Difference between Japanese baseball culture and American baseball culture
... of their own -- only one-on-one competitions like kendo and sumo -- baseball provided the Japanese with an opportunity to express their renowned group proclivities on an athletics field. In Japan, they have different philosophy in their view of baseball. That is, they believe in spirit and hard work -- that if a man tried hard enough, he could do anything. The big difference between Japan and the United States is that in the United States, we believe that a player has a certain amount of natural ability and with practice he reaches a certain peak point, but after that no amount of practice will make him better--because after a certain point your ability reaches its limits. But Japanese believe there is no peak point. They do not recognize limits ( Whiting 52). Therefore, they believe that hard work and practice is the most important factor to reach their goal. For example, pitcher should never stop working. He threw a hundred or more pitches every day in practice and in games he would throw every pitch as hard as he could. Even if he had injured, he believe it can be cured by hard practice. They do not pay attention for the futures. However, in the United States, the players have more attention for the future. If they have injured, they do not play until they are completely cured. They also care about future condition of themselves. In Japan, “wa” -- meaning unity and team spirit -- is considered the most important ingredient of a winning team. While American player focus on the individual ability and effort, Japanese player focus on their team harmony and balance. Also, in Japan, they had some strict rule to be kept by players. For example, obey all orders issued by the manager. Do not criticize the strategy of the manager. There rules look strange for the American players. This is one of reason why the foreigner is often unable to adjust to the different style of play in Japan despite the special treatment. However, Japanese players think they create team harmony and “wa” by keeping these rules. Japanese baseball is extremely delicate mechanism, so Japanese “work ball” while Americans “play ball.” The Japanese team is an extremely delicate mechanism. It needed constant tuning and the people in charge simply could not stop tinkering with it. They are baseball hypochondriacs--always looking for something wrong. Some foreign p...