Letter from Japan: Go West, Young Man

Friday, May. 18, 2001 With a few cracks of a baseball bat in the United States, Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki has relegated professional baseball in Japan to minor league status. That's the power of globalization. In a week where Nissan post record profits under its French management, and when Citigroup can gobble up one of Mexico's largest banks, the dominance of the new global economic order has never been more apparent. And Japanese baseball is the latest victim.

Japan's established baseball order is reeling from the impact of the...