The bestselling author of the baseball classic You Gotta Have Wa delivers a fascinating look at how Japanese ballplayers are influencing and reinventing America's major leagues. Ichiro....Nomo....Sasaki....Hasegawa....Matsui....one by one they have come to America and made their mark-not as novelty items but as incredibly gifted ballplayers whose skills and styles have defied critics and earned the admiration of millions of fans. Led by the charismatic right fielder for the Seattle Mariners, Ichiro Suzuki, whom many refer to as baseball's best all-around player, this new wave of athlete is the tip of a fascinating iceberg: a deep and very different tradition of baseball the Japanese way. Grandly entertaining and deeply illuminating, Robert Whiting has created a classic book about baseball, business, and stardom-in a sports world that is changing before our very eyes.