2020 Baseball Bookstore Awards

No holding back! The owner of the 'Baseball Bookstore' has arbitrarily selected the most interesting baseball book read in 2020! I will be announcing one grand prize winner and four runners-up!

【Grand Prize Winner】

'Salaryman Team President'

(Hidetoshi Kiyotake / Bungeishunju)

A non-fiction work by Hidetoshi Kiyotake, who served as the Yomiuri Giants' team representative at the time, depicting the activities of two 'salaryman team presidents'—baseball novices who threw themselves into the reform and reconstruction of the Hanshin Tigers and Hiroshima Carp, the two 'major struggling teams' of that era.
In the first chapter, there is a scene where Ryuzo Setoyama, the president of the Chiba Lotte Marines, reports the team's Japan Series victory to the owner, only to be berated with, 'I don't care about that! What about the deficit!' This is a symbolic scene that illustrates the hardships of being a team president. I was thrilled by this scene and read the whole book in one sitting.
Kiyoaki Suzuki of Hiroshima, who threw himself into rebuilding the team with wisdom, legwork, and passion despite a lack of funds. Katsuyoshi Nozaki of Hanshin, who worked alone to reform an old-fashioned team and corporate headquarters.
This is the professional baseball version of 'Hanzawa Naoki'!
It's too interesting!
Professional baseball fans should not welcome the New Year without reading this!

【Runners-up】

'Kanaashi Nogyo, Burning'

(Kei Nakamura / Bungeishunju)

Refreshing, youth, emotion, tears—
Sports media loves to force high school baseball players into these easy templates.
That summer of Kanaashi Nogyo was exactly like that. However, the real them could never fit into such templates; they were hot-blooded, gritty, stubborn brats who would sometimes even pick fights with their coaches.
A baseball club often mocked as a religion. Anachronistic, hard training and overuse of pitchers. But the players themselves didn't care about the noise around them. Because 'that's Kana-No'.
I would never want to play baseball at Kana-No, and I would never want my son to join the Kanaashi baseball club. But I want to support them!
This is a thrilling non-fiction work that kicks away the stereotypical image of high school baseball players.

'Checkmate or Not? The Two Years of Mori's Seibu vs. Nomura's Yakult'

(Akihiro Hasegawa / Impress)

The 1992 and 1993 Yakult vs. Seibu Japan Series are remembered by many professional baseball fans as 'interesting Japan Series'.
Compiling testimonies from 50 people, including managers, coaches, and players from both teams like Katsuya Nomura and Masaaki Mori, this book looks back at all 14 games of the two-year Japan Series from various perspectives.
It made me feel once again, 'Is baseball this profound?' and 'Is the Japan Series playing at such a high level of strategy?'
Since recent Japan Series have been so uninteresting, this book serves as a warning of 'how the Japan Series should be'.

'Makachoke: The Aftermath of Konan's Spring and Summer Koshien Championship'

(Takashi Matsunaga / Shueisha)

What kind of lives did the players of Konan High School, who shone brilliantly at Koshien, lead afterward? This is a book by author Takashi Matsunaga, who moved to Okinawa and has been covering them since their high school days, following the key players of that time.
Some developed the 'yips' in college or corporate leagues, some never became regulars despite high expectations, some passed the CPA exam while in college, some studied abroad in the UK to work on refugee issues, and some spent four years as a ronin to pass the entrance exam for a national university's dental school.
Whether you win the spring and summer Koshien championships or not, high school baseball is just a passing point in life. It's impossible to burn out there. Because they aimed for Koshien with all their might, they can work hard at anything. That's what I thought after finishing the book.
It is a supremely interesting book, including the 'Afterword'.

'The Childhood of That Professional Baseball Player'

(Yuki Hanada / Takarajimasha)

What kind of baseball boys were six of Japan's leading players—Shogo Akiyama, Kenta Maeda, Yuki Yanagita, Tomoyuki Sugano, Yasuaki Yamasaki, and Seiya Suzuki—during their elementary and junior high school years? This book collects testimonies from their coaches, managers, and teammates at the time.
I want not only baseball fans but all adults involved in youth baseball to read this. And I want them to chew on these words from Yanagita.
'The most important thing in youth baseball is to make the children smile. It's about how much of an environment adults can create where they can enjoy it. I think supporting them is more suitable for youth baseball than teaching them.'
Adults who haven't read this book are not qualified to teach baseball to children!
That's the kind of book it is.