t pro baseball, no matter where you go, means different things to different people. For the players, it is a job. For the owners, it is an investment. For the fans, it is a source of entertainment. Little wonder then, that the same game implies something altogether different, to players, owners, and fans in another country. Of course when Bob Horner tells us that Japanese baseball is not the real McCoy, he is speaking from experience. The priorities in Japanese baseball are different from those in the game he had known since childhood. Horner knew baseball, and the game in Japan was different from what he knew, therefore, Horner was confident that what the Japanese called baseball was in fact a weak imitation. People's understanding of what they see is largely colored by previous experience. When things run counter to our expectations, we often latch on to the first seemingly rational explanation that comes along. When good non-native speakers of a language interact with native speakers, the native speakers are often insulted or offended. This typically happens, not because the non-native speakers are rude individuals but, because social customs differ and because ways of using language differ. In other words, the meaning of the language one uses goes far beyond the literal meanings of the words themselves. When someone speaks a language rather well, we automatically assume that she understands all the social implications of every phrase she utters. The same thing happens in baseball. Baseball is like a language in several ways. We draw meaning from its events and records. If you say one guy is a .300 hitter, it means something. If you say another guy can't hit his weight, that means something too. Statistics, as Bill James has shown to the world, mean different things in different places and times. In 1943, three hitters tied for the league home run title with four each. We cannot, however, conclude that no one in the league could hit ...
