The Meaning of Ichiro (38 page)

Valentine came out of the meeting convinced he had been given carte blanche to do things his way. “Excellent meeting,” he
beamed to reporters. “We’re going to do things my way from now on.”

However, Hir
ka also met with Eto and Obana. Eto had presented his data and aired his grievances on other matters which Hir
ka noted with concern. According to one report, Hir
ka was dismayed that Valentine had reneged on his promise to hold practice on every single travel day of the year. He insisted
that extra practice was imperative and that this should be accomplished with or without Valentine’s cooperation.

In an attempt to tone down the vitriol, however, Hir
ka brought up farm team manager Akira Ejiri to serve as head coach and act as a buffer between the two warring factions. It
was a bold move because unbeknownst to Valentine, Hir
ka had been planning to install Ejiri, a tall former outfielder of some note with the old Taiyo Whales, in the field manager’s
post, when all the changes were in place two years hence and Valentine’s pact was up.

It was at this juncture, however—amazingly enough—that Lotte suddenly began to win. The team took six of its next seven games,
even before Ejiri arrived in the clubhouse to unpack his bags, and continued to win as he was settling in at his place on
the bench. By the halfway point the Marines had reached the .500 mark and had begun to close the ten-game gap with second-place
Seibu.

Both camps were eager to take credit for the sudden turnaround.

Valentine’s adherents pointed out that he had developed a special rapport with his team that was now beginning to pay off.
He had managed to wean his players off the by-the-numbers approach that they had been raised on. They had begun to comprehend
and start playing Valentine’s brand of aggressive baseball, which meant swinging away on 2-0 and 3-0 pitches instead of always
trying to work a walk, and going from first to third on hits to the outfield of their own volition, whereas under previous
managers they had been ordered to stop at second. Pitchers were throwing strikes on 2-2 instead of routinely advancing the
count to the usual 3-2.

More than anything else, the players responded to Valentine’s gregariousness and his enthusiasm on the field. He was like
a cheerleader and that separated him from most other managers in NPB. He was a motivator and he had gotten his players to
believe in themselves after years of mediocrity.

Said third basemen Kiyoshi Hatsushiba, a six-year veteran who was having the season of his life (he would lead the team in
homers with 25 and make the All-Star team for the first time), “Under Valentine, we became winners for the first time in my
career at Lotte. It was fun playing for him.”

A special key to the turnaround was the sudden blossoming of Koichi Hori, a lean-muscled young second baseman whom Valentine
plugged into the starting lineup at shortstop, over the great opposition of the Hir
ka camp.

It might be remembered that Hir
ka was regarded as one of the all-time greats at shortstop, while Valentine had played the same position, among others, with
somewhat less distinction. Neither Hir
ka, nor his hand-picked protégé Eto, had considered Hori quick enough to start at short. Valentine’s insertion of him there
came over staunch objections, which had to have rankled.

Hori began, indeed, in a fashion that made his detractors look prescient. But, after making an embarrassing 11 errors in the
first 55 games he played, he eventually transmogrified into one of the league’s better shortstops—although not one with quite
the range Valentine had predicted he would have. A big fan of the confidence-building batting clinics that Valentine’s batting
coach Tom Robson had conducted, he had also blossomed into a .300 hitter, winning the Player of the Month award for June.
Asked later for the secret of his success, the shortstop said it was the manager’s showing faith in him.

Still another addition that made a difference was rookie leadoff hitter Kenji Morozumi in center field. The latter had missed
a lot of camp time due to the death of his father and was left languishing on the minor league team at the start of the season
on the advice of farm team coaches. The defense up the middle improved considerably after Valentine called him up. Valentine
remarked that he wished he had brought the youngster up earlier. Morozumi batted leadoff, hit .290 and stole 24 bases in 97
games. Julio Franco, a Valentine import from the Texas Rangers, was one of the top hitters in the league. He would bat .306
and win a Gold Glove at first base. (Less successful would be Incaviglia, who hit .181 with 10 homers in 71 games.)

Among the pitchers, Hideki Irabu, already a speedballer of the first rank, was on his way to leading the league in ERA, with
2.53, as well as strikeouts, with 239, for the second straight season in both categories, while mustachioed beanpole Satoru
Komiyama would find his true métier, improving from a woeful 3-9, 4.24 in 1994 to 11-4, 2.60, his best year ever. Both had
taken a shine to the instruction of Tom House, whose enlightened practice regimen between starts included throwing off level
ground, rather than from the mound, a system which greatly reduced muscle tears. Among the MLB recruits, Eric Hillman would
also be among the league leaders in ERA. All the pitchers liked the new team policy of not necessarily being obligated to
throw a complete game, a departure from the system on other clubs. That year, Lotte would have very few arm injuries.

In Hir
ka’s circle, however, there was a different interpretation of events. Yes, Tom House had helped the pitching staff, but with
the exception of Hillman, the pitchers had been there before him and their success was due as much to natural development
as anything else. And had it not been for those Japanese coaches and their extra practice overseen by the Hir
ka front office, Hori might not have developed into such a good shortstop, one who was now fully capable of turning the double
play (and who would not make an error in his last 38 games).