Slugging It Out in Japan: An American Major Leaguer in the Tokyo Outfield

by Warren Cromartie, Robert Whiting

An American major league baseball player describes his experiences playing the great American pastime in Japan, discussing the bad calls, bad vibes, and bad-mouthing he encountered. Reprint. AB. K.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Japan, Nonfiction, Biography

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1991

Reviews

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is remarkably candid for an athlete’s autobiography. Cromartie provides a fun look at a unique era in sports history when Japanese teams began paying good money to American ball players still in their prime to leave MLB for the NPB, and his good humor makes learning about the culture clashes that inevitably arose fairly entertaining.

[Tom Stamper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book taught me more about Japanese professional baseball than the sum total of my knowledge coming in. Of course, the book is from a 1980s perspective and not the most contemporary take, but the Japanese cultural influences of the game there are fascinating as is their unique brand of jingoism.

Warren Cromartie was an outfielder for the Montreal Expos that took his game to Tokyo when Major League Baseball teams colluded with another not to sign free agents to keep salaries down. The Tokyo Giants offered our hero $2 million for 3 years of play, a better deal than Expos teammate Andrew Dawson got with the Cubs. Cro, as his teammates called him, would earn the money in a game that resembled the one he left but with many a cultural differences.

Each Japanese team was allowed 2 gaigin players, gaigin being foreign players. That not only included Americans, but even a Taiwanese minor leaguer was too foreign for their rosters. You could be half Chinese or Korean and get the nod, but even they were considered inferior to the pure bread. It was like the difference between the Spaniards and the Mestizos living in the new world. Warren Cromartie's gaigin teammate was the stand-offish slugger journeyman Reggie Smith. Smith had a fine major league career and topped it off with a big Japanese payday before hitting 40. But this was Smith's second year in Japan and his irritation with playing there didn't offer Cromartie the camaraderie he craved as an outsider.

And the Japanese played the game differently. They would bunt after any leadoff runner got on base. They would do it in the first inning. They didn't argue calls with umpires. Coaches wouldn't stop coaching and if a player was slumping it got even worse. Coaches seemed to have more fear than players and their cowardice as a collective was astounding. Hardly a coach that wasn't lobbying the media for better coverage while throwing players under the bus. I wonder if such toxicity is still prevalent.

[Theodore Raser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warren Cromartie, in 1984, in the prime of his career, accepts an offer to play baseball In Japan. I was familiar with the author because he was part of the talented but underachieving Montreal Expos teams of the late 1970s and early 80s. The book documents his life and of playing baseball in Japan. He ended up spending a substantial number of years playing baseball there. Until I recently came across this book, I did not know he chose this career path. To quote the author, “I say it like I see it” and he does so bluntly, be it teammates, Japanese or American, and others, and other subject matter.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe closer to a 3.5 but I did enjoy this look at Japanese baseball in the 80s. Cromartie ended up playing 7 years in Japan so he was able to get a good sense of the style of play and the general way baseball is viewed in Japan. He is very real in the book, he seemed to be kind of an ass but he admits it. Also he did have seven productive years there so he persevered better than most showing an inner strength. Coming from several years in the majors he was able to compare the two leagues which was interesting as well.

Recommended if you have any interest in Japanese baseball of the 80s. It seems honest and was an entertaining read.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longtime big leaguer Cromartie and Japanese baseball expert Robert Whiting have produced one of the all-time great sports bookstore , full of anecdotes and details that capture not just the notable differences between baseball in the US and Japan, but the cultures as they existed in the go-go 1980s. Highly recommended. I’m pushing through all of Whiting’s work at the moment — what a joy to read…loads of output from a field expert who knows the country, knows the language, and was pretty much the only person writing about this particular subject at the time.

[Clyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expect the potential readership for this book, which tells the adventures of an American baseball player in Japan in the late 1980s, is limited. It was quite interesting to me however as I am a baseball fan and I was in Japan at the time. Cromartie ("Cro") was a very skillful player. He was frequently in the Japanese sports news, and I actually got to see him play a few games. His story is readable, wry, funny, and quite poignant at times.
3.5 stars rounded up.

[Ta0paipai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cromartie provides an unadulterated look into his life and career, focusing on his experiences, good and bad, playing ball in Japan. The account takes an effective personal tone, and its narrative voice gives readers a feel for Cromartie's character. Perhaps the book's strongest point is its honesty, Cromartie often admits his faults and mistakes, and he judges his own actions as hard as he does the other players, management and Japan as a whole.

As someone whose lived in Japan for nearly a decade I related to Cromartie's experiences and opinions. And I really appreciated his heartfelt conclusion - although its not always easy, we've both learned a lot living in Japan.

[Joaquin · Rating 4 out of 5]

better than the rickey book. going to a foreign country is always an adventure too.