Throwback Thursday: As American as baseball cards?

Not necessarily.

Shohei Ohtani recently hit his 300th home run. It should come as no surprise that his baseball cards can be worth thousands of dollars. But he’s still “trapped” by the fairly standard design of American-made cards.

That brought to mind this Bookshelf Conversation I did in 202 with Robert Fitts, the go-to guy when it comes to Japanese baseball, including his excellent volume, An Illustrated Introduction to Japanese Baseball Cards. This was one of three BCs I had with Fitts, each one an illuminating look into their version of the sport.

Also highly recommended: Sayonara Home Run!: The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card, by John Gall and Gary Engel, originally published 20 years ago. Here’s what I wrote about that one in a Bookreporter.com feature about some of that year’s baseball titles:

Books on the “art” of baseball have been on the shelves for years. They usually consist of reproductions of paintings, photographs or sculptures, most of which are nicely done, but after a while seem the same.

One of the most unusual and visually interesting baseball books in recent years is SAYONARA HOME RUN! The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card. Unlike the traditional American card, made popular by Topps beginning in the early 1950s, Japanese cards come in various shapes and formats. In addition to hundreds of colorful examples, authors John Gall and Gary Engel present a brief history of the development of baseball in Japan and profiles on the nation’s most popular players (as well as a brief dictionary of baseball terms in Japanese).