The Meaning of Ichiro

The Meaning of Ichiro was published in 2004 and was the fourth book by Robert Whiting on Japanese baseball. He focused on Japanese players who came over to the USA, with quite a bit of information on Masanori Murakami, Ichiro Suzuki, Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu and bios of most of the NPB to MLB players of the era. Whiting also continued his earlier focus from You Gotta Have Wa on Americans in Japan, with topics such as Tuffy Rhodes' chase of Sadaharu Oh's single-season home run record or Japan's first American umpire being covered.

In paperback, the book was renamed The Samurai Way of Baseball.