to own a team. And while that happens to a little degree in Nippon baseball, actually, it's the corporations.

and using baseball to further their own corporate mission. And so that impacts a lot in terms of the way things are done. Exactly, from the very beginning, instead of having individuals or groups of individuals owning teams, major corporations owned teams. And in 1954, there was a, I can't call it a law, I don't know what it's called.

I'm blanking on the word. actually don't know what it's called, but the, uh, the tax department, the national tax department came up with a rule that basically said, if you own a baseball team and you're a business that, uh, I think that they, there's a railroad business, a newspaper business, certain businesses, you can deduct all your losses on that baseball team from your business. So right away.

Teams are like, wait a minute, we don't have to make any money. We can actually lose money. So the teams became part of their advertising. And that was more important for some teams than winning the pennant. And very few teams actually were worried about making a profit. ⁓ And these corporations are big. it's not like it's ⁓ Soft bank hocks, know? Yeah, mean, baseball budget.

is dwarfed by the major corporations budget. So even though you'd think a baseball team is a big money, they're not in Japan compared to the corporations that own them. ⁓ We don't wanna keep you too long Rob, but didn't wanna ask you, and Gordon, I think you had the ⁓ thought to ask about baseball cards, and cause you're very involved in sports card trading in Japan. ⁓ Gordon is.

knows more about that than I do. I was just curious because it's like, know, American, we've seen the American sports card collecting scene kind of be blowing up over the last few years. It's been getting more and more popular, but that's purely almost from like a financial investment angle. People aren't really pulling it, so to speak, for the love of the game, literally. So how is it different in Japan where I imagine it's is it more about a collectible aspect of the cards or how does it differ from here in America?

That's a fabulous question. I'll give you my opinion. You know, I don't know if it's completely fact. So.

As a background, there's a couple things that are a little bit different from between collecting in Japan and collecting here. One has to do with the lack of space in Japan. Unless you live out in the country, you're living in a very small apartment. So most Japanese collectors do not have large baseball card collections the way Americans do. I mean, up in my attic are tens of thousands of baseball cards, lots of them duplicates worth only... The ones mom didn't throw out.

Yeah, exactly. mean, I probably have like 30990 to Dunross. What am I going to do with them? You know, so they sit in the attic. ⁓ That doesn't happen in Japan most of the time. So people tend to collect their favorite player, their favorite team, insert cards of stars. ⁓

Some people will collect for a few years and then sell off their old collection to have enough money to buy the newer cards just because of space more than anything else. So that's one thing. The other thing is vintage cards are not collected in Japan for the most part. There's a set that starts called Kalbi. They're in potato chips. They start in 1973. That's about as far back as collectors go. The earlier cards really don't have much of market in Japan. So

With that as a background, Japanese collectors now tend to be focusing on cards they love, but also with some thought of investment. ⁓ Otani cards, very high. ⁓ Cards of upcoming stars, very high. ⁓ I would say the lag was about three or four years between the US and the Japan in terms of, I would call the modern collecting.

⁓ thought process. So when cards right around right at the end of COVID, when US cards started just getting crazy and people were basically gambling with cards, you know, buying packs, looking for that hot rookie and spending outrageous amounts of money hoping they would get the hundred thousand dollar card or whatever. ⁓ That did not translate to Japan. And there were a few years when I was very active in collecting Japanese cards because it was still fun.

I can still try to collect sets. I can still buy packs. And that's kind of gone now. Now ⁓ all the manufacturers, whether they be tops or a Japanese manufacturer have the insert cards and people are buying them up looking for that one of one, know, tiny card or what have you. ⁓ So the markets are getting very similar but it's still tiny compared to the US market. Interesting. ⁓ The last question I have,

⁓ For me, Gordon, may have one as well, is when you talk about the real world championship, right? We call the World Series as the world championship, which isn't a world championship because it only is happening in Major League Baseball. And as the style of play and the aptitude in Asian baseball has come much closer to being what it is in Major League Baseball, do you ever see a time where there could be some sort of an East versus West? And I don't know how you're going to do it.

since you have foreign players on Japanese teams too. So there's not even, it's not gonna be a purely Japanese team and a purely, you know, American team if that's what people are looking for. Yeah, it's such an interesting thing. I would love to see one. Do I see it happening? It's not gonna happen in the near future. And the reasons why is, there's first, there's practical reasons, economic and economic reasons and kind of sponsorship reasons. Practical reason is ⁓ jet lag.

How could you have a fair world series when one team comes over and is jet lagged? So they need to come over at least a week in advance to get used to the, know, the, the The 13 hour difference. Yeah. Or else the time difference. Yeah. Or else they're not going to be equal. So that's number one. ⁓ Financially, you have to.

According to me, two weeks after the season, least one week after the season, you have to open up a stadium. You have to man a stadium of workers, which normally would have been empty at this point. So you have to get all the crew back involved. You have to do all the marketing. Can you raise enough money through ticket sales and TV rights in order to pay for that? Right now, I think Major League Baseball would say no. I don't think we could. ⁓

So that's the financial thing. And the final one has to do really with ⁓ the WBC. Right now, the Major League Baseball owns, of course, WBC and is pushing that as the tournament. And I think they've won. mean, everybody I know enjoyed the WBC more than the regular season, at least as of right now. was so many people were watching it this year. I think we'll see a real world series when

The WBC is making so much money that the fans want more international baseball. And MLB thinks, okay, we can cash in on that and we can make a lot of money by having an East West championship. When it becomes economically ⁓ strong proposition, that's when we'll see it. And that may never happen.

It may happen six years from now, happen 20, and it may never happen. Then you can get over all the practical problems if there's enough money out there. And for the time being, it seems like the major league players want to not take it that seriously, the WBC, so they don't have to commit to the fact that we really have to win this thing because they're beating us at our own game, which is kind of what's been happening. It has been. It has been. I think the players took it pretty seriously. The American players, I think, took it seriously this year.

But in Japan, of the wonderful things about it, Team Samurai is serious. That's a beloved team in Japan. And one of the things I see in the Japanese news when I follow the carp is when one of their players, when their younger players is selected for Team Samurai to play against Taiwan, that's a big deal. And they talk about what an honor it is to play for the team, even if it's just a friendly game against Taiwan. ⁓

So it's looking at the same as international soccer. They get a quote cap from England is a big deal, right? To probably be chosen for the English national team and to be chosen for the Japanese national team is a big deal. For the American team, I don't get that feeling. get, they're more like, ⁓ man, we got someone to say yes. Yes, yes. Sucker. Yeah. I mean, they had a good roster this time. They really did. Yeah.

What I enjoyed about the WBC and what the Americans need to learn is certain teams, Venezuela, Dominican, Puerto Rico, went out there and had fun. There was so much joy. And then the Americans looked, I need a colorful metaphor that I probably can't say on TV, right? They just looked like stone statues out there. They did not look like they were having fun. And

We need to kind of change our attitude, both on the USA team, but I would say, know, baseball, MLB is becoming more fun. It is. Now that we're no longer frowning with bat flips and the players can go out and enjoy themselves without being worried about getting a fastball in their back. I think baseball's becoming more fun, even though I do like old school baseball. But you know, but I do think it's fun to watch the players have fun.

So, but I think we have to have more fun, both in the stands and to go full circle. That's what Japanese baseball will offer you. It is an incredibly fun experience in the stands. When you go to a baseball game in Japan, you will have fun. You know, when you go to MLB game, you might have fun. If your team wins. ⁓

The book is called In the Japanese Ballpark and it too was fun. A really fun read, 26 chapters from different perspectives. Gordon and I recommend it really, really highly. Rob, you're going out in the road. I know you wrote the book in 2025, but I think you're out promoting the book. You got another one on you after this? I need a break. I have like three books that I've kind of started on, actually started writing, but doing the research. ⁓

I've been studying the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers tour of Japan for almost a decade. ⁓ It's kind of fun. Jackie Robinson played his last games over there. The team went from being pennant winners to declining to going out to LA. It also started the strong connection between the Dodgers and Japan that year. So there's a book there, but I haven't quite figured out how to tell the story.

And sadly over the over 10 years I've been playing with it, the remaining players have passed away. So I lost my chance. I was too lazy. I didn't go out and interview the players other than one or two before they passed. So I've been playing around with that idea. And there may be another book on Japanese baseball cards in the works too, which I'm toying with.

Well, you've stoked our interest, Gordon, I know, and we were much more involved. I'm following as a sub stack writer. I follow Tom Thomas Love Siegel, who writes about Japanese baseball and he's doing it sort of in a really interesting way that it's approachable for me as a fan talks about some of the games, some of the so I'm getting excited learning more about Japanese baseball, but you've given us more than than we ever could have imagined. Thank you, Rob. You Mark. May I plug our agent Sabres Asian Baseball Committee?

You can go to Saber, S-A-B-R, asianbaseball.com. And we try to post a couple times a week articles on Asian baseball, obviously. And Thomas Lovesego is one of our weekly writers. We usually take something off his wonderful blog about the history of the game. We try to talk about the history of the Korean game. ⁓ We're doing a weekly article on the different tours of Japan. The whole purpose is to get

more knowledge about the history of Japanese baseball, the culture, not of Japanese, but Asian baseball out there to the American fans so that they could really enjoy it as well.

It was great talking to you, Rob. Thank you. Happy to have you back another time to talk about this. We could talk about this for hours. Good luck with the book tour. ⁓ we'll again, be telling everybody to go out and buy it. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Right. It's been a real pleasure.