OCTOBER 2025
"MR. BASEBALL"
- The Importance of Wa -
By Rev Protodeacon George A. Haloulakos
The
month-long MLB playoff baseball season in October renews interest in
watching good movies that reflect the spirit of the summer game. Our
selection is an unusual entry: "Mr. Baseball" - a 1992 film with Tom
Selleck as an aging veteran ballplayer finishing his career in Japan
with the Chunichi Dragons. This film is a fusion of Romance-Comedy
(Rom-Com), Sports, Redemption as well as Comedy of Manners via
contrasting cultures! Yours truly worked and lived extensively in Japan
for weeks on end during the 1980s as I traveled back-and-forth to the
Land of the Rising Sun for my profession. I can attest to the film's
accuracy in capturing the "feel" of what Japan was like during this era
while portraying an insightful look at East/West mindsets in the context
of both sports and personal relationships. During one of my visits I
was there for the Japanese World Series and vividly recall the reverence
that Japan holds for baseball including mastery of fundamentals and
treating the sport more as work, than a game! "Mr. Baseball" takes a
deep dive into Japanese sports culture that includes player-manager
interaction, clubhouse behavior, corporate pressure, celebratory fanfare
of large crowds plus an insatiable sports media.
As
Selleck's character, Jack Elliot, struggles to adjust to Japanese
culture - especially the importance of "wa" or group harmony, the core
of Japanese baseball - he is aided by a superb supporting cast: his
fellow American and Dragon teammate Max "Hammer" DuBois (Dennis
Haysbert), his accompanying translator/interpreter Yoji (Toshi Shioya),
Dragons manager Uchiyama (Ken Takakura) and Jack's love interest Hiroko
(Aya Takanashi). Jack learns about the importance of sportsmanship and
hard work that helps revitalize his love for the game. In turn, Jack is
able to form genuine friendship and camaraderie as his teammates,
manager and girlfriend come to appreciate his personal warmth and
sincere desire for self-improvement in both professional and personal
terms. All of this occurs through a series of episodes or scenes that
embody Rom-Com, Sports and Comedy of Manners that occur with contrasting
or distinctly different cultures. This
is truly a wonderful movie that captures a unique time and place. As
Japanese players have now become visible and important contributors to
MLB (e.g., newly enshrined Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki), this makes "Mr.
Baseball" - ("Mister Beis-boru") - all the more fun to watch and
appreciate its intelligence in capturing the essence of the game without
being overly sentimental. If you are interested in finding out if Jack
Elliot finds redemption, whether the Dragons win a pennant and if there
is a "happily ever after" moment for Jack and Hiroko, then do yourself a
favor and watch "Mr. Baseball." NOTE: All photos are from the public domain.
