Before I share with you my thoughts on this book, allow me to explain my Kyuji Fujikawa fandom. I probably first heard about him when he signed a deal with the Chicago Cubs before the 2013 season, as I was not yet a Hanshin fan at the time and had zero knowledge of his career to that point. All I knew was that a lot of hotshot Japanese players thought they were good enough for the majors, but many of them returned to Japan with their tails between their legs. I figured he would probably just be another one of them. I wasn’t wrong. But in the meantime, I became a fan of the team he had left behind. I read his first book (Immature Man) and was only mildly impressed. Enough, though, that when there was talk of him returning to Japan to play ball, I was interested to see if he would rejoin the Tigers, or move on to another team. He chose the Kochi Fighting Dogs of the Shikoku Island League. Ultimately, though, he signed with Hanshin at the end of 2015, and I was actually excited (and optimistic) about his return. He performed somewhat poorly in 2016, but from then onwards, was a consummate professional and honestly, he captured my heart. Nerves of steel. Heart of a competitor. Did not mince his words with the media. Put the fans and his teammates first, despite being a bonafide star in the twilight of his career.
Then, he announced his retirement after a rough start to the 2020 season. Then, he started showing up on social media. I swallowed it all up. Then came the announcement of this book, which went on sale on January 18, and I could not have been more excited about it. As you might already know, I have read and reviewed books by Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Randy Messenger, heck, even Sadaharu Oh… none have been awful, but none have really hit the spot. So how would this one stack up?
In a word, fiery. It took me very little time to plow through, but I picked up a lot of useful information and background to Kyuji’s career in this short 185-page autobio. He does not give much of an insight into his childhood, though he does talk at times about how many “chances” he had to quit baseball, though it kept calling out to him and drawing him back into the fold. Basically, he looks at his career through different phases based on the managers he was under: Katsuya Nomura (draft – 2001), Senichi Hoshino (2002-03), Akinobu Okada (2004-08), Akinobu Mayumi (2009-11), Yutaka Wada (2012), the majors (2013-15), before briefly touching on his time with the Kochi Fighting Dogs, then life under Tomoaki Kanemoto (2016-18), and finally, Akihiro Yano.
There are too many interesting tidbits and I do not want to spoil them for people who might want to try to read this book. I will, however, say this: his time in the USA was definitely both the roughest part of his life, and the best part of the book. It was also the hardest part to read without feeling sympathy for the man. However, some of the issues were brought on by his own mistakes (like trying to build too much muscle in the wrong places, which led to his need for Tommy John) and perhaps immaturity (inability to properly communicate with coaches and managers). Still, you can’t help but wonder if his life would have been different if he had just been dealt a slightly different hand. Kyuji also wonders that but takes the hardship in stride, in a sense. I love how he turned that bad experience into the man that he is now. He shut up his critics who said he no longer had “it” by successfully coming back to NPB and dominating for 3 seasons.
The greatest thing I got out of this book, though, is that Kyuji Fujikawa is not one to live in the past. He neither dwells on failures nor gloats about successes. Another thing I got from the book was that Kyuji truly gave everything he had to this club. He knew his shoulder and elbow were completely burnt out at the start of the 2019 season, but he kept playing for a whole year before not being able to pick things up a notch at the start of 2020, and then announcing his retirement in late August. He came back to Hanshin so that he could make a champion out of Kanemoto the manager. When that didn’t pan out, he kept the same altruistic attitude towards incumbent manager Yano.
The only drawback was that this book was too short. There was very little talk of his life off the field, things like his overnight fishing excursions after games, how trainers came to his house and massaged him late at night, his wife’s plans to put out a recipe book based on the meals that kept him healthy and strong, and a whole lot of other things that I hope will come out in due time. Whatever Kyuji does next in his life (and some YouTube videos indicate he feels that someday he will become manager), I can guarantee you this: I will be one of his biggest fans moving forward.