What made Tony Barnette's pro baseball journey unique and inspiring are central pillars of a new compelling book written by Aaron Fischman.
The title of the book spells it out without giving away too many details: A Baseball Gaijin: Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back (424 pages, June 2024, Sports Publishing). An audiobook is also in the works.
So who is Barnette? Why did he travel to Japan and back? And when?
Let's start with a few key facts: Barnette, a former Arizona State University pitcher, began his pro career as a 10th-round pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2006. The right-hander moved up the ranks in the minor leagues from rookie ball to Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A. Yet at age 26 in 2010, he was not in the Diamondbacks' immediate plans for the parent club.
Barnette was 14-8 as a starter for the Triple-A Reno Aces of the Pacific Coast League in 2009. In the hitter-friendly league, he had an ERA of 5.79 that season.
Sensing that his career might not be progressing as he had hoped, Barnette took a leap of faith and opted to play ball in Japan in 2010. A big spike in salary didn't hurt, either.
And perhaps a change of scenery would be a boost for his career.
Trailblazing agent Don Nomura, who represented Hideo Nomo, also served in the same role for Barnette.
In the foreword to A Baseball Gaijin, Nomura wrote, "I challenge you, the reader, not to feel inspired after vicariously experiencing Tony's exhilarating transformation from minor-league pitcher to elite NPB closer to successful Texas Rangers reliever. I don't think you can."
As a Veteran Pitcher, Barnette Fulfills a Dream
After six seasons with the Swallows (2010-15), first as a starting pitcher, Barnette made his MLB debut at age 32 on April 5, 2016, with the Rangers. He pitched three seasons for the Rangers and briefly for the Chicago Cubs in 2019.
At age 35, Barnette retired. He had fulfilled his dream of reaching the major leagues.
Looking back on making the jump from the Swallows to the Rangers, Barnette recognized that nothing was guaranteed in the major leagues.
"I've proven myself in Japan, but I haven't proven myself here yet," Barnette was quoted as saying in April 2016.
After Barnette's retirement, the friendly ballplayer-writer collaboration with Fischman, involving many interviews, emails and text messages over the years, provided a catalyst for the backbone of this book.
"I think it's kind of a cool mix where some people say, 'Well that's old news, he retired from the major leagues in 2019,' " the author told Odds and Evens in a recent phone interview. "It's not that long ago, and it's less than a decade ago that he helped guide the Swallows to the Japan Series."
During Barnette's Swallows years, Fischman noted that he was "in touch with him in real time" plus "people in his inner circle," adding a layer of detail to the book that enriched interviews and follow-up research conducted years later.
Ambition Pays Off for Aaron Fischman
As a college freshman at the University of California, Davis, Fischman began writing for a now-defunct independent website called DavisSportsDeli.com, an experience that began a friendship with Barnette.
In what he described as "the early days of social media," Fischman reached out to several Double-A minor-league pitchers on Facebook requesting interviews for articles and Barnette was the only one who responded and OK'd the request.
In early 2008, their first interview, back-and-forth written text, took place via Facebook. Fischman's first impression: "He seemed interesting and charismatic and he joked around a little bit."
Learning More About Tony Barnette's Career
As Fischman gained access to Barnette from direct communication over the years, he learned details about the Alaska native's aspirations and plans, including his time in Japan.
A few days after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, Barnette wrote blog posts about his experiences during that time for the aforementioned website. "It was fascinating to hear what the early perspective was of him and other foreigners and basically what they were being told by the team, government, national media, international media and family and friends back home," Fischman says now.
Barnette became a fixture with the Swallows, including being converted from starter to reliever in 2011. Meanwhile, Fischman completed his undergraduate studies at UC Davis and enrolled at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to pursue his master's degree.
For Aaron Fischman, his love of baseball became helpful to him as he pursued writing assignments while at USC (2011-13). In Year 2 of that period, "I used his story for two or three class projects," the author revealed. "That was when I started talking to people other than him." This included Barnette's former Swallows teammate Aaron Guiel.
"It became like a 1,500-word feature for one class," Fischman recalled. For another class, one focused on magazine writing, he penned a 3,000-word profile of Barnette.
Looking back on the experience that culminated with the book's release in June, Fischman proudly stated that "I did enough reporting for an entire book before I got a book deal, and before reaching out to agents and publishers."
For the Author, the Significance of Barnette's Move to the Rangers Was Big
If Barnette hadn't returned to MLB to pitch for the Rangers in 2016, Fischman believes he wouldn't have been able to secure a deal with a publisher to write this book.
Instead, opportunity knocked after the veteran pitcher returned to his homeland to continue his baseball career after leading NPB's Central League with 41 saves in 2015. That season he helped the Swallows reach the Japan Series, where they fell to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in five games.
"That got my attention. I was really excited for him," Fischman said, recalling when Barnette signed a two-year contract with the Rangers in December 2015. Then, in early 2016, the two men spoke on the phone about collaborating on a book, and "he enthusiastically agreed," Fischman pointed out in our phone conversation.
Fischman obtained media credentials for a pair of Texas Rangers-Los Angeles Angels games in Anaheim in July 2016, providing a good opportunity to interview some of Barnette's Rangers teammates and the team's bullpen coach, Brad Holman.
Fittingly, a memorable moment from one of those two games provided one of the titles for a chapter in the book.
Why? What happened?
Barnette unintentionally hit Angels star Albert Pujols, a future Hall of Famer, on the helmet with a pitch.
The incident was chiseled in the annals of baseball in Fischman's book with a chapter titled "Why'd You Bean Pujols?"
Aaron Fischman Explains What He Hopes the Book Accomplishes
At one point during our circuitous interview, I asked him this: "What do you hope this book accomplishes? And what do you think it is accomplishing for readers?"
The author responded with a thoughtful, ambitious answer. "I want Japanese baseball to be more accessible to Americans," said Fischman, who attended games at Jingu Stadium and Tokyo Dome in the spring of 2018 as part of his reporting duties for the book. "And I don't think it's that difficult to understand. It's just different. I know most of the rules are the same ― but how baseball is played, the fan culture, which I think is so beautiful and creative … I liken it to kind of a European football match. But it's still unique in and of itself."
He continued: "It's not only the baseball on the field. Basically, I want to celebrate that element of Japanese culture, the unique brand of baseball and how beloved baseball is over there."
What else does Fischman think the book can achieve?
"I want to inspire," he said before adding, "I think Tony's career trajectory is inspiring and I hope that the universal themes, and it's a little bit of a cliché, but a lot of sports stories can be formulaic where you overcome obstacle after obstacle, I think it's inspiring for non-baseball fans as well."
Additional Details About the Book
A Baseball Gaijin includes two chapters ("March 11, 2011" and "Ganbare, Nippon―Beginning to Heal'') detailing Barnette's experience living and working in Japan during and after the earthquake and tsunami.
"Matters of life and death are far more important than a game," Fischman told me. "But I also think baseball is such a powerful lens to tell stories that are broadly more important than the game itself."
The author interviewed around 40 people for the book, including former Swallows interpreter Go Fujisawa and David Watkins, "a Yakult Swallows super fan" who co-founded the English-language website TokyoSwallows.com with Chris Pellegrini. Other key sources included sports reporters Rob Smaal, Jason Coskrey and Jim Allen and Barnette's wife, Hillary.
As for Barnette, Fischman said the former pitcher was "refreshingly honest" and "sometimes self-deprecating" during interviews.
"When he's reliving things that happened, really exciting things," Fischman shared, "or things that went really poorly, he uses colorful language."
For example, memories of the Swallows' biggest victory during Barnette's six seasons in Japan. He earned the save while pitching the ninth inning in Game 5 of the 2015 Central League Climax Series Final Stage, a 3-2 Yakult win over the cross-town rival Yomiuri Giants at Jingu Stadium to advance to the Japan Series. As Fischman recounted, Barnette remembered how "he got chills when the crowd was chanting his name as he trotted in from the bullpen."
Rich anecdotes like this one appear throughout the book, giving it verve and energy.
***
Read more about and from Aaron Fischman on his website.
RELATED:
- Shohei Ohtani Homers in 2024 MLB All-Star Game, But the AL Defeats the NL
- [JAPAN SPORTS NOTEBOOK] Munetaka Murakami Achieves a Big Career Milestone
- [ODDS and EVENS] Roy White Recalls Memorable Years Playing for Yomiuri Giants in New Autobiography
Check out a special eight-part series on Nomomania written in 2020, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Hideo Nomo's first MLB season, on SportsLook.
Author: Ed Odeven
Find Ed on JAPAN Forward's dedicated website, SportsLook. Follow his [Japan Sports Notebook] on Sundays, [Odds and Evens] during the week, and X (formerly Twitter) ＠ed_odeven.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login