As an unabashed Hanshin Tigers and Stryper fan, the title of this book sounds like an addiction I have suffered from in some shape or form since the seventh grade. The subtitle of the book, written by Hanshin superfan James McKnight, is “Life, Love & Baseball in the Land of the Rising Sun”. It is part one of two tomes that take you through the author’s life, from his life as a Cleveland Indians fan living in Tucson, Arizona, through the end of the Tigers’ 2003 Central League pennant-winning season. (Part 2, due to be released in late 2020 or early 2021, will cover 2004-06, McKnight told me.)
As someone who, like the author, experienced Japan in a remote location on the JET Program, who learned a lot of life lessons while living away from home, who found himself transformed by Japanese culture (and later by the Tigers), I could relate very well to the content of the book. I found myself nodding in agreement or empathy at many of the author’s experiences (the successes, the failures, and the frustrations). It was also enlightening to read fairly vivid descriptions of what it was like cheering for the Tigers at the start of the century, before the team was (relatively) successful and popular. McKnight befriended some hardcore Tigers fans who welcomed them into his fold, and at times, protected (prevented?) him from fraternizing with other oendan groups. As outlined in Dr. William Kelly’s anthropological look at the Tigers, there once was a clear faction between cheering squads, each of whom played by its own rules and had no restrictions placed on them by the club. Things have changed a lot in recent years. Tigers fans that I have known since my introduction to the team in 2014 are quite different from those in this book.
Chapters are all short and on the whole, this is a quick read. However, I definitely found that there were too many details at times and maybe not enough explanations at others. Hanshin fans should be able to follow the plot fairly easily, but for anyone unfamiliar with team history, some further explanations are needed. (You can bone up on team history here, though!) Furthermore, there are a lot of Japanese words, especially in the dialogue, which bogs down the flow. I think about Shogun by James Clavell, and how he was seamlessly able to incorporate Japanese words into the story, and how awkward it felt in this one. (Not to mention, transcription into romaji was quite inaccurate.) Some of the words seem to be misused or unnecessarily repeated, as well (akogare and niwaka come to mind). There were also a fair number of factual errors, many of which I imparted to the author, and he has since fixed them.
On the whole, I am not a huge fan of “amateur” writing. There were spelling and grammar mistakes throughout, and also sections that could have been taken out of the book altogether to give it a better flow. The author admitted to me that this started not as a book, but as a journal that he kept during his time in Japan. At times, it read like one, and for the most part, I do not really want to know that much about people I know nothing about. If his character had been made a little more compelling, and the focus had been more on how he changed and grew, it would have been a more interesting read.
That having been said, I will gladly read any English book about NPB and the Hanshin Tigers, and give the authors of those books full credit for venturing where most fans don’t dare go — into the world of book publishing. Until I do the same (and that possibility certainly exists), I will hold back on my criticism and recommend that you give this book a read. It is, after all, entertaining, illuminating, and about our favorite team.