If you have seen my book reviews page, you will know this: I am a pretty generous rater. I do not like to give books low scores or badmouth the authors. I even know some of those authors personally and would have for them to see a poor review of their baby. In this case, I would not say I “know” author Yasuo Fujii, but I did get to have dinner with him once and we occasionally correspond by text message. He is also the Hanshin Tigers roving hitting instructor this year, and do not want to criticize him too much. This review is neither a knock on him nor on his writing ability.
It is simply this: I did not get anything out of the book, for the most part. The four-stance theory itself is interesting, and some of what was explained went a long way toward explaining Coach Fujii’s approach with the players. Furthermore, it has helped me appreciate just how hard it is to become (and to develop) a good hitter. You see, based on a player’s body and natural mechanics (before any coach tries to “fix” them), there are four main types of hitters. Coach Fujii (who did not start the four-stance theory but is definitely a proponent) names them A1, A2, B1, and B2. Based on hitter type, the player’s grip, stance, load, swing, follow-through, equipment, pretty much everything will change ever-so-slightly. And so, the thrust of the book is this: as a coach, you have to recognize this and approach each player based on the type of batter (s)he naturally is. If you (as a coach and former player) are B2, you cannot expect every player on your team to adopt the mechanics of a B2 hitter. You need to ascertain the player’s type, and offer advice accordingly.
So why am I categorizing this book in the “strikeout” category? Again, it has nothing to do with how the Tigers are performing under Fujii, or how he writes, or what he purports to know. It is because I do not know most of the terms and concepts in English, let alone in Japanese! It was really hard for me to read through this and feel like I had gained the knowledge or ability that the book aims to pass on to the reader. And that is really unfortunate because nearly every other page has a QR code on it that links to an unlisted video (featuring Coach Fujii and his co-author) explaining the concepts that they talked about in the book. (By the way, the whole book reads as a conversation between the two of them.) I watched a few of the videos but find that while I am reading a paperback, I am not really interested in picking up my phone and watching a video every few minutes. I suppose if I were a coach or a developing player, I might have been more dedicated to getting as much out of this book as I could.
However, since that is not the case, I have no choice but to give this book a thumbs-down. If you know technical terminology about hitting stances and approaches in English and Japanese, and are in this field, I would say this book is a great read. If you are just a casual baseball fan, I would pass on this one.