The Meaning of Ichiro (25 page)

Hideki was drafted by Lotte in November 1990 at age 19. Because of his Terminatoresque physique, reporters dubbed him
Shuwozenegga,
after movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger. A simple, and for the most part congenial youth, he was also (unlike Ichiro) burdened
with defective alpha waves. He had a temper that had surfaced often in his school days when fellow students were unwise enough
to have made unflattering remarks about his slightly Western facial features, as well as in baseball games when he gave up
too many hits. Playing for Lotte, he would break his toe kicking the bench after surrendering a ninth-inning home run.

On the other hand, he could throw the ball 99 miles per hour, which was a Japan speed record, clocked in a game in May 1993
against the Seibu Lions, and he would develop an intimidating forkball. By 1994, he had surpassed Nomo as the premier strikeout
artist in the Japanese game and by the time he was 27 he had led the league in ERA (1995, 1996), strikeouts (1994, 1995) and
wins (1994), among other categories. By this time he had also earned the nickname
kurage
(jellyfish) for the stinging effect his inside deliveries had on a batter’s hands.

American manager Bobby Valentine, who managed Lotte in 1995, trumpeted his ace pitcher’s talents far and wide. “Irabu is the
Nolan Ryan of Asia,” said Valentine in a typical bromide. “If he played in the U.S. he would do a lot to remove the fantasy
that U.S. baseball is better than the Japanese.” Valentine’s pitching coach, Tom House, a Ph.D. who had in fact trained Hall
of Famer Nolan Ryan for years, was equally effusive. After seeing Irabu throw over 100 miles per hour in practice numerous
times, which was about as fast as anyone in the world could throw, he pulled him aside and said, “Young man, have you ever
thought about playing in America?”

He had, not surprisingly. And it was about this time that Don Nomura appeared on the scene to start reinforcing that idea,
while scouts from America had begun to show up in the Lotte stands. Valentine was fired in a turn of events worthy of Richard
III (see
Chapter 9
) and control of the team was restored to a conservative Japanese faction. The Japanese Schwarzenegger now
complained of being overworked and began to speak openly of his desire for a shot at MLB, preferably with the New York Yankees,
a team he said he had loved since childhood. The Yankees’ dramatic triumph over the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 World Series
was no doubt still fresh in his mind.

Irabu discussed his ambition with team officials on and off during that summer. In the beginning there had been much resistance.
But, by season’s end, when yet another new manager was named, it was clear that there was a dire need for more punch in the
batting order. The idea began to take root within the organization that maybe a trade with an MLB team might not be such a
bad idea after all.

At first, the San Diego Padres appeared to have the inside track. In early October they had formalized an agreement with the
Marines calling for annual player exchanges and other forms of cooperation. There was also even talk, for a time, about a
deal with the New York Mets, where Valentine would be taking over as manager. But Irabu had by then decided he would play
only for the New York Yankees—and the Yankees, it soon became known, reciprocated his affections.

Irabu had hired Nomura, a man with whom he obviously had a great deal in common, and, who, as we have seen, was rapidly becoming
the Darth Vader of Japanese baseball. Critics suspected Nomura had somehow cast a spell on his client because Irabu had seldom
before mentioned his love for the Bombers from the Bronx. There was talk of some sort of secret deal with Yankees owner George
Steinbrenner for Irabu’s services—a suspicion which, if true, would constitute illegal tampering. Nomura and the Yankees vociferously
denied the charge.

Lotte’s chief operating officer Akio Shigemitsu, or “acting owner,” as he was called, was reportedly outraged at Irabu’s impudence.
Shigemitsu was a Japan-born Korean but one with certain advantages other members of this particular minority group lacked—like
an Ivy League education and a father (Takeo) who had founded the vast Seoul-based Lotte candy, chewing gum and hotel empire
that had operations all across Asia. He was, in fact, used to total obedience. He threatened to keep Irabu out of baseball
for the 1997 season—using the Japanese term
kaikorosu,
literally “keep and kill”—if Irabu didn’t start being more cooperative. It was a threat that if carried through could represent
a serious blow to Irabu’s career.

In December 1996, there were meetings involving a number of Marines’ representatives who were acting as intermediaries for
Shigemitsu and Irabu. Nomura, in a nod to changing times, was even allowed to participate in some of them. Despite the front
office warnings, Irabu and Nomura stubbornly refused to drop their insistence on the Yankees and Nomura even further suggested
he might challenge the Japanese system in a U.S. court.

In the end, one Lotte official proposed a bizarre agreement which seemed like it might solve the problem. Under the proposal,
the Lotte front office would promise verbally to do their best to deal Irabu to the Yankees, while in return Irabu would sign
a “personal” letter, handwritten by a Lotte official, in which he agreed to follow the will of the front office. It just was
a formality, Irabu was told, but one necessary to mollify Shigemitsu, who did not want a 27-year-old “employee” dictating
terms to him. A Lotte official promised Irabu that the letter would never see the light of day.

Shigemitsu then offered Irabu to the Yankees, asking for, in return, the outfielder Cecil Fielder, who had hit 39 homers that
year, with the further stipulation that the Yankees pay one half of the slugger’s $10 million salary. The Yankees refused
and they declined to offer any other players of Fielder’s caliber either. In a meeting in January with Irabu and Nomura, Shigemitsu
said that he had made his best efforts to grant Irabu’s wish, but the New York Yankees would not cooperate. He then revealed
that the “exclusive negotiating rights” to Irabu had been traded to the San Diego Padres for two second-tier players.

“You’re no longer part of this club,” he was quoted as saying.

Stunned at this turn of events, Irabu flatly refused to go. He and Nomura resolutely turned down the team’s three-year $4.5
million offer, one which came with a $2.5 million signing bonus, and reiterated the pitcher’s desire to go to the Yankees.
When San Diego executive Larry Lucchino told them that if Irabu didn’t sign, he would have to sit out a year, Nomura countered
that he and his client were going to bring San Diego before the MLB executive council and enlist the help of the MLBPA to
do it. A close, fair reading of the U.S.–Japan Working Agreement, he argued, would force one to conclude that there was no
clause allowing or governing or even pertaining to the type of trade that Lotte and San Diego had just made. Since the subject
was not addressed, the trade had to be illegal and thus invalid. Nomura further complicated the matter by claiming that his
client should now become
a free agent,
because of the cavalier way in which both sides had treated his player.

“What we have here is slave trade,” Irabu told reporters in what amounted to a public declaration of war.

At hearing this, Shigemitsu was not amused and, signaling it was time to unleash the long knives, released the personal letter
signed by Irabu to the press.

“This document shows that Irabu was willing to join any team in the major leagues,” declared the acting owner. “I wish he
would stop being so self-centered.”

Fade to black.

In the end, a special session of the Major League Baseball Executive Council held in February in San Diego ruled against Irabu,
this despite the fact that Lotte failed to refute Irabu’s sworn affidavit about the personal letter and the verbal promise
by the Marines front office of a Yankees trade. The council issued a written statement that said, “There is no violation of
any major league rule or the basic agreement. The process which controls this is the U.S.–Japan 1967 Treaty which the Executive
Council has followed to a T. We do not believe that the union has any jurisdiction in the matter.” The rights of Japanese
players were an issue, they allowed, but since the working agreement did not address that problem, nor did it
specifically prohibit
trades between the two countries, it was not a matter for the council to consider. The Padres retained exclusive negotiating
rights and would keep them until Lotte withdrew them.

Had Irabu had been a different kind of guy—say, one like Ichiro, who didn’t care where he played or how much he was paid as
long as it was in the major leagues—he might just as well have given up and signed on with San Diego at that point. San Diego
was a nice, clean town. The weather was good and there were lots of golf courses. What the hell. But Hideki wasn’t anything
like Ichiro. He had a sensitive streak as wide as Tokyo Bay. To his way of thinking, the San Diego organization had disrespected
him as much as Lotte had by issuing that “sign or else” ultimatum. And he wasn’t about to let that go by the boards.

“This player will never sign any contract with San Diego, ever,” said KDN lawyer Jean Afterman. “When he does get the club
of his choice, there will be a no-trade clause—no trade to San Diego. Not because of the players, but because the ownership
and management treated him like a piece of property, a piece of meat.”

That left the small problem of what to do with the rest of his career. In the off-season that year, free agent eligibility
requirements had just been lowered to nine years. For a while, he toyed with the idea of rejoining his former team—which still
retained “reservation” rights to him within Japan as opposed to the “negotiating” rights held by San Diego in the States,
under the labyrinthine deal that had been struck. That meant he could put in his time and then qualify as a bona fide free
agent under the new Japanese rules, which, according to the math involved, would be sometime in the middle of the 1997 season.

But Shigemitsu had his own twisted sense of pride. A Marines spokesman named Yugi Horimoto announced the conditions under
which Chiba Lotte would take Irabu back. First he would have to
apologize
for his behavior in general, and, in particular, for his calumny depicting the Marines’ business practices as “slave trade,”
a remark, said Horimoto, that had “gravely injured the Marines’ reputation.” But that was not all. Next, said Horimoto, demonstrating
the grasp of civil rights that had long been the hallmark of NPB, Irabu would also have to submit a written statement to the
major league and Japanese baseball commissioners, to all major league clubs and to the Lotte Marines that he had given up
trying to play in the major leagues, promising that he would never, ever again in his entire life attempt to play baseball
for a team in North America. It was an arrangement that, if agreed to, would make Irabu the oldest living reserved ballplayer
in either country. The good news was that he would
not
be required to commit
hara-kiri.

It hardly seemed possible that the situation could get any worse. But somehow, Don Nomura managed to pull it off by raising
the specter of Manzanar. In an interview, he caustically remarked to a reporter that “Mr. Irabu is being kept against his
will, as if he were a prisoner in a concentration camp. It is an internment camp to restrict him from playing where he wants.
Is it because he’s a Japanese?”

This comment immediately raised the hackles of Japanese-American groups all over the West Coast who failed to see any real
correlation between the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans by the U.S. government during World
War II and the plight of a slightly overweight pitcher who made over a million dollars the season before.

Fortunately, fate intervened while the Irabu team was mulling the possibility of pursuing the matter in the U.S. court system,
with the help of the MLBPA, whose leaders thought Irabu had been screwed. “If Irabu had had the name of John Smith, with blond
hair and blue eyes,” said MLBPA attorney Gene Orza, implying that discrimination had somehow affected the MLB Executive Council
decision, “I do sincerely believe that all this would have never happened.”

Luckily (for NPB, that is), legal action proved to be unnecessary. In the spring that followed, the Executive Council reversed
itself and initiated a freeze on future transactions of the San Diego–Lotte type, producing a new rule that prohibited a Japanese
player’s contract or the exclusive negotiating rights to it from being sold or traded to a U.S. club …
without that player’s permission.

At the same time, San Diego, thoroughly disgusted with their Lotte experiment, gave in and traded Irabu to New York for three
Yankee reserves. Irabu had finally won his pinstripes, signing a four-year deal calling for $12.8 million in bonuses and salaries,
putting an end to the whole sorry chapter. It seemed that the soap opera that Irabu’s life had become was finally over. But
that was only a temporary illusion, for as we shall see, there was another act yet to come.

Hideki Irabu would have his career with the Yankees, but it would not turn out to be quite what he had envisioned. Despite
all the build-up, he found himself unable to live up to the promise of his NPB statistics.

He arrived on the continental mainland of the United States tenaciously trailed by a phalanx of reporters, many of whom he
despised for the stories they had written about him during his struggle with the Padres. One printed story claimed that the
real reason he refused to sign with the National League team was because his mother was of North Korean descent and the city
of San Diego, as home to a major naval base, had figured significantly in military strikes against the Northern Korean peninsula
in the past. At his Yankees contract signing ceremony in late May in Tampa, he grandiosely announced a list of offending Japanese
publications.