The Meaning of Ichiro (26 page)

He also took to insulting the members of the fourth estate with derisive names. “Goldfish Shit” was one. Another one was “Grasshoppers”—as
in plague of locusts. “Let’s say you have a rice paddy,” he explained. “You are trying to grow rice. But the grasshopper comes
in and eats up your rice plants. The press is the same way. They come to me and they eat me up with all this pursuit.”

During a bullpen session at the Yankees AAA franchise in Columbus later in the year, Irabu unleashed an errant pitch that
slammed into a photographer’s thigh. Reporters present assumed it was intentional and the sports dailies back home headlined
the news of this assault on their front pages, complete with photos of the bruised area and sketches of the “crime scene.”

“Sorry,” Irabu was quoted as saying. “You should watch where you’re standing.”

Irabu’s relationship with the American media was not significantly better, despite a promising beginning. Flown to New York
in owner George Steinbrenner’s private jet for his first game as a Yankee, he was welcomed on the steps of City Hall by Mayor
Rudy Giuliani in a widely covered event. His debut, a winning effort versus the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium on July 11,
in which he allowed two runs on five hits and struck out nine batters in six and two thirds innings, earned him glowing headlines
in the city’s notoriously bombastic tabloids.

However, this victory was followed by a string of bad outings in which his control and his fastball disappeared—along with
his manners. In Milwaukee, the alpha-wave challenged Irabu spat in the direction of booing fans. Pitching in a subsequent
game, he threw his glove at a batted ball. At Yankee Stadium, he punched a hole in the clubhouse door. Such outbursts, combined
with the surly displeasure he frequently expressed at the umpiring, pitching mounds and other peculiarities of the American
game, did not win him many fans and he quickly became a target for those initially supportive tabloids. They excoriated him
with headlines like “I-Rob-You” and “Ira-Boo.” A mistake became an “Ira-boo-boo.”
Daily News
columnist Mike Lupica, noting Irabu’s tendency to sulk when things went badly, called him a “big baby,” while another scribe
chipped in with “Ira-scible.” Yankees owner George Steinbrenner also got into the act. Displaying a characteristic social
sensitivity, he announced to a group of reporters, “I’ve got seven Hideki Irabu T-shirts I’m giving to the blind.” It is not
clear whether the reference to sight impairment had to do with his pitcher’s problems in finding the plate.

One writer, noting Irabu’s ever-expanding midsection, his fondness for adult beverages and two-pack-a-day cigarette habit,
later quipped, “Hideki never met a beer can or a cigarette he didn’t like.” Enduring a return stint to the minor leagues for
“rehab,” he finished the year with a mark of 5-4 and an embarrassing ERA of 7.09.

To veteran observers of Japanese baseball, such scoring was reminiscent of what many American players had experienced in Japan.
Hard-working but hapless Dave Johnson, a former Orioles star, struggled in his highly paid first season with the Yomiuri Giants,
earning the nickname
“Dame
Johnson” (No Good Johnson). Joe Pepitone, Rob Deer, Kevin Mitchell and Jeff Manto were among others whose sub-par performances
met with similarly chilly receptions.

Japanese fans were somewhat discombobulated to see one of their own such an object of scorn. Said a Japanese kitchen worker
at Obata’s, a popular midtown Manhattan restaurant, “It’s all very embarrassing. He makes Japanese people look bad.” Back
in Japan, ex-pitcher and ex-con Yutaka Enatsu, of all people, decried Irabu’s lack of
hin
(dignity), while Don Nomura’s opinionated mother went on nationwide television to declare that “Irabu is the shame of Japan.”

But what bothered some Americans the most was Irabu’s hiding the fact that his biological father was American. Thus when the
New York Times
published an article about Irabu’s past and his attempts to hide it, the pitcher was singled out by many fans for his lack
of candor and apparent shame over his biological makeup.

Irabu’s mixed parentage was long rumored in Japan, a country which has always prided itself on its “homogeneity” and often
looked askance at those of mixed heritage. Even in the 21st century, it is a society where people of mixed racial background
can face social ostracism as children and, later in life, discrimination in finding jobs and marriage partners. Thus fans
and local media had politely steered clear of the topic. In the American ethos, of course, where diversity has come to be
regarded as a counterweight to prejudice and discrimination, one may be adjudged all the more interesting for having a mixed
ancestry. As golfer Tiger Woods has said, mixed parentage is something to be proud of. Woods is part black, Thai, Chinese,
white and Native American. Once, when asked which race he represents, Wood responded simply, “The human race.”

The truth of the matter was, however, that Irabu did not know who his biological father was. And the thought that he had been
abandoned as a child triggered a deep current of anger within him. The only way he knew to control that anger was to shut
it in and refuse to talk about it with anybody.

Irabu was, in fact, not an unlikable young man. Cap pushed back, chewing bubble gum and talking about throwing his forkball,
he seemed quite personable—not unlike any other baseball-playing youth. But he was also often morose and given to long fits
of depression. Despite efforts by Yankees like Derek Jeter (himself of mixed parentage), David Cone and David Wells to help
him integrate into the team, he spent much time alone, sitting by himself in the Yankee Stadium bullpen out in right center
field. Irabu preferred the quiet of life in the New Jersey suburb of Fort Lee, where he lived with his new Japanese bride,
rather than bustling Manhattan, where many of his teammates lived and where irate Yankees fans had been known to throw stones
and other things at him. On the road, he would shut himself in his hotel room, poring over anatomy books, trying to understand
further how the phenomenon of body and muscle worked, and drawing pictures, something at which he became quite skilled. On
occasions when he became particularly depressed, Nomura would have to fly in for a therapy session to buck up his client’s
spirits. Irabu would later experiment with religion.

The rest of Irabu’s MLB career was as checkered as his first year. There was an incident in camp in 1998, when he kicked a
Japanese photographer who had shot some video of him without permission and threatened to destroy his expensive camera if
the lensman did not surrender the tape. Later he ripped up a reporter’s name card and broke his pencil in two. That year,
he had won six games by the beginning of June and was leading the A.L. in ERA at 1.98. He finished with 13 wins, but he had
a spectacularly disastrous September, losing four of six and watching his ERA balloon to 4.06. He blew a 10-run lead in Oakland
one night, sending Yankees manager Joe Torre into a yelling fit that could be heard in the stands.

Nineteen ninety-nine started with a disastrous spring camp, when, suffering from “private emotional problems,” he made several
mental lapses in the field. This prompted Steinbrenner, ever the one for delicate understatement, to label him publicly as
a “fat, pussy toad.” He rebounded with a 9-3 record and was voted the pitcher of the month for August. But then he collapsed
yet again and finished with a record of 11-7 and an ERA of 4.84. If he surrendered a home run or two, he would suddenly lose
his confidence in his fastball and shy away from it, which only made things worse. His maddening yo-yo inconsistency, his
tendency to pitch brilliantly one game and horribly the next, led some to question his mental stability.

Yankees pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, who worked hard to improve Irabu’s tools, could not understand how a player could
be so good one minute and so bad the next. “When Irabu is on, he has the best stuff of any pitcher I have
ever
seen
anywhere,”
he said. “But when he is bad he is worse than just about anyone else.”

Sports columnist Marty Kuehnert, who is well versed in the Japanese game, called Irabu a simple “nut case.” Others cited drinking
as the cause of his problems. But Jean Afterman, who went on to join the Yankees’ front office in 2001, had another explanation.
“He lacked psychological grounding,” she said. “Because of his background, Hideki never really had a chance to figure out
who he was, unlike other Japanese who came to the States. He didn’t have a home or an identity. And I think that was the root
of all his trouble…. That, plus the fact that the Yankees coaches kept trying to tinker with the way he pitched.”

His former manager Bobby Valentine added, “He probably was in the wrong place to begin with. What he needed was a more sheltered
environment. What he needed was not a ‘show me’ mode but a ‘help me’ mode.”

Irabu was eventually shipped out of town—first to Montreal, where he underwent elbow and knee surgery and then went to the
minors where he was suspended for getting drunk the night before a start. After that, it was on to the Texas Rangers, where
he had a brief shining spell as a late-inning relief pitcher before developing blood clots that put him in the hospital and
sidelined him for the rest of the season.

He completed a circuitous route back home, when he joined the Osaka-based Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Central League in 2003.
Observers were worried at first that Irabu might have an attitude problem as an ex–major leaguer playing in Japan. But Tigers
coach Tom O’Malley had flown to Texas in the off-season for a heart-to-heart talk with him and came away convinced that he
was requisitely humbled, his head small enough to fit into a Tiger cap.

Indeed, back in blue-collar Osaka, rounding into what was perhaps the best condition of his life, Irabu enjoyed a revival,
winning nine of his first 11 decisions, while leading the league in ERA. Players and coaches in NPB remarked how much he had
matured as a pitcher. No longer was he just a thrower of two pitches. Instead, he was now changing speeds, planes and location.

Pundits said much of it had to do with the Tigers’ popular and pugnacious manager Senichi Hoshino, a wiry, fierce ex-pitcher
(nicknamed “Burning Hat” in his playing days for his intense will to win).

Hoshino was a hands-on leader, he would kick dirt on umpires, jump into fights with opposing players and scream at his own
men—even slug them on occasion—to ignite their fighting spirit. But he also had a fierce devotion to his troops—he sent expensive
presents (cashmere sweaters, kimonos) to his players’ wives and mothers on their birthdays—and a preternatural talent for
handling troubled young athletes. Hoshino had personally faced down gangsters who were trying to cozy up to his players, a
job skill necessary in Osaka, which was notorious for its
yakuza
and illegal baseball betting in the stands.

Hoshino had taken Irabu under his wing and given him lots of personal attention—in one-on-one advisory sessions in the bullpen
and private dinners in some of Osaka’s most exclusive restaurants. In a preseason press conference, Hoshino took pains to
praise his new acquisition.

“Hideki has a really gentle nature,” he declared to reporters. “He’s much nicer than the press makes him out to be.”

Irabu’s impressive start—on a consistent program of five days’ rest between starts and a limit of 100 pitches per game—helped
the Tigers take a huge lead in the first half of the season, sending Japan’s economically depressed second city (which was
hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs to mainland China) into fits of glee. Tigers goods flew off the shelf, helping to generate
over 100 billion yen in total extra revenue for the region that year.

The Tigers went on to win the pennant by 14 games although Irabu slumped in the second half (as was his habit), finishing
with a record of 13-8 and an ERA of 3.85. Hoshino announced to one and all that “None of this would have happened without
Hideki.” Indeed, so impressed was the
Tokyo Sup
tsu
with the way that Irabu had interacted with the younger pitchers on the team, teaching them what he had learned in the big
leagues, that the paper awarded him its MVP award, citing his “psychological contributions,” even though Hanshin’s left-handed
ace Kei Igawa had won 20 games.

Irabu’s successful season even inspired an article in the
New York Times,
by Tokyo correspondent Ken Belson, who cited the pitcher as an “example of a new breed of ballplayer in the NPB: Someone
with outside experience who, rather than being shunned for the ‘bad habits’ he may have picked up overseas, can provide leadership
on the field and in the dugout.” In proving that a man can go to the United States and return intact, wrote Belson, Irabu
may “convince even more players to try their luck in the major leagues.”

In the Hanshin Tigers, Irabu had finally found a home where he felt welcome and in Hoshino, the father figure he had been
lacking for all his baseball career. Said Hanshin’s O’Malley, “Irabu has really fit in. Maybe he’s more mature, more comfortable
back here. He learned a lot in the States.” Added writer Masayuki Tamaki, who covered the Tigers closely that year, “Hideki
is back around people who speak Japanese and he’s got a manager he can relate to. He seems more relaxed than I’ve ever seen
him.”