History of Japanese Baseball?

I assume you want it in English. If so, I'd strongly recommend "You Gotta Have Wa" (ISBN 0-679-72947-X) by Robert Whiting. Some of it is a bit dated now, but the history is perhaps the best you'll find in English.

"Remembering Japanese Baseball" by Rob Fitts is a more recent book that features talks with former Pro Yakyu stars. He interviewed both foreigners and Japanese players, giving an incredible picture from several perspectives, sometimes of the same historical event. This is a history as remembered by the players who were there, and very hard to put down.

Other books in the Book Reviews section of this site contain some history, but those are the two major ones.

If you can read Japanese, there is a companion to the Encyclopedia that came out a year or two ago. Since I had bought the Encyclopedia the year before, I couldn't justify getting another one just to get the history book that came with it.

Baseball Magazine Sha also publishes "Mooks" (a magazine/book combination) that cover various historical aspects. I have several of them on a number of topics (Trade History, Draft History, Tigers of the 1970s, Great Records, etc.).

Also, I've covered various aspects of Japanese baseball history in articles you can access from this page [Baseball Guru].

Jim Albright

Also by Robert Whiting and a bit older (mid 1970s) is "The Chrysanthemum and the Bat" which gives a good history from the post WWII thru the mid '70s.

Hi, just wanted to add to this old thread that, in addition to all of these excellent suggestions, I also found Robert Obojski's "The Rise of Japanese Baseball Power" quite good (though older), especially with regard to the earlier years.