Are baseball and sumo one and the same?

TOKYO — Is baseball like sumo? I wrote about this in my 1989 book You Gotta Have Wa. I compared the individual confrontation between pitcher and batter — a test of wills — to the “get-set” ritual in sumo, for example, with its squatting, stamping and fierce glaring has its equivalent in the war of nerves the pitcher and the batter wage, which involves delaying tactics like calling time and cleaning spikes.

I went on to write that baseball’s attraction in Japan was its relatively slow sumo-like pace, that suited the Japanese character. As any Western businessmen familiar with Japan will agree, the Japanese are extremely careful, I wrote. In business, they like to fully discuss and analyze a problem before reaching a decision, I wrote, and on a baseball field, the natural break between pitches and innings allows ample time for verbose and dilatory strategy sessions. The pro game — like Japanese business meetings — can and does at times seem interminable.