AAJA's MediaWatch Comments on AJC Column About an American Tradition in Japan

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Furman Bisher: Sayonara, baseball tradition

MediaWatch Fresh View: Baseball: Not in America Only by Kerwin Berk, AAJA member, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

March 31, 2008

Angela Tuck
Ronnie Ramos
Julia Wallace
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
72 Marietta Street, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30303

Dear Editors:

Furman Bisher sees opening day in Tokyo as a loss of tradition ("Sayonara, Baseball Tradition," March 25). He sees Daisuke Matsuzaka -- someone not from Wampole -- on the pitcher's mound as an affront. (Would he have the same problem if the pitcher was from Cuba or the Dominican Republic?) To Mr. Bisher, somehow all this is not right. It's un-American. It's different!

Mr. Bisher should be celebrating the fact that something as American as baseball has so taken root in another country as to become part of the culture, big enough that it could host the opening game.

And what could be more American than the story of someone coming to our country, by talent and hard work becoming a success, and going back to visit the old country in glory?

If Mr. Bisher wants to dredge up bitter memories of World War II, there are enough to go around on all sides -- American, Japanese-American and Japanese.

Most of all, Mr. Bisher seems to be lamenting that baseball has changed in the last 140 years, in ways that allow foreigners to pitch on opening day. Does he also regret that we no longer have a separate Negro League?

Instead of regretting the past, Mr. Bisher should have seen opening day in Tokyo as a symbol of how far we've come, in relations between this country and Japan, and in baseball.

Instead of bullets, we're firing fastballs and cheering each other on. And baseball, that most American of pastimes, is being embraced by the world.

Sincerely,

Jeanne Mariani-Belding
President
Asian American Journalists Association

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