The Meaning of Ichiro (43 page)

By November, Hir
ka and his entire staff had been fired.

Valentine, for his part, spent the season in Triple-A back in the States, then took over as manager of the New York Mets.
Shortly thereafter, he would lead them into the World Series. From time to time he met with Shigemitsu, when the latter visited
New York, and Shigemitsu admitted that he had gotten some “bad advice” during Valentine’s tenure as manager.

If there was anything positive resulting from Valentine’s Japan experience, it was that he came away from it with an extremely
high regard for the Japanese game. “I had seen the movie
Mr. Baseball,”
he said, “and it was an embarrassment. The Japanese game I saw had a lot more dignity and class than that.”

In New York, he would incorporate some Japanese practice routines—pregame soft toss, machines for bunting practice, fielding
practice stations. He even half-joked that he might incorporate the 1,000-fungo drill into his system, as a kind of initiation
test for rookies.

He said that while MLB had more power and was better at hitting and turning the double play than NPB, Japanese pitching was
superior. “I don’t really have a big awe of major league pitchers,” he said, “but I am impressed with those in Japan. They
have good speed and they can all throw breaking stuff on 3-2.”

He predicted that if Ichiro Suzuki played in MLB he would hit .350 and win the batting title (about as accurate a prediction
as a human being can possibly make). “Ichiro Suzuki is the best 21-year-old player I have ever seen, anywhere,” he said at
the time. “He can hit any pitch there is. And he can field too. He made a play I didn’t think was possible. He caught a ball
in right center, stopped on a dime and threw the ball 380 feet on a line to home plate to nail the runner. It was unbelievable.”

And that wasn’t all. In fact, he said, “Take 90 percent of the starting pitchers and top relievers in NPB and they could make
a big league roster in some capacity. Take the top 3–4–5 hitters on each team and they’d be in the starting lineup somewhere—maybe
lower in the batting order, but they’d still be there. Daiei’s Kokubo would lead AL second basemen in home runs.

“People don’t believe me when I say this, but there are about 100 players in Japan who can play in MLB in one capacity or
another. Put a Japanese All-Star team in an MLB division, let someone like Ogi or Oh manage them and they might wind up winning
the World Series.”

In addition to Ogi or Oh, the name Valentine might easily be added to the list of candidates.

It would be seven long years before another
gaijin kantoku
would make an appearance. His name was Trey Hillman, a former manager in the Yankees’ minor league system, and he was hired
by another chronic Pacific League doormat, the Nippon Ham Fighters, to manage their team in 2003.

Before leaving for Japan, Hillman talked with Valentine, who offered him a basic introductory course on J-Ball and then said,
“There will be times during the season when you will be standing in the field in the middle of a game in some weird situation
and you’ll ask yourself, ‘What in the world am I doing here?!’”

Hillman, a clean-cut, straight-talking Texan, said that never happened. But then he worked in a different situation (a less
exalted GM) and indeed, a different environment, than had Valentine, suffused as it was in the warm new glow of international
baseball good will, inspired by the American love affair with Ichiro. Acceptance was in the air. Thus, his general manager
nodded in earnest approval when Hillman said he was going to have a camp that would be shorter than that of any other team
each day by two hours with no evening sessions and that he planned to have the lowest number of sacrifice bunts in the Pacific
League. He stood and watched without complaint as Hillman did just that, also setting a record for the fewest pregame meetings,
as well as the shortest postgame meeting (41.7 seconds according to a coach’s watch).

“I tried not to change too much, too soon,” said Hillman, “because I understood what an emotional crutch that some of their
institutions and rituals are. I let my pitchers throw a lot more than they should have, and I even sacrifice bunted on occasion
in an early inning—something I wouldn’t do in the States—because I realized how psychologically important it was to them to
score the first run.”

Hillman’s team did not exactly set the league on fire, as Valentine’s ‘95 Lotte squad had—finishing in fifth place—and he
was often quizzed by reporters about his laissez-faire methods, but at least he got to keep his job for another year as the
Fighters relocated from Tokyo to Sapporo. The same could not be said for Leon Lee, the former NPB star who was given the job
of interim manager of the Orix BlueWave when their hapless manager Hiromichi Ishige was given the ax in May. When the BlueWave
finished deep in last place, Lee was given his walking papers.

Both hirings had been surprising. But what really got everyone’s attention were the events of November 1 that fall, when hundreds
of well-wishers greeted Bobby Valentine’s return to Japan at Narita Airport. The man who had once acquiesced in his dismissal,
Akio Shigemitsu, had just offered him a three-year pact for $2.5 million a year to come back and manage the Chiba Lotte Marines,
who had not seen the sunny side of .500 since his departure. And Valentine would accept, thereby beginning Part Two of his
Great Japan Adventure.

When I watch Japanese professional baseball, I root for my favorite team [Hanshin]. When I watch the Major League Baseball
news, I look for the achievements of individual players over any specific teams—like Shinjo, who moved from the Giants to
the Mets. I cheer him on.

T
ATEO
S
HIMIZU
,
A
SAHI
S
HIMBUN
,
2003

F
ROM
1995
TO
2003,17 J
APANESE BASEBALL PLAYERS MADE THEIR
way from Japan to MLB. They went for the challenge of testing themselves at a higher level and to break free from the stifling
strictures and wearying excesses of the Japanese game. They went, as so many put it, “to see what it’s like to have fun playing
baseball.”

Americans liked them because of their belief, generally speaking, in the team ethos and their commitment to the idea that
playing baseball was first and foremost its own reward—monetary considerations coming later. They were welcome additions to
a game that seemed increasingly consumed by greed and ego.

In Japan, however, they were admired for other reasons. They demonstrated to their countrymen new and different ways of living
life, imparting lessons about bravery and self-reliance, something that was not taught in Japanese schools. An Asahi newspaper
reporter, Tateo Shimizu, touched on this when he wrote, “In American school textbooks, the purpose is to teach individual
responsibility and create strong individuals, as seen in the story of ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper.’ In elementary Japanese
textbooks, however, such themes are largely absent; the most important thing is learning the value of smooth human relations
and the group…. By not staying in Japan where they could have had a stable, secure and assured future and choosing instead
a more difficult path, relying on skill and technique to test themselves, Ichiro and the others inspire countless young people
to say, ‘Okay. I can make it on my own too.’”

Of all the baseball émigrés who starred in these real life morality plays, perhaps none was as instructive as Shigetoshi Hasegawa,
who demonstrated that a Japanese player did not have to be a superstar to make it in MLB. Hasegawa was the first draft choice
of the Orix BlueWave in 1991 and went on to win Rookie of the Year honors. In six years, he compiled a solid, if not spectacular,
record of 57 wins with an ERA of 3.11. Compact and muscular at 5′9′′, 170 pounds (and with a permanent five o’clock shadow),
he compensated for a low octane fastball with a confusing array of breaking pitches that he could locate with remarkable accuracy.

His success was partly due to his willingness to try new things, such as the changeup he learned under American pitching coach
Jim Colborn, who worked with Orix from 1990 to ‘94. Said Colborn, “The changeup is a great weapon. You throw it from the same
motion as your faster pitches, but several miles per hour slower. It really fools the batters. But Japanese pitchers are notoriously
resistant to learning it because it takes so much time to perfect and they have so many other pitches to master as well. Hasegawa
was only one of two pitchers on the team to master it. He’d throw his fork and his slider and his fastball in the ‘80s, then
come in with the changeup in the ‘70s. He wasn’t afraid to use it in any situation and he was quite effective.”

Born in Kobe, not far from historic Himeji Castle, Hasegawa had first learned about pitching from his grandfather, an amateur
schoolboy baseball coach. He went on to star in high school where he pitched in the prestigious summer Koshien tournament
(his team advancing to the quarterfinals) and then became a standout at elite Ritsumeikan University.

It was as a member of a touring college All-Star team that he first saw the United States and he instantly fell in love with
it. He liked the vastness of the U.S., the easily accessible golf courses, the freedom and the looseness of American society.

“I decided I wanted to live there,” he said. “But, I couldn’t see driving a cab or being a gardener. So that left baseball.
I made up my mind to be the first Japanese in the majors, after Murakami. But Nomo beat me to it.”

After Colborn had left the team, Hasegawa began asking the Orix front office to let him go. As he was still years from free
agent eligibility and the posting system had yet to be established, the only way for Hasegawa to realize his dream—other than
to copy Nomo’s m.o.—was through the cooperation of Orix ownership.

Now, Japanese teams did not always make decisions based solely on economic considerations. Other factors, such as
ningen kankei
and
ninj
,
sometimes came into play. In Hasegawa’s case, Orix arranged a deal with the Anaheim Angels, involving a substantial amount
of cash.

“Sure, we wanted to keep him,” said GM Steve Ino. “But at the same time we wanted to accommodate his wishes.” (It should be
remembered, however, that this act of human charity also came in the wake of Hasegawa’s worst season ever—4–6, 5.34 ERA, 87
IP—and was one Orix chose not to repeat when Ichiro Suzuki was the player asking to be sent to the United States.)

Hasegawa’s move to MLB was regarded as something of a gamble for him and the Angels, given that he was not an overpowering
stud pitcher like Nomo or Irabu. If he flopped, it could very well have had a negative effect on other Japanese aspiring to
play in the majors. And, in fact, his debut did not exactly set him on the high road for Cooperstown. While he showed enough
talent to make the Anaheim roster, it was not as a starting pitcher, as he had hoped. Failing to impress in several starting
assignments, he was banished to the bullpen by Angels manager Terry Collins, who undiplomatically announced, “It’s quite clear
that Shigetoshi is no Nomo.”

Hasegawa’s new slot as a middle-inning reliever was not considered very prestigious back in Japan and the number of reporters
following him dropped accordingly. This was fine with Hasegawa and finer still with Collins, who had both grown tired of answering
questions about why he was not in the starting rotation. Absent the distractions, Hasegawa was able to focus on becoming a
good setup man. After an initial period of adjustment, he finished the season with three wins and seven losses and an ERA
of 3.93. In July of that year, he relieved in the sixth inning of a game versus the Los Angeles Dodgers, which the Angels
lost. Pitching for L.A. was Hideo Nomo. It was the first MLB matchup of pitchers from Japan.

Hasegawa studied the weaknesses and strengths of the batters in his league, as well as the habits of different American League
umpires. In 1998, he compiled a record of 8-3 with an ERA of 3.14, and by now Collins was singing a different tune. “This
guy’s outstanding,” he was heard to say after a particularly impressive relief appearance.