Free The Meaning of Ichiro by Robert Whiting Page B

the big white men flying, has restored
     pride to the Japanese and given them new courage.”
    Another triumph was the conquering of the U.S. auto market in the 1980s. This inspired an enormous wave of self-congratulation,
     endless platitudes from political leaders in Tokyo and hundreds of books and TV documentaries about the end of the U.S. century
     and the rise of the Japanese one.
The Japan That Can Say No,
a saber-rattling polemic by the aforementioned Shintaro Ishihara, one which essentially extended a middle finger to the U.S.A.,
     sold a million copies.
    The Ichiromania that swept Japan was certainly no less intense, as evidenced by the full-frontal blast of coverage in the
     ubiquitous sports dailies, featuring large photos and detailed pitch-by-pitch charts of each Ichiro at-bat. In NHK’s twice-daily
     broadcasts of Mariners games (shown once live, once on tape on the network’s 13-year-old satellite channel), viewers were
     treated to endless shots of their idol doing knee bends in the outfield, joking with his teammates on the bench, stretching
     in the on-deck circle. These were interspersed with taped replays of his pregame warm-ups, autograph signing sessions and,
     of course, earlier at-bats, ad infinitum. After watching all this for half a season, one Tokyo-based TV reviewer suggested
     sarcastically that NHK change the name of its daily gamecast from “Major League Baseball” to “The Ichiro Show.”
    The telecast of the 2001 All-Star Game by the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), a major commercial TV network, represented
     a new high in such narcissistic reporting. It marked the first time in history that two Japanese players had appeared in a
     Major League Baseball All-Star Game and a bevy of Japanese TV personalities appeared on the program to offer color commentary
     on the newest hero. When Ichiro was taken out of the game in the early innings, a luncheon show featuring guests singing Ichiro’s
     praises came on to occupy all but a small corner of the screen, where the All-Star telecast continued. It stayed that way
     until the other Japanese participant, Ichiro’s teammate Kazuhiro Sasaki, was called into the game to pitch the ninth inning.
     Then, suddenly, the live full screen baseball telecast resumed. The priorities could not have been clearer.
    A similar, although lesser, media display had occurred when Hideo Nomo first entered the major leagues, pitching every fifth
     day. But Ichiro was the first to appear front and center every single day—a slender Japanese among pumped-up musclemen, sparking
     his big American teammates to victory—and the public could simply not get enough of this delectable sight. It was an unprecedented
     opportunity to massage the national ego and the press took full advantage of it.
    There was no small degree of irony here, because, outside of the BlueWave home city, hardly anyone had watched Ichiro play
     in Japan. He had been the country’s premier player, with a string of batting titles under his
obi,
and owned the highest paycheck in either league, not to mention his own clothing line, numerous endorsements. His face adorned
     billboards all over Japan. Yet he nearly always played to half-empty stands, in games that were almost never telecast nationally.
     This sorry state of affairs was largely due to the existence of the Tokyo Yomuri Giants, Japan’s oldest and winningest and
     most beloved franchise. The Giants are owned by a puissant media conglomerate that includes the largest daily newspaper in
     the world, the
Yomiuri Shimbun,
with an average daily circulation of about 13 million including morning and evening editions, and the largest commercial
     television network in the land, Nippon Television. They were the only baseball organization so blessed.
    The
Kyojin
(Giants) were the living definition of the term “wretched excess.” Thanks to their habitually winning ways (31 pennants in
     their first 70 years) and the fact that they had always