Shinto

Shinto, World Baseball Classic and Ichiro Suzuki

The television channel that I watch on Tuesday claimed that the Japanese baseball team were ("kami ga yadotta") filled with the holy spirit (?). Below are some possible links between Baseball and Shinto, with a Japanese translation at the end.

1) The naive sincerity of the players, particularly but not only Ichirou. Suzuki Ichiro is an unusual Japanese man, but there is something about his Samurai-cum-schoolboy-ishness that tastes a very Shinto. Western heroes tend to be cooler, more "mature" or perhaps "fake." But Japanese heroes can be just as cool at times - and Ichiro is ice cool - while behaving like little boys at others. Japanese mythology is full of heroes (Izanagi, Susano, Ookuninushi, Yamasachihiko, Yamatotakeru) that, even has they vanquish powerful enemies, show their weak side, cry, shout and wreak mischief. The players do not seem to have removed or repressed anything from the complexity which is human nature. (Not so Japanese women, but that is another story)

Incidentally, however, Jesus of Nazareth is also described as crying, and having doubts and fears and died, Mark and Matthew tells us, saying "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (even as the beginning of psalm 22,
http://tinyurl.com/oovyk this is a psalm that is frank about human weakness) But, despite having a God that cries, it seems to me that the heroes of Anglo-Saxon culture, the James Bonds and John Waynes, and the sportsmen too, seem to have a much stiffer upper lip. Things may be different in France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc

2) The Wordlessness of the Sportsmen
This is especially true of Japanese sumo wrestlers who almost seem to be bound by an unwritten rules that, during their career as wrestlers they should not be verbose, but grunt from a local lexicon of no more than 50 phrases, such as "I think I managed to do my own wrestling." They raise their eyebrows and look from the sides of their eyes in what seems to be an attempt to express themselves, but it is clear that they are speaking from beyond language, like Zen "kyo-gai-betsu-den" (the other trandtion from beyond the scripture - a good way of describing Shinto IMHO).
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln275/Zen.htm
Similarly Matsuzaka, the WBC MVP, and other Japanese baseball also appeared to have this a-linguistic quality, or purity. Shinto is not based upon a book, and the Word did not become flesh and dwell among the Japanese baseball players.

3) The Sense of Gratitude
The most obvious difference between Japanese and Western sportsmen seems to be the way in which they attribute their success. While western sportsmen are able to mention their preparation, the Japanese always seem to be thanking this person and that person, and stressing that they did not do it on their own. This is only a question of degree, and to a certain extent it is a formality, but I think that it demonstrates a greater belief
in the interdependence of humans, and the collective nature of human action. I think that the Japanese festival tradition (mikoshi etc) helps to teach this. 
http://tinyurl.com/lj99a

4) The Sports People Look Good
I think the kami watch us. They are eyes in the sky, as it were. Thus compared to a God that listens to the narration, that reads the book of the game, in Shinto-land is not only the actions and the result that matter, but also *the way that it looks*. And the Japanese players do look very good. I think that this is one of the reasons why Japanese teams have not been as strong as they might be, because when it comes to the crunch, they give embarrassed smiles and lose, rather than give it all they have got, for fear of ceasing to look cool. Fortunately, this time, they had SuzukiIchiro, who looks cool even when he is angry.
http://tinyurl.com/lbhh2
I think that he and Sadaharu Oh pushed the players pass the "embarassed grin" stage.