Some years ago, we Americans thought there was little chance that Japanese baseball players could cross the ocean and make an impact on Major League Baseball.
Some years ago, we were wrong. Really, really wrong.
It turns out that a good baseball player is a good baseball player, no matter what his birth certificate says. You'd think we would have learned that lesson earlier. The immigration pattern started in 1995, when Hideo Nomo came over and was a successful player. Others followed. We got our first look at Ichiro Suzuki in 2001, and he certainly ranks as one of the great baseball players of all time. Then there's a guy named Shohei Ohtani, who has shown since his arrival in 2019 that he is as exciting a player as we've ever seen in the sport.
That's fine, but what about the guys going the other way - from North America? Some make the "reverse commute" every year to play in the two main Japanese leagues. The money and competition aren't as good, but it's still professional baseball ... and it beats working for a living in a sense.
"A Baseball Gaijin" is a book about one of those guys.
Tony Barnette is the subject of the book, and it's a story rarely told. Most of the books on Japanese baseball are histories, or dwell on the players who came here. Barnette is a pitcher who joined the Diamondbacks' organization out of college, and got as high as Triple-A ... but his chances for taking that final step, at least for an extended period of time, seemed relatively small. Meanwhile, the Yakult Swallows came calling before the 2010 season with a contract calling for relatively serious money. Living the dream, or getting financial security? That's a tough call, but Barnette opted to try his luck in Japan.
At first he thought he'd probably stay a year or two and hopefully do well enough to catch someone's attention back home. That's what happened, although the time span stretched through 2015. His career took some unexpected twists along the way, but he learned to enjoy his time in Japan.
Where this book shines is explaining what the day-to-day life of a baseball gaijin (foreigner) is like. The language problem is a big one, of course, and translators are assigned to foreign players to ease the transition. Still, it's not easy to change cultures so drastically - especially for an athlete, who is on an odd schedule and has certain requirements such as nutrition. Throw in a new wife and eventually a new baby, and Barnette had a lot to learn.
What's more, the right-hander is easy to root for here. He tried to fit in with his new team as best he could, and he learned enough new tricks to extend his career for quite a while. Barnette became relatively popular along the way, once he showed that he was a gaijin (each team has up to four) who could help the team win.
It's easy to wonder about a book about a player from the 2010s that is released in 2024. That's less of a problem than you'd think. Most Americans have no idea what's going on in Japanese baseball, so it's not as if they'll know what's going to happen to the Swallows in a given season. And you'd probably have to live in Texas to have heard the back stories about Barnette's arrival in the big leagues in 2016.
Based on the epilogue, it sounds as if author Aaron Fischman had some problems getting the book to a manageable length. (I know that feeling well.) But the finished product works out quite well in that sense. I only skimmed some pages that dealt with the Swallows and Japanese baseball after Barnette returned to the United States; the rest held my interest nicely.
Fischman deserves some brownie points for having the dedication for exploring a generally unknown subject fully. "A Baseball Gaijin" mixes sport and culture quite well. It's a book that may not tempt every baseball fan into picking it up, but those who do will find some rewards.
Four stars
Learn more about this book from Amazon.com. (As an Amazon affiliate, I earn money from qualified purchases.)
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