The Meaning of Ichiro (36 page)

Both men, who led a staff of six Japanese coaches, were confused by the abbreviated practice schedule under Valentine and
relayed their concerns to Hir
ka, who called Valentine to explain certain facts of baseball life in Japan.

“In the U.S.,” he said, “you all have a farm system of several tiers, from Triple-A on down. You have about 200 players under
contract. By the time you get these players to the major leagues, they are already polished for the most part. But Japanese
baseball is different. We have only one farm team, so we need extra time in camp to work on our various batting, throwing
and fielding skills, not to mention team play.”

Valentine, the impressions of autumn camp fresh in his mind, nodded in understanding and then he said no.

“If you increase practice time,” he said, “the players will get tired. When you get tired, you pick up bad habits. I don’t
want to force them and I don’t want to wear them out before the season begins. Sometimes more isn’t always better. They will round into form at their own pace.”

“Well, then, what if they volunteer?” asked Hir
ka.

“In that case, we’ll give those who volunteer 30 extra minutes.”

Perhaps Valentine was just being stubborn. But perhaps he had already learned that in NPB the word for “voluntary” was often
a synonym for “compulsory” or “get your ass in gear or else.” His refusal to allow any more practice signaled the start of
Round One in what would prove to be a season-long battle. That evening, with Hir
ka’s assent and without telling Valentine, Eto and Obana began nighttime training outside the hotel where the team was staying.
It took Valentine three days to notice the figures in the hotel garden. There, silhouetted in the desert moonlight, were batters
taking hundreds of shadow swings and pitchers working on their pitching motion by snapping towels.

In the interests of team harmony, he decided to acquiesce and began participating himself.

There was also a problem with organization. In his meetings with coaches, Valentine would lay out a schedule for the next
day, but then the next day would come and the manager would change his mind.

“I like to wing it,” Valentine explained, “because conditions change from day to day.” But to Eto and Obana, who were raised
in a system where punctuality was king, inchoate planning a sin and every detail
always
planned out in advance from Day One, it was distracting and, they thought, inconsiderate. They tried to rationalize and shrug
off Valentine’s behavior as that of an outsider who was trying to establish his authority. At least,
that
was something they could understand.

Chiba was a city of 900,000 people on Tokyo Bay an hour’s train ride from the capital center. Barely noticed by visitors on
the way to and from Narita Airport, it was distinguished by its ocean winds, its gangsters and immigrant workers, and its
proximity to the enormously popular Tokyo Disneyland. The nearby Makuhari Trade Pavilion, built on swamp land, had the distinction
of being the venue where a display of American rice was once ordered removed by the Japanese goveminent because its foreign
taste was regarded as unsuitable for Japanese taste buds (as, no doubt, was its selling price, which was substantially lower
than the government-run rice association would prefer to allow).

Chiba Marine Stadium, a cheap new windswept 30,000-seat structure on the outskirts of the city where the Marines played, was
seldom filled, partly because of the oceanside chill that permeated the stands, especially in the early spring, but also because
of the wretched baseball team that normally played there. The Chiba Lotte Marines, returning home with their new manager to
start the exhibition season, were hoping that was all about to change.

The Japanese media had never seen anyone like Bobby Valentine. He eschewed the fancy cars and chauffeur-driven limousines
preferred by most managers and bicycled to the park from his nearby apartment. In pregame practice one could often find him
by the outfield stands chatting up the Lotte
endan.
Unlike most Japanese managers who stood imperiously on the sidelines during workouts, arms folded, watching silently, he
would usually be out on the field among his players, encouraging them, teaching them, leading by example—all of which made
for colorful photo opportunities.

Valentine seemed made for the Japanese media. He was a broad-shouldered and bronzed 45-year-old in excellent physical condition,
with a full head of stylishly graying hair and a telegenic smile. He was
always
accessible for interviews. What’s more, he was intoxicated with Japanese culture. He ate raw fish and noodles. He studied
Japanese and spoke it as much as he possibly could, referring often to the dictionary he carried with him. It was not unusual
to see him stop in the street on the way home to rap about baseball with fans and reporters.

“He’s not aloof like other Japanese managers,” gushed one Lotte fan in a typical bromide. “When he comes forth after a win,
he’s ready to talk.” In fact, Valentine was one of the few foreigners to do the “1,000-fungo drill”—just to show that he could.
And he did all 1,000, not one-third, or one-half, the way most modern players did. Moreover, he was still standing when he
was finished. His interpreter, who had batted out all thousand balls, was overwhelmed.

“He was something,” he said in amazement, “he really opened his heart to Japan.”

Known in Japan as
“Barentain,”
Valentine kicked off the season in an early-season commercial for Compaq Computers, which he planned to use to analyze the
comparative strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. One TV spot showed him sitting in his nondescript stadium office in
front of his desktop with a message in gold letters appearing on the screen:

“WE WILL CHANGE BASEBALL”

Perhaps he was referring to customs like the 1,000-ground-ball drill, an exercise he privately believed to be “a colossal
waste of time,” despite the experience’s salutary effects on his “spirit” and cross-cultural understanding. “It might be good
for mental training,” he said, but “after the first 500 balls, my fielding technique collapsed.”

The new slogan, however, would not prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The team that Valentine inherited was not as bad as it had looked in the previous year’s standings. In fact, coming as he
did from MLB, where most people looked down on Japanese baseball, Valentine was surprised at just how talented his players
were. He thought that Hideki Irabu could throw as well as anybody in the world and that the pitching in general was comparable
to the major leagues. The men on his staff, he believed, had better control than most MLB pitchers and, in his estimation,
they were all much better fielders. Moreover, the catchers didn’t just block balls in the dirt, as MLB backstops did, they
caught
them, and although the outfielders generally didn’t have the range or the arm power of major leaguers, they were technically
more proficient. Valentine had also come to the opinion that his baserunners were better base stealers as well. Infielders
Koichi Hori and Kiyoshi Hatsushiba, among others, he thought capable of becoming stars in the big leagues.

“There was this universal contempt for the Japanese leagues back home,” he said, recalling his early weeks, “but I was truly
taken aback at how good they were.”

Valentine had also brought with him
gaijin
reinforcements in the form of left-handed pitcher Eric Hillman, smooth-hitting and smooth-fielding first baseman Julio Franco
and hard-swinging outfielder Pete Incaviglia. He pronounced the ‘95 Marines as being “just two players shy of being like my
Texas team.” (“Unfortunately,” he added, “those two players were Nolan Ryan and Ruben Sierra.”) Valentine thought that two
years was not an unreasonable amount of time to turn the Marines into champions of Japan. And so did Tom House.

The Marines got off to a miserable start of 8-14-1 in the first month of April, and quickly the sniping began. Some critics
predictably blamed the team’s poor performance on the low-key U.S. style training camp. But
inside baseball
had also become an issue. There were disagreements over when to steal, when to hit and run, when to swing away and, among
other things, how much time to give a relief pitcher to warm up before coming into the game (not very much, according to Valentine,
who was worried about preserving his pitchers’ arms; a lot, according to pitching coach Obana, who insisted that because of
the psychological makeup of the Japanese athlete, his relievers needed more preparation to get ready than Americans did).

Also, Obana could not understand Valentine’s insistence that his pitchers throw a fastball away on a 2-2 count, when everyone
knew that for the Japanese moundsmen, with their great control, forkballs and sliders shading the corners of the plate were
just the ticket to tempt a batter fearful of being called out on strikes, especially if a big free-swinging
gaijin
slugger was at the plate. It was a strategy that succeeded time and time again in Japan. But Valentine, with logic that was
equally difficult to refute, said, “What if the batter didn’t swing? Why would a pitcher intentionally risk that happening
and a ball being called, thereby putting himself in the hole with a count of 3-2? He’d just be hurting himself. A really smart
pitcher wouldn’t do something like that.” (Obana could only reply, “He would if he was pitching in Japan.”)

The most frequent arguments involved the bunt. With a runner on first and none out, for example, using the sacrifice bunt
was a nobrainer to most Japanese managers. It was regarded as a vital offensive tool. They believed it created the best possible
chance to score that all-important first run, which is why statistics showed that Japanese teams regularly sacrificed nearly
three times as often as major leaguers did. To many American managers, however, sacrificing in that situation was just giving
up an out to the opposition. They preferred to let their players hit away. It was also thought important for a manager to
give his players room to maneuver, to display some initiative and creativity, to think and react spontaneously during the
game, rather than blindly follow rote instructions. Be aggressive. That was American-style ball.