What's the Deal with Shinjo?

As someone who can dig Shinjo, I can kind of explain his appeal on a male level. Of course to women, they like his looks and style. To me, though, he appeals to me because of his love of the game. As much as he loves being famous and getting attention, he also loves baseball a whole lot. He learned a lot from his time in America and he wants to make the game a lot more appealing to casual fans. He knows he's not going to be an MVP, because he wasn't blessed with that batting ability.

You can tell when someone is egotistical and a complete jerk about it. Shinjo seems like he's 100% sincere and does indeed love the game and his fans with all of his heart. Fans are his treasure.

Shinjo is so big for the same reason Korean actor Yon-sama got so big here - middle-aged Japanese women. That seems to be his biggest fan base, although to be fair I have met a lot of knowledgeable fans who do like him.

I thought he was an exciting player when with the Tigers and supported him during his stint in the U.S., but now I've grown tired of his antics. I'm glad he is retiring. He is a character and a lot of fans are drawn to his antics. I consider him an average player, however, and feel sorry for more deserving players when he is playing in the All-Star team. But the All-Star game is generally a popularity contest, so I'll let those who do like the guy explain why.

Oh, come now, he's not the star of the Fighters. Michihiro Ogasawara is the star player on the Fighters. Shinjo's just the star "face" on the Fighters, the guy who detracts media attention from everyone else so they can actually concentrate on playing baseball. I think it's a great service he does the rest of the team, honestly. The media gets tons of stuff to print, Shinjo gets his face all over the place, etc.

I was reading an interview with Atsunori Inaba the other day and he talked about how great the clubhouse atmosphere was on the Fighters, everyone just being really supportive and keeping a good mood around, making people relax and have fun with the games. He named Shinjo as the main "mood-maker," with Hichori Morimoto being another one who contributed to it a lot. And if a happy clubhouse means a team that performs better - and the Fighters undeniably performed well this year - that's a valuable service to the team as well.

Let's face it, I myself am not a huge Shinjo fan - I started following the Fighters before he came to the team - but I really value the service he's done for the team since their move to Hokkaido. He's attracted tons of fans to the ballpark, he's gotten the team tons of media attention, and to be fair, he plays a pretty decent outfield, and his bat isn't bad enough to hurt the team (or at least, he isn't worse than Tatsuya Ide was. Oh man).

And yeah, I think he's actually pretty sincere. Yeah, he's doing a lot of stuff for media attention, but I think he also just wants to bring something exciting to the fans. I don't really have the Japanese fan mindset so I usually think he's nuts, but hey, when I picked up Ogasawara's book at Book 1st, I couldn't help but pick up the one next to it, too: 新庄の信条―バカカッコいい男の真実, aka "Shinjo's Principles - the Truth of the Idiot-Cool Guy," or "Shinjo no shinjo," heh. I haven't had time to read it yet, but it got me on the title alone - "baka kakkoii" was just so amazingly perfectly descriptive of him.

Shinjo-san is the proverbial protruding nail - a real character in a sea of conformity. I think he's great. I enjoyed watching him with the Mets, from the day he first drove into spring training in, what I recall I read was a Rolls. He has a real exuberance about him and a love for the game. A gonzo kind of guy.

The guy did it all - was a star, went to America - had mixed results but learned, then returned to Japan maybe a more complete player. People like him, I think, for being a genuine character, taking chances, and being perceived as a good guy.

(Rant on)
Shinjo has always bothered me, starting when he mixed romanization schemes to spell his name Shinjyo. I don't like his showboating, his costumes, or his antics, and my happiest Shinjo memory is from his Tiger days, when he did that little hop before catching a fly once and a higher power guided the ball to doink him on the head for an error.
(Rant off)

That said, I recognize his love for the game and his appreciation for his fans and ball fans in general - that all seems genuine. And as much as I hate his showboating, one reason for his popularity may be that even the showboating itself is not negative. He is always making himself the center of attention, but it's not by doing negative things like showing up the opposition or boasting or trash talking. He builds himself up a lot, but it's not really by tearing anyone else down.

If he attracts people, and people that might not ordinarily care about ball come to games or watch games to see him, there is a chance that they might become real fans of the game because of that hot dog. That wouldn't be bad.

Interesting to see that Shinjo just pulled out of the MLB-NPB series after being the top vote-getter. He was quoted as saying that he thought the series was more a stage for young players. So does Shinjo not love the spotlight as much as I thought? Or will he be too busy with a modeling career or something after retiring?

It was pointed out on Japan Baseball Daily that Shinjo might just want to rest his Achilles tendon and such after the season.

Maybe he realizes that his actual ball playing ability might hurt the team rather than help it, but is saving face by saying someone younger should replace him rather than someone better? Or maybe he's working on a deal to be a commentator for the series. That'd be pretty funny.

- Shinjo has always bothered me, starting when he mixed romanization schemes to spell his name Shinjyo...

No, that wasn't what he did. The Tigers had always spelt his name that way on his jerseys. Other players also got that treatment.

I think you're referring to his insistence on having his name officially registered in romaji (SHINJO) when he came back from the States and joined Nippon Ham. So instead of having romaji on just the back of his jersey, SHINJO appeared on the scoreboard and in all the official player listings as well (rather than in kanji). The really funny thing about it is that he was just about the only player in NPB to have his name rendered in this way. Most of the foreign players had their names spelt in katakana. (Jeremy Powell was the only exception I believe, as he simply went as JP for a while there).

No, registering as SHINJO or by your first name is fine, it's mixing up romanization schemes that gets me. If it's jyo, it's got to be sin. If it's shin, it's got to be jo.

The Tigers themselves were responsible for that? Oh, my - I've always blamed him. But they didn't have Tuboi or Hosino (or did they?).

The registered player names scheme is NPB-wide, not per team. As I've discussed on a number of other occasions, I use the romanization on the back of the player uniforms. The English press (Japan Times, Daily Yomiuri, etc.) uses some other romanization rule, ignoring what's on the back of the players' uniforms. I don't mind the NPB style, but more consistency would be nice. I do mind that the press doesn't use the uniform name and blame that as the source of a great deal of confusion.

OK, I understand your point, but there's never been consistency with romanization in yakyu anyway. Look at the long "O" for instance. Sometimes it's "oh", sometimes just plain "o". And I'm thinking, too, that if a player wants to go by a certain spelling, that should be up to him, shouldn't it? It is his name after all. I'm not sure we should be dictating how it should be rendered. In katakana my own (real) name can quite properly be written in three different ways. And the various bank books and official documents I possess reflect that.

As for Shinjo, though, for as long as I can remember he's had Shinjyo on his jersey (with the Tigers). I'm assuming this dates back to when he was a rookie, and maybe he had no say in it. But I doubt very much that it was an ego thing back then. If he did choose his own spelling, it could have been simply a matter of his not knowing any better. Maybe it was a family thing. Maybe his first coach used that version. In which case he probably doesn't deserve being put through the wringer. Not on this issue at least.

Yeah, I agree now, "Shinjyo" might not have been his doing. Thanks - I hadn't really thought it might have been team policy or otherwise not his doing! I'm trying to rewind and erase that reason for disliking him from my memory tapes.

I'm also a little embarrassed at finding myself a member of the Language Police, but where there is a difference in converting, say, James into katakana (as Jeemusu, Jeemuzu, Jeimusu, or Jeimuzu), those are all within the confines of a single romanization scheme. Mixing and matching the Hepburn Shinjo and the J-system's Sinjyo offends my inner editor-child. (This is probably also why the E-press doesn't use what's on the back of players' uniforms like Westbay-san mentioned - the paper's editorial policy says use Hepburn and that's that.) It's not the end of the world - I'll take some aspirin and get over it!

- Mixing and matching the Hepburn Shinjo and the J-system's Sinjyo offends my inner editor-child.

Actually, there's no "jyo" spelling in any of the romanization schemes for Japanese. The Japanese pre-war "Kunrei" system (an abomination, for those not familiar) would spell it "Sinzyo." You can see this system on some of the old Buffaloes jerseys (1950s, I think), which had read "KINTETU" until they were fixed.

I remember hearing long ago that the reason that NPB decided to use a letter "h" instead of indicating long vowels with macrons was because Sadaharu Oh's uniform would look ridiculous (a big number 1, then an O over that, then a line over that). Any truth to that rumor?

Thanks - I've told my inner editor child to sit in the corner. Wiki says jya is a common mistake for ja/zya and attributes it to "confusion between the romanization systems." So Shinjyo is not mixing and matching, just wrong. And again, maybe not his fault.

Speaking of what Shinjo does on his own and what the team comes up with for him to do, does anyone have any idea who was behind the stunt this year when he entered from the ceiling of the Sapporo Dome on wires? Was that his own idea or a team plan? I can see him quickly agreeing if it was designed by the team. Just curious.

- You can see this system on some of the old Buffaloes jerseys (1950s, I think), which had read "KINTETU" until they were fixed.

Here's the complete list of non-Hepburn romanization (and Japanese English) on Japanese pro jerseys over the years:

Takahasi Unions (1954)

Nisitetu Lions (1951-59, 1970-72)
(Interestingly they used Nishitetsu in 1968-69 but then changed back to Nisitetu in 1970.)

Kintetu Pearls (1950-52, 1958)
Kintetu Buffaloes (1959-61)
(Kintetsu also had a jersey between 1950-53 with Pearls written as "Parls")

Hirosima Carp (1958-62)

Chunichi Doragons (1948)

Thanks, Mijow; I knew about the "Doragons" but had never heard of the "Hirosima" misspelling, or "Takahasi."

At least Hiroshima knows what the plural of "Carp" is, which is more than you can say for Florida in MLB!