With baseball players named Matsui, Nomo, Sasaki and Ichiro, America’s national pastime is taking on a decidedly Japanese flavor. In his new book, The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave From Japan and the Transformation of our National Pastime, Japanese-American cultural expert Robert Whiting examines the extraordinary phenomenon of Japanese ballplayers making it big and re-inventing the game of baseball in America. Whiting focuses his story on the popular baseball player Ichiro to show how Japanese ballplayers are thriving on our shores and how they are transforming the game.