MAJOR MAKES BASEBALL SEEM INTERESTING

TONY T. - Editor-In-Chief, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

Making baseball interesting is a Herculean task.

I grew up in New York City. While I was never a big fan of sports outside of ones where people punch each other, I still encountered a large amount of sporting culture by nature of my residence in the city, as well as my status as a third generation New Yorker. This also meant that I experienced the good old fashioned American tradition of having my father take me to ball games once or twice as a child. I wasn’t a big fan of it then, but I do reminisce fondly on the several Yankees games that we attended, a fact that I’m sure is a big disappointment to others in our extended family, several of whom have been long term New York Mets fans that will rant continuously about their 1986 championship.

Because I left New York (and America for that matter) in my later childhood, I missed out on the Yankees’ more recent seasons which I’ve heard more middling things about. In my mind and given my age, the Yankees as a team are still defined by three players. First, Derek Jeter was the consummate hero, the long standing icon of sport for my generation the same way Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle might have been for prior ones. After that, a strong memory of my youth is of my brother, my father, and I making numerous jokes at the expense of Alex Rodriguez’s steroid use and subsequent suspension. I doubt that experience is very unique, though – Rodriguez seems to be notorious for bizarre behavior. Finally, the player that I uniquely remember, the one that my father particularly pointed out and explained to me, was Suzuki Ichiro. Frankly, Ichiro only played two seasons for the Yankees and one would sooner associate him with the Mariners, but he was the most interesting player on the team to me when he was a Yankee. There’s the obvious fact that he was an Asian player in sports, something I rarely encountered. He was also a prolific batter, which was naturally very appealing. Finally, Ichiro’s story stood out, as it was explained to me that, in spite of joining the MLB late in his career due to previously playing for the Japan-based NPB, Ichiro still put up astronomically outstanding numbers once he came stateside. I was never a huge baseball fan, but the unique career paths of Japanese baseball players still fascinated me. Major is a manga that taps into the same intrigue that made me interested in Ichiro, a miracle given how most ardent baseball fans typically observe it via Excel sheets. It sort of taps into that mystique that people associate with sports heroes, particularly within the rich history of baseball. Beyond that, Major exists as a fundamentally sound growth story showing its protagonist throughout various levels of his professional career, ultimately ending up in the Major Leagues.

A-Rod kissing the person he loves most...

Beginning first with the protagonist, Honda Goro (later Shigeno Goro), in the Little Leagues, Major demonstrates its author’s aptitude in making narrative stakes feel meaningful. Given the series’ title, it’s obvious the protagonist will eventually find himself in the Major Leagues, but the first arc of the series still feels impactful due to the way his talent is presented. Goro has prodigal talent in pitching, but the overuse of his incredibly sharp fastball wears down his arm and threatens his future. A less competent series might introduce this plot element once to raise the stakes only to ignore it later on, but Major actually follows through with it. At the end of this arc, Goro achieves some of his goals in the Little League, but completely destroys his right shoulder and leaves his town. The Little League arc starts the pattern in most of Major’s arcs by focusing on Goro pulling up a downtrodden team to great success, whilst risking his physical wellbeing in the process. It’s fairly compelling, at least in this first arc. Even in hindsight, this arc of Major is on par with, if not better than the later material which has more overt stakes due to excellent character writing. Even for someone with a limited understanding of baseball, Major conveys the emotion behind dramatic moments in the sport extremely well. This first arc also introduces the story’s wider goals relatively well. The backstory with Goro losing both parents, including a professional baseball playing father, is rather effective and avoids melodramatic pitfalls. Goro’s goal, to be a Major League player, is supplemented by an additional motivation in trying to catch up to professional player Joe Gibson, who accidentally kills Goro’s father with a pitch. It’s rather impressive how the story manages to give Goro a backstory which includes him simultaneously being an orphan and having a parent active as a professional baseball player (as his stepmother later marries his father’s best friend), all the while seeming relatively natural. All in all, Major’s first arc is one of the most successful I’ve seen from a sports series.

The middle school arc of Major is perhaps not quite as successful as the first one, but remains interesting in the way it shifts its protagonist’s characterization. While the main focus of the arc is still Goro trying to carry his team, the underlying story of Goro rehabilitating and switching southpaw following the first arc is interesting. It gives credence to the first arc’s stakes, by showing that the traditional hot blooded shounen personality embodied by Goro can and does have its limits. The arc also succeeds due to the time skip it employs. Unlike most of the manga’s main arcs, Major’s middle school arc does not take place directly after the previous one, instead having Goro return to his elementary school friends following a multi-year absence. Beyond giving the idea of progression without needing to undergo a lull in pacing, this has the added effect of providing some rather interesting drama, which, once again, manages to be meaningfully emotional whilst not feeling superficial. The Mifune East Junior High arc is not quite as strong as the Little League arc, but functions sufficiently as a followup all while including interesting additions to the structure that don’t detract from it.

Where the first two arcs are relatively strong in presenting somewhat realistic character drama, Major’s Kaido High School arc struggles in that its setting feels too fictitious. The arc focuses on Goro attending a top class baseball school’s boot camp after pushing through tryouts due to a convoluted process wherein he rejects an offer to join directly. The brutal boot camps that the characters go through is probably something that actually exists, but the manner in which Goro overcomes obstacles is just too fantastical for me to get invested. Beyond that, the story’s break from its usual dynamics, having the protagonist join a baseball juggernaut rather than challenging them from an underdog position makes it fairly uncompelling. While the final showdown with Goro taking down the first string players with the junior varsity team is interesting, it kind of pales in comparison to the earlier arcs.

In a bit of course correction, the subsequent Seishuu High School arc returns Major to its status quo. It presents some interesting elements, particularly due to the fallout of Goro leaving his high school on a whim to join one with no baseball team. This arc is fairly comparable to the first arc, as Goro’s goal is not so much the betterment of his own play, but bringing others to enjoy the game he loves dearly. It even has a similar element where Goro pushes, perhaps wrongly, against an injury to try to will his team to victory. I can’t necessarily call this arc amazing because it just kind of follows the same structure earlier arcs did. Still, I think it is at least interesting in terms of bringing a greater sense of maturity in the writing as the characters are full-fledged high school students as opposed to the earlier Kaido arc which was a high school setting in name only. The arc forces Goro to deal with failure, which could be relatively interesting, but that aspect never really goes anywhere, unlike the Little League arc’s focus on whether or not pushing through injury is actually good.

Though still following something of a similar structure, the Minor League baseball arc is one of Major’s best. Goro forgoing Japanese league baseball in favor of joining an American Minor League team in attempts to climb up to Major League affiliates is a fascinating concept that utilizes the uniquely complicated baseball farm system to its narrative advantage. Having no knowledge of this prior, I found the arc to be fascinating in its presentation of the wider baseball world outside of Goro. The story explains the minor affiliate system relatively well and demonstrates the sheer skill that is required of the protagonist in order to properly become a top MLB pitcher. There’s some weird elements – the sudden focus on certain American social dynamics is rather strange and kind of out of place – but as a whole, this arc is wonderful. It also brings up Goro’s long term goal of facing Joe Gibson again, both in how Gibson is immediately more relevant once Goro reaches America, and in the presence of Gibson Jr, a rival character. For the first time since the Little League arc, the Minor League arc of Major manages to show a new dimension in terms of the skills that Goro must strengthen in order to even be comparable to Major League players. His insistence on staying in the Minor Leagues in order to win a championship makes little sense logically, but plays into his established character growth very well.

There’s a bit of a problem I have with Major’s final two arcs, the World Cup and Major League arcs. They don’t need to exist simultaneously. What I mean by this is that both essentially serve the same purpose of wrapping up loose ends, with Goro having his climactic encounter with Gibson, who has atoned for accidentally killing Goro’s father by playing long past his physical prime. Both arcs show Goro overcoming major obstacles in terms of joining the Japanese team and overcoming yips once he becomes a full fledged Major League. I’m not necessarily saying that these arcs shouldn’t both exist as both make sense for the story and the overall final career goal Goro has. The World Cup is probably the better of the two arcs because the drama with Joe Gibson is compelling while avoiding exaggerated histrionic displays of character intentions. It makes the prior 500 chapters/4 seasons feel impactful while reaching a very satisfying conclusion of its own. The World Cup arc probably needed to exist in concept to show the interesting way in which baseball has evolved into a truly global game, something which I appreciate. The globalization of baseball evident in Ichiro Suzuki’s Yankees appearances is what made me somewhat interested in baseball in the first place, after all. The subsequent Major League arc exists mostly as the story needed to wrap itself up conclusively, and Goro joining the Major Leagues was, well, implied by Major’s very title. Still, while I find the final Major League arc a bit of a letdown after the emotionally cathartic World Cup arc, it isn’t terrible and does what it sets out to do very well. All in all, it is still a satisfying conclusion to the series, even though I would have probably combined the World Cup arc’s elements into the Major League arc to make a stronger cohesive finale.

As a whole, I am not a sports fan. Outside of sports where people punch each other, I can’t say I get terribly invested watching some guy throw a ball really hard or fast. I can romanticize George Foreman knocking out Michael Moorer for the heavyweight championship which occurred years before I was born, but I find it a bit more difficult to do the same for, say, the New York Yankees’ 2009 championship, which I remember watching on television. In spite of this, Major managed to get me engrossed in mainstream sport which I have next to no interest in, in the particular sport, baseball, which I find to be the most boring next to curling. It does this via excellent writing and a great character arc which manages to stick to the same structure for 700 chapters yet still feeling compelling. Baseball may be a snoozefest, but Major is amazing.