I picked this book up after having read Why Orix was Able to Win the Pennant, written by Masanori Kise at the end of the 2021 season. I read it in the fall of 2023, but it gave me an incredible education about the team across the river that honestly does not get the attention it deserves. There were several twists and turns in the team’s history that serve to explain at least part of why it is not a popular club. Anyhow, I happened to find the author’s X account soon thereafter, and his profile’s pinned post was for this book, which was released in April 2023. By the time I saw the post, the Tigers had not only clinched the CL pennant but also won the Japan Series for the first time in 38 years. That being the case, what would be the point in reading about the team’s foibles and what aspects of operations had led the team astray for such a long stretch?
To me, it was important to see how much of what he said was still true after the team had reached the pinnacle and won the pennant. He was so clear and deliberate when laying out Orix’s team history in the previously mentioned book, and I thought that giving this book equal weight was important. Let me preface this book review with two points that Mr. Kise made clear in the prologue. 1) He is a Tigers fan and it pains him that the team does not win; 2) He struggled to find people who were willing and able to cooperate with him when conducting this research. This was partly because many of the people he wished to talk to are affiliated with one of the five major sports papers or with one of the TV channels, or with the club itself. To expect frank answers from them was unrealistic.
And so what we are left with are seven major fundamental flaws in the Hanshin system, and features on former players or coaches who experienced them firsthand. They are:
- Brand name: Shoji Toyama & Koji Noda
- Kansai culture: Taiyo Fujita, Keiichi Yabu, Tomohiro Tanimura
- Strategy: Toshiyuki Kikuchi
- Player development: Masayuki Kakefu
- Anguish: Shintaro Fujinami
- Misunderstandings: Hiroki Yasumura, Shin Nakagomi
- Factions: Moto Andoh, Yoshio Yoshida, Shuhei Ichieda
The chapters do not necessarily feature interviews with the subjects, though most do. Rather, they are tales of how the flaws ended up causing the demise of the subject, or made a bad situation even worse.
Briefly stated, the first two chapters were quite closely related. Players who were drafted to the team with high expectations often failed to meet them. A huge part of the reason was their inability to adjust to life in the spotlight. Going from the countryside to the big city, to the big brand name that Hanshin is, wreaked havoc on the players’ abilities to cope with attention, lack of privacy, new styles of communication, fan interactions, and more. Furthermore, the team employed rather mysterious drafting strategies during the Dark Ages (1987-2001). There were countless stars they could have made an attempt at choosing, but they all too often went with “safer” bets, or with players who had connections with scouts (via alma maters, etc.). There was also a strong focus on the team’s inability to produce quality players out of high school, particularly with their first-round picks.
Every story is well explained and carefully laid out in a way that makes it easy to understand and even sympathize with those whose careers were derailed, ruined, or damaged by the organization. The last story is the most convoluted and, in my opinion, is what prevents this from being a masterpiece. It involves the author himself being the victim of the system, particularly the media machine, and how factions between two sides trying to get the manager of their choice back at the helm in 1997 led to his own demise as a newspaper writer. It goes a long way toward explaining the words on the back sleeve of the book: “A Tigers fan will become miserable if he becomes a beat reporter for the team. The more he interviews people, the more he understands that the team cannot be a winner.”
I have full respect for Mr. Kise. His writing ability is outstanding. The stories he told in this book were almost all 100% new information to me… and I have read my share of books, so it really does take a lot to surprise me. I would give it full marks were it not for two things: 1) There was simply too much information in his own story, which I get, because it is what makes this book unique and authoritative. I simply had a hard time following all the tangents, twists and turns. 2) The Tigers DID in fact win it all in 2023.