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The US Baseball Player Who Inspired a Japanese Novelist

Forty years ago, Haruki Murakami wasn’t yet a famous Japanese writer. He was a young baseball fan living in Tokyo. That’s where he first saw Dave Hilton, an American baseball player who played for the Yakult Swallows. Reporter Bradley Campbell explains how Hilton’s performance helped launch Murakami’s career.

Picture: Dave Hilton, an American baseball player who joined a Tokyo team in the 1970s. Courtesy of Dave Hilton

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4 minutes