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Japanese Baseball
From internationally recognized Canadian author W.P. Kinsella (Dance Me Outside, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, The Fencepost Chronicles) comes a new collection of baseball stories that is sure to delight lovers of engaging storytelling and fans of the sport he chronicles. Kinsella weaves his characters into the thrill of the game, be it in Japan, Central America, Canada, or the US. This collection captures the dazzling wit, compelling insight, and obsession with baseball that have made Kinsella more popular than a ballpark frank.
224 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2000
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About the author
W.P. Kinsella
44 books234 followersWilliam Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC was a Canadian novelist and short story writer. His work has often concerned baseball and Canada's First Nations and other Canadian issues.
William Patrick Kinsella was born to John Matthew Kinsella and Olive Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. Kinsella was raised until he was 10 years-old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, 60 km west of the city, home-schooled by his mother and taking correspondence courses. "I'm one of these people who woke up at age five knowing how to read and write," he says. When he was ten, the family moved to Edmonton.
As an adult, he held a variety of jobs in Edmonton, including as a clerk for the Government of Alberta and managing a credit bureau. In 1967, he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, running a pizza restaurant called Caesar's Italian Village and driving a taxi.
Though he had been writing since he was a child (winning a YMCA contest at age 14), he began taking writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing there in 1974. He travelled down to Iowa and earned a Master of Fine Arts in English degree through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. In 1991, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Victoria.
Kinsella's most famous work is Shoeless Joe, upon which the movie Field of Dreams was based. A short story by Kinsella, Lieberman in Love, was the basis for a short film that won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film – the Oscar win came as a surprise to the author, who, watching the award telecast from home, had no idea the film had been made and released. He had not been listed in the film's credits, and was not acknowledged by director Christine Lahti in her acceptance speech – a full-page advertisement was later placed in Variety apologizing to Kinsella for the error. Kinsella's eight books of short stories about life on a First Nations reserve were the basis for the movie Dance Me Outside and CBC television series The Rez, both of which Kinsella considers very poor quality. The collection Fencepost Chronicles won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 1987.
Before becoming a professional author, he was a professor of English at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Kinsella suffered a car accident in 1997 which resulted in a long hiatus in his fiction-writing career until the publication of the novel, Butterfly Winter. He is a noted tournament Scrabble player, becoming more involved with the game after being disillusioned by the 1994 Major League Baseball strike. Near the end of his life he lived in Yale, British Columbia with his fourth wife, Barbara (d. 2012), and occasionally wrote articles for various newspapers.
In the year 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2005, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia.
W.P. Kinsella elected to die on September 16, 2016 with the assistance of a physician.
William Patrick Kinsella was born to John Matthew Kinsella and Olive Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. Kinsella was raised until he was 10 years-old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, 60 km west of the city, home-schooled by his mother and taking correspondence courses. "I'm one of these people who woke up at age five knowing how to read and write," he says. When he was ten, the family moved to Edmonton.
As an adult, he held a variety of jobs in Edmonton, including as a clerk for the Government of Alberta and managing a credit bureau. In 1967, he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, running a pizza restaurant called Caesar's Italian Village and driving a taxi.
Though he had been writing since he was a child (winning a YMCA contest at age 14), he began taking writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing there in 1974. He travelled down to Iowa and earned a Master of Fine Arts in English degree through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. In 1991, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Victoria.
Kinsella's most famous work is Shoeless Joe, upon which the movie Field of Dreams was based. A short story by Kinsella, Lieberman in Love, was the basis for a short film that won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film – the Oscar win came as a surprise to the author, who, watching the award telecast from home, had no idea the film had been made and released. He had not been listed in the film's credits, and was not acknowledged by director Christine Lahti in her acceptance speech – a full-page advertisement was later placed in Variety apologizing to Kinsella for the error. Kinsella's eight books of short stories about life on a First Nations reserve were the basis for the movie Dance Me Outside and CBC television series The Rez, both of which Kinsella considers very poor quality. The collection Fencepost Chronicles won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 1987.
Before becoming a professional author, he was a professor of English at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Kinsella suffered a car accident in 1997 which resulted in a long hiatus in his fiction-writing career until the publication of the novel, Butterfly Winter. He is a noted tournament Scrabble player, becoming more involved with the game after being disillusioned by the 1994 Major League Baseball strike. Near the end of his life he lived in Yale, British Columbia with his fourth wife, Barbara (d. 2012), and occasionally wrote articles for various newspapers.
In the year 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2005, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia.
W.P. Kinsella elected to die on September 16, 2016 with the assistance of a physician.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 14, 2024
I love W.P. Kinsella’s love of baseball and his really beautiful way of writing so I had hoped this would be in the same vein as Shoeless Joe. I was going to eviscerate this collection of short stories but I’m exhausted just thinking of all that was wrong. Here are some highlights (or, lowlights I guess)
HEAVY racial stereotypes. Disgusting plot points like the misogynist baseball player purposely trying to impregnate his girlfriend when he thinks they’re about to break up. Fetishization and exoticism of Japanese women. The MOST appalling story involving a Japanese woman with brain trauma.
In short, I hated this. I’ll stick with Shoeless Joe and try to forget this ever existed.
HEAVY racial stereotypes. Disgusting plot points like the misogynist baseball player purposely trying to impregnate his girlfriend when he thinks they’re about to break up. Fetishization and exoticism of Japanese women. The MOST appalling story involving a Japanese woman with brain trauma.
In short, I hated this. I’ll stick with Shoeless Joe and try to forget this ever existed.
November 15, 2014
some good stories, some not so great. Kinsella's style is to create mystical baseball stories but most end without explaining everything. Sometimes it works well, other times it feels like a cop out.
May 30, 2024
Excellent group of short stories at least loosely associated with baseball. If you are a baseball fan then W.P. Kinsella is an author you need to read.
March 2, 2013
Most people think of W.P. Kinsella as a baseball writer. What he is a writer who often uses baseball as a setting, or sometimes a metaphor, for the events in his character's lives. While Sholes Joe is his most famous novel, I think he is a better short story writer than novelist. This is another of his many short story collections.
These stories range from melancholy to poignant. IN many ways Japanese Baseball is a very sad tale, and The Kowloon Cafe the most amusing.
I suggest seeking out his books.
These stories range from melancholy to poignant. IN many ways Japanese Baseball is a very sad tale, and The Kowloon Cafe the most amusing.
I suggest seeking out his books.
January 21, 2011
They're all good, but the final story, "Underestimating Lynn Johannsen" kicks my ass every signle time.
June 23, 2010
baseball fiction,Kinsella
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews