I am also extending the chance to win a copy of the boxing book "Death In the Ring" by George Thomas Clark. In addition to entering by leaving a comment on the reivew of that book or my interview with Mr. Clark, if you leave a comment here, you can enter to win as well. If you do comment, but do not wish to enter the drawing for the book, please state so in your comment. Otherwise, enjoy and good luck!
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| Robert K. Fitts |
Questions for Robert Fitts
1. Why did
you decide to write about Japanese baseball and its players?
In 1993 my wife was transferred to Tokyo and we
lived there for two years. The night I
arrived in Japan, she took me to my first Japanese baseball game. The atmosphere was unlike any game I had seen
before. The fans sang fight songs, blew
horns, clapped in unison. The stadium
shook. I fell in love with Japanese
baseball that night. Later that year, I wrote a few dozen retired players to
ask for their autographs. To my
surprise, these players not only signed but many wrote letters back and some
sent me gifts. How different from Major
Leaguers! I’ve been interested in the
history of Japanese baseball ever since.
2. “Mashi”
took a little different approach to illustrating the struggles of a player who
was a minority to fit in with his teammates.
Instead of telling about injustices, most of these anecdotes are
humorous. How were you able to approach
a sensitive subject with so much humor?
That’s Mashi.
He has a great sense of humor—something every former teammate mentioned
when I interviewed them. He loved his
time in the US and focused on the positive rather than difficult experiences.
3. Are you a fan of Japanese baseball? What are your observations on the game in
Japan and do you feel that the quality of play is close to that of Major League
Baseball in the United States?
Major League baseball is more aggressive, faster and
powerful than Japanese ball. I feel that
the American game in played at a higher level but that one should not dismiss
Japanese baseball as inferior. They
produce many, many great players and watching their games can be a lot of fun. I worry that with many of their stars coming
to the US that baseball in Japan will no longer be able to maintain its high
level.
4. Tell us about your baseball experience – whether
as a player, a fan of a certain team or player, or if you just enjoy writing
about it.
I played baseball—poorly – as a kid and for a
company team when I lived in Japan. For
a while I was an avid softball player but now just play in a relaxed
league. I’ve been a baseball card
collector since I was 10 and that led me to start selling Japanese baseball
cards about 15 years ago. To promote the
cards, I started writing about the history of Japanese baseball but soon found
that more interesting than selling cards, so I began focusing on writing about
10 years ago. Mashi is my fourth book on
Japanese baseball.
5. What
future books can readers expect from you?
Do you have any work in progress currently?
I’m working on a story about the early days of
Japanese-American baseball. I’m studying
a group of men who immigrated to Los Angeles around 1903 and formed a baseball
team. They barnstormed across the
Midwest and hoped to become the first professional Japanese team on either side
of the Pacific. But, things didn’t work
out.
6. Feel free
to add anything here that you would like readers to know.
This summer, Masanori Murakami is joining me for a 9city
book tour. We will stop in Chicago,
Boston, New York, Rhinebeck NY, Cooperstown, LA, Fresno,
San Francisco, and San Jose. Information
on these events will be posted on my web site www.RobFitts.com. I hope everybody can come out to meet Mashi
and have him sign your copy of the book
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