"The Meaning of Ichiro" is gathering deserved acclaim as a great book on baseball, but it would be a pity if it was not also appreciated as an incisive and thoughtful examination of Japanese society, U.S.-Japan bilateral relations and globalization. With this dazzling display, author Robert Whiting ("You Gotta Have Wa" and "Tokyo Underworld") is a first ballot shoo-in as a Hall of Famer among Japanologists. Again, he does for Japanese baseball what David Halberstam ("Breaks of the Game") did for U.S. basketball and Sebastian Moffett ("Japanese Rules") did for Japanese soccer, elevating sports writing to another plane.
Whiting has an engaging style, packing his narrative with insights and information while making the story shimmer with anecdotes, local color and lively quotes. He takes us out of the stadium to probe the ways that transformation in the world of baseball is a microcosm of larger social trends and pathologies. As in his previous "baseball books," Whiting uses the sport as a way of getting under the skin of contemporary realties and conveying the distilled insights gained from over three decades as a participating observer.
So what is the meaning of Ichiro? According to Whiting, Suzuki Ichiro's successful transition to the majors assuaged the national inferiority complex, demonstrating that a man of slight stature could be a full-fledged star, equal to the best in the game. Ichiro-mania swept Japan, and many Japanese agreed with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's statement that "Ichiro makes me proud to be Japanese." People were enchanted by a "Japanese hero who was idolized by Americans themselves." Many fans must have found it puzzling that, despite his assault on the single season hit record, "he received almost uniformly positive treatment by American fans and media," inciting none of the xenophobic reactions that "American sluggers in [Japan] had experienced when chasing titles or attempting to break Japanese records."