In the Japanese Ballpark:
Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball
2025 - University of Nebraska Press
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with Personalized Inscriptions
Delivered in November 2025 in time for the Holidays
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"I loved this book.”—Doug Glanville
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"Every page is filled with insights and delight.”—Rob Neyer
​​What makes Japanese baseball unique and so much fun?
​​Robert K. Fitts turns to the true experts, the people who play, oversee, promote, and watch the game, to find out what makes Japanese baseball special. In the Japanese Ballpark features engaging interviews with twenty-six baseball personalities to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the game.
Fitts speaks with participants in the games such as players, managers, and an umpire; support staff including an interpreter, trainer, and data analyst; front office personal such as an owner, general and assistant managers, and marketing directors; ballpark workers including cheerleaders, a mascot, beer vendor, and usher; and professionals who surround the sport, such as baseball writers, a player agent, and a sports card dealer; as well as a league commissioner. Through their personal experiences, these individuals reveal the inner workings of the Japanese game and provide inside knowledge to make the fan experience more enjoyable, for both those watching a Japanese game for the first time and well as for seasoned followers.
​​​Featuring narrative Interviews with Jim Allen, Shigeo Araki, Edwin Dominguez Alvarez, Jonathan Fine, Taylor Foote, Shungo Fukunaga, Trey Hillman, Ken Iwamoto, Kenjiro Kajita, Shun Kakazu, Yasuro Karibe, Ryozo Kato, Ichiro Kitano, Marty Kuehnert, Matt Murton, Toshihiro Nagata, Tomoko Namba, Tomoki Negishi, Saori Ogure, Jennie Roloff Rothman, Tatsuo Shinke, Bobby Valentine, Robert Whiting, Natsuo Yamazaki, Noamichi Yokota.​
​“You begin reading Robert Fitts’s book with a walk. Each step is another intimate first-person portrait that is an integral part of the collective Japanese game of baseball. You feel the honor, the soul, the sheer attention to detail in every page. Each turn was a revelation of what seemed almost confidential. I never stopped learning from start to finish and when I completed the final chapter I found a full tapestry of a beautiful game where every stitch made by every person was deeply consequential. I loved this book.”
Doug Glanville, Emmy award-winning journalist and baseball analyst and author of The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View
“Thanks largely to Robert Fitts, we’ve learned a great deal about Japan’s greatest ballplayers. But now Robert has given us a penetrating, necessary look at the game off the field, too, and every page is filled with insights and delight.”
Rob Neyer, award-winning baseball writer“
"Through the voices of agents, cheerleaders, umpires, journalists and mascots, as well as players and managers, Robert Fitts uses the best kind of oral history to bring alive the vibrant and unique culture of Japanese baseball. You can taste the fresh sushi and cold beer delivered straight from kegs and hear the crack of the bat on a Sunday afternoon at the Tokyo Dome. It also comes with a fantastic comprehensive guide to attending and following the Nippon Professional Baseball league. A homu ran.”
John W. Miller, author of The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball