FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES.

Japanese players gain a basic advantage over U.S. major leaguers. Assuming practice makes perfect—or that it at least makes a ballplayer fundamentally superior—it's perfectly understandable that the infusion of Japanese-trained players into the major leagues has given the game a glimpse of its attention-to-detail past. Bobby Valentine, the former Texas Rangers and New York Mets manager who now is in his second stint as manager of Japan's Chiba Lotte Marines, says Japanese players benefit greatly from a routine of drills, more drills and a few drills after that. But, he emphasizes, "It's not only practice, it's proper practice."