A New Dawn for Japanese Sports

The Tokyo Olympics begin as homegrown athletes star on the global stage

Sports Biblio Reader, 7.18.21

Also in This Issue: Untold Stories of Ichiro; Is America’s Olympic Twilight Nigh?; Mike Schmidt; Fred Lieb; Iconic Baseball Jerseys; Cricketing Lives; Best Sports History Books; Viktor Orbán’s Political Football; Remembering Mudcat Grant and Jim Fassel

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After a year’s delay, the Tokyo Olympics begin on Friday with Japanese athletes enjoying a global spotlight around the world.

Dylan Hernandez focuses on Angels slugger Shohei Ohtani, four-time tennis Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka and recent Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama in writing at the Los Angeles Times, fingering Yasuhiko Okudera and Kazuyoshi Miura, soccer players from previous generations, for the trend.

Ohtani was the starting (and winning) pitcher for the American League in this week’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and donated his earnings in the Homerun Derby to charity to Angels staffers.

He also has accounted for more than a quarter of all All-Star merchandise sales as he continues his potentially historic two-way season. Whether or not such a phenomenon can last, it’s truly been magical to take in as a baseball fan.

Osaka is one of the rate top tennis stars who isn’t skipping out on Tokyo, but she’s been enduring a difficult stretch, including mental health issues. They’re the focus of a new Netflix documentary she says is a fair reflection of what’s been ailing her.

A venerable Japanese global star, marathoner, Naoko Takahashi, the silver medalist in Sydney in 2000, is still revered in her homeland and is the subject of another documentary detailing her groundbreaking career.

Retired baseball star Ichiro Suzuki remains a popular figure, especially in America, where he made his MLB debut 20 years ago. At The Athletic Ink, a longform oral history explores the Ichiro phenomenon with stories from the dugouts and clubhouses he occupied, including tales of wrestling with Ken Griffey Jr. and the concoction of “Ichi wings” to capitalize on the craze;

While athletes begin gathering in Japan as COVID-19 surges are taking place, they’ll find a surreal environment—no fans will be allowed in the stands.

For several years, Tokyo Olympics officials have been working earnestly to remake the 1964 Olympics (which I examined nearly a year ago, as the Games were delayed).

As Simon Denyer writes at The Washington Post, that was already a tall and unrealistic order even before the organizers decided to pull the plug on an estimated 40 million spectators.

Those watching on television around the world will see some eye-catching architecture, but, as Rowan Moore writes at The Guardian, there isn’t much of that, and they may prove to be haunting sights in what he argues could be “the saddest Olympics ever.”

From ArtNet, a look at the Cultural Olympiad that’s also being staged in different fashiom.

The empty venues do figure to be a downer, but I won’t go as far as John Branch of The New York Times, who’s becoming an especially dreary voice on sports issues, questioning whether the Olympics even matter.

And not just the Tokyo Games. These certainly will be different, and issues about whether the Olympic movement can ever reform itself, including alliances with repressive states, surely will go on.

Yes, the Olympics “are built on excess, tangled in geopolitics, rife with corruption and cheating” and yes, they are “are presented as apolitical, but that is both impossible and untrue.”

The Games have been decadent for decades, but Branch’s dour diatribe doesn’t even try to hint at the reasons millions of us will be watching over the next two to three weeks.

A Few Good Reads

Also at the Los Angeles Times, David Wharton ruminates about whether the Tokyo Olympics represents the last time U.S. athletes figure to dominate, given the grim future of sports like track and field, swimming and other Olympic training grounds in college athletics;

Karen Crouse, an Olympics reporter for The New York Times, is not going to Tokyo after allegations of a conflict of interest arose for her coverage of swimming gold medalist Michael Phelps. She was suspended after reportedly failing to tell her editors of an upcoming book project with Phelps while reporting on him, including a story published last month about his retirement;

Before the recent MLB Draft, Tyler Kepner of The New York Times made the case for Mike Schmidt being the best-ever draft pick, 50 years ago this year, as an obscure third baseman at Ohio University;

Last month, the Baseball by the Book podcast explored “Baseball As I Have Known It,” Fred Lieb’s press box classic first published in 1977 and that chronicles his coverage of the game even before World War I;

From Print, the excellent graphic design magazine, the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts is displaying iconic baseball jerseys, including the Houston Astros’ softball-looking threads (specifically, pitcher Joe Niekro’s), and Jesse Tannehill’s wool flannel get-up with the 1908 Red Sox. Other recent designs include the work of Louis Vuitton, Moschino, MIZIZI and Gucci, as well as Elton John’s Dodger uniform from the 1970s that was featured in “Rocket Man,” the film. Here’s more about the exhibit, which continues through Sept. 12;

From The Spectator, a review of “Cricketing Lives,” Richard H. Thompson’s new book about the eccentrics and oddballs in one witty collection. Likewise at The Critic, where Patrick Kidd concludes that the book is good entertainment even for those not enamored with the sport;

Robert Colls, author of “This Sporting Life,” a recent history of English sports, lists his favorite books about sports history, which includes mostly volumes from his homeland but also “The Sweet Science,” A.J. Liebling’s boxing classic;

Soccer writer extraordinaire Jonathan Wilson examines the penchant for football displayed by Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, who once again tried to make political hay of the sport during the recent European Championships.

Passings

Mudcat Grant, 85, was the first black pitcher in the American League to win 20 or more games in a season, earning 21 victories in 1965, the first year the Minnesota Twins reached the World Series. He later wrote a book, “The Black Aces,” about his compatriots who joined him in that exclusive club;

Jim Fassel, 71, coached the New York Giants to a Super Bowl and was a former NFL coach of the year, going 58-53-1 in seven seasons.

The Sports Biblio Reader e-mail newsletter is delivered on Sunday. You can subscribe hereand search recent archives. The full archives for Sports Biblio Digest can be found here. This is issue No. 245, published July 18, 2021.

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