The Meaning of Ichiro (44 page)

In 1999, “Shiggy,” as he had also come to be known, slumped to a record of 4-6, 4.91, but still managed to pitch a remarkable
streak of 27½ scoreless innings. In the year 2000, he had his best season. He led the Angels in games pitched (66), wins (10)
and ERA (3.48). Along the way, he had taken Angels relief ace Troy Percival’s advice to embark on a full-fledged weight training
program. Hasegawa would spend two hours after every game in the weight room and by his fifth year in the majors, he was throwing
his fastball at 93 miles per hour.

Recovering from a tear in his rotator cuff which sidelined him for part of the following season, he signed on with Seattle
as a non-tendered free agent in January 2002. When Kazuhiro Sasaki went on the disabled list, Hasegawa became the team’s closer,
producing an eye-popping ERA of 0.77 over the first half of the year. His performance earned him a spot on the AL All-Star
team, making him the third Japanese to have played for Akira Ogi to join that distinguished squad. This statistic prompted
one
Asahi Shimbun
reporter to quip, “Ogi has played a bigger role than the Foreign Ministry in diplomatic relations with the U.S.”

Hasegawa’s own contributions to trans-Pacific relations indeed extended beyond the realm of baseball. Bright and disciplined,
he shunned the use of an interpreter and made a concerted effort to learn to speak English (although sometimes he would hide
out in a rest-room for a time, “just to get away from English-speaking people”). His performances on American television were
perhaps more famous in Japan than the games he pitched.

Although millions of educated Japanese study English in secondary schools, their conversational skills are limited, thanks
to a grammar-oriented curriculum, designed for college entrance examinations, that focuses almost entirely on reading and
writing. Thus, many Japanese can make sense of a
Hamlet
soliloquy but are terrified of actually saying hello to a live native speaker.

“We’re afraid of making a mistake,” one is often told. “That’s why we’re hesitant to speak.”

Hasegawa, however, did not suffer much from such insecurities. He fearlessly babbled away, sometimes in broken English if
need be, to anyone who put a microphone in his face. His interviews in English were so fascinating to the folks back home
that a publisher asked him to write a textbook about English. The resulting tome, entitled
My Way to Study English,
became a best-seller in Japan and spawned a host of imitators. Hasegawa also wrote a book about baseball called
Adjustment
in which he stated his belief that the heavy workload he had endured during his early years in Japan and the lack of a sophisticated
weight training program for pitchers had indirectly contributed to his shoulder injury. Following that, he authored a book
on self-management that also hit the best-seller lists.

Hasegawa reveled in life in the United States. He bought a house in Newport Beach and became an off-season golf junkie, spending
only an average of two weeks in Japan. While his wife sometimes complained of little discriminations, living as a Japanese
among Americans, Hasegawa never did. “I learned to speak English well enough to tell people off if I have to,” he said.

Hasegawa was popular with his Seattle teammates, who liked his open, gregarious manner, and the writers, who appreciated him
because, unlike the other two Japanese on the team, he was always willing to talk. His locker in stylish Safeco Field revealed
evidence of a man who was also busy improving his mind. Stacked on one shelf, alongside uniforms and street clothes, was a
mini-library in both Japanese and English, including several tomes on business, along with books on mental training. One of
his favorites was James E. Loehr’s
The New Toughness Training for Sports: Mental, Emotional and Physical Conditioning from One of the World’s Premier Sports
Psychologists.
Another was
Das Kapital,
by Karl Marx, which Hasegawa had read in the off-season.

Hasegawa’s Boston-based agent, Ed Kleven, paid his client the ulimate compliment when he said, “I’d gotten out of the business
of handling baseball players and had turned to media people. I never thought I’d represent a ballplayer again but then a former
client of mine, Jim Colborn, came along and introduced me to Hasegawa. If Shige had a twin brother I’d take him on in a second.
That’s how highly I think of him. There’s just something pure and sincere about the guy.”

Hasegawa talked to a reporter in 2003 of one day coaching or managing, of taking what he had learned back to Japan, or, conversely,
staying in the U.S. and teaching what he believed the Japanese had to offer. While he echoed the other Japanese players in
his admiration of MLB’s freedom, dynamism and aggressive approach to the game, he also harbors reservations about the prevailing
work ethic.

“Americans don’t do enough,” he said flatly. “If I was a coach in MLB, I’d make a young pitcher throw more in camp. A hundred
pitches every three days. I know the Japanese overdo it with
seishin yaky
and hurt their arms, but what Americans do isn’t nearly enough.”

The next Japanese player to make the big leap across the pond was a chunky, well-fed, right-handed finesse pitcher named Masato
Yoshii. A veteran of ten years with the Kintetsu Buffaloes and three with the Yakult Swallows, he had a reputation as a reliable,
unpretentious salarymanlike performer, one who politely waited until his 13th year in baseball, 1997, to have his best season.
In that campaign, he won 13 and lost six, with an ERA of 2.99, and was instrumental in the Swallows’ drive to a Japan Championship.

By this stage of his career, Yoshii was, of course, eligible to become a free agent, but when he was approached by Don Nomura
to exercise that right, he was initially reluctant. At age 32, with a personality as unobtrusive as his pitching, he found
the pull of tradition difficult to resist. (Acquaintances said his main concern seemed to be that people not dislike him.)
The Swallows had offered him a two-year contract with a big raise and he was inclined to take it. If he declared free agency,
what would the people in the Yakult organization think of him?

“It doesn’t matter what they think of you,” Nomura told him. “They’re not going to pay you on the basis of your personality
or your good manners. If you couldn’t pitch, do you think they would be offering you a two-year contract?”

But, Yoshii asked, didn’t he
owe
something to Yakult?

“What you
owe,”
said Nomura, “is allegiance to your fellow players. You have to claim your rights. You have to do this for the younger guys.
Make a stand for the next generation.”

It took a while but Yoshii finally came around to Nomura’s way of thinking. He asked Yakult to tack on two more years. The
team refused, so Yoshii declared free agency. At a press conference that resembled a wake, a solemn Yoshii made a public apology
to Katsuya Nomura, his manager (and his agent’s stepfather), for leaving the team. “This is just something I have to do,”
he said. Then he sat back and watched in amazement as the offers rolled in. The Seibu Lions and the Hanshin Tigers were both
willing to pony up 5 million dollars over four years. The Yokohama BayStars upped the ante to 7 million. Then the Yomiuri
Giants stepped in and offered 9 million dollars over the same time frame. Yoshii was flattered. He had always wanted to play
for the Giants. In fact, Giants manager Shigeo Nagashima had been his idol as a boy. It was a dream come true.

“Fine,” said Nomura, “if that’s what you really want. But tell them you want an extra 4 million to put you in the top salary
tier. Also insist on having the right to determine your own routine in spring camp. Tell them you refuse to do the 100-pitches-a-day
routine that all other Giant pitchers have to go through. And tell them you’re not going to take part in their autumn training
camp at the end of the season. Make all these demands nonnegotiable.”

Since it was the Giants’ hard and fast policy under Tsuneo Watanabe not to allow the use of agents, Yoshii would have to do
his own negotiating. It was something he was loath to attempt because it was regarded as such an honor just to be invited
to wear the uniform of the proud
Kyojin.
Giants players simply did not make such demands—unless they were foreigners, that is.

Nevertheless, Yoshii memorized Nomura’s talking points and practiced saying them in front of the mirror. He paced the floor
nervously for half an hour before summoning up the courage to dial Nagashima’s number. The baseball legend listened to Yoshii’s
demands and said that although they were no problem for him personally, he would have to discuss the matter with the front
office. There, as it turned out, they
were
a problem. Summoned to a meeting with the Giants’ general manager, Yoshii was given a tongue-lashing. The upshot was that
he could either take their initial offer or they would find someone else. While trying to figure out his next move, Yoshii
suddenly received a call on his cell phone from an old friend and former Kintetsu teammate, Hideo Nomo. It would change his
life.

“Masato,” said Hideo, “why are you wasting your time with teams in Japan? Do you really want to stay there and then in five
years look back and have to admit to yourself that you didn’t do what you know you really wanted to do in your heart? Stop
and think about what you’re doing.”

Yoshii stopped and thought. And when he was finished, he did a remarkable thing. Turning down millions at perhaps the only
stage in his career where he could command such offers, he accepted a deal with the New York Mets for only $200,000, plus
performance bonuses. It was an incredible risk and it represented a remarkable transformation for the conservative Yoshii,
one that astonished sports fans all across Japan. Hideo Nomo could not have been prouder.

In New York, Yoshii played for Mets manager Bobby Valentine, who had managed in Japan three years earlier and seen him pitch.
Used exclusively as a starter in New York, Yoshii finished with a record of 6-8 in 29 games and a 3.98 ERA. The Mets rewarded
him with a two-year deal for $5.25 million and the following season he demonstrated that he was worth even more. In what would
prove to be his best year in MLB, he won 12 games, lost eight, and led the Mets into the playoffs. Down the all-important
September stretch, he logged five wins, compiling an ERA of 1.68 for the month.

Valentine was effusive. “He’s the most reliable pitcher we’ve got,” he said. “Yoshii keeps us in every game.”

Yoshii later moved on to the Colorado Rockies and then the Montreal Expos, putting in a total of five years in the majors,
before returning to Japan in the 2003 season.

Among the many ripe morsels to fall from the NPB tree in that era was Kazuhiro Sasaki, hands down the best relief pitcher
in the Japanese game. Playing in the ‘90s with the Yokohama BayStars of the Central League, he won an unprecedented five Central
League “Fireman of the Year” awards and was so imposing he was nicknamed
Daimajin,
after a feared feudal era deity based on the “Legend of Haniwa.”

Popularized in a 1966 Daiei Film Studios trilogy,
Daimajin
was a 50-foot stone statue of a samurai; brought to life out of a cold, deep sleep in an island forest by the prayers of
peasant villagers, he went forth to fight marauding bandits, evil warlords and other villains. The physical resemblance of
the 6′4′′, 220-pound Sasaki to the statue, from the hard, squared shoulders to the etched facial features, was eerie, although
the respective m.o.’s were slightly different.
Daimajin,
the deity, saved the day by trampling his foes, impaling them and flinging them against the rocks.
Daimajin
the reliever achieved the same results with a stomach-churning forkball.

Growing up in bucolic Miyagi Prefecture, several hundred miles north of Tokyo, a region known for its rice paddies, picturesque
pine tree islands and
kokeshi
dolls, Sasaki was a sickly child who was frequently hospitalized with high fevers, an experience which may have accounted
for his habit of bringing home stray animals to be nursed. With the help of his mother, who made him drink large quantities
of milk, and his father, who played daily games of catch with him, he gradually built up his strength, developing into a big
and brawny but good-natured specimen of Japanese manhood. He went on to play big time high school baseball and secretly taught
himself the forkball in defiance of his manager’s orders, throwing hours every day on his own. After attending
Tohoku Fukushi
University, where he sat out three baseball seasons with chronic back problems and twice underwent surgery for a slipped
disc, he was drafted by Yokohama in 1989. Wearing the number 22, which he considered lucky because he was born on February
22, at 2:22 in the morning, he became the Central League’s premier bullpen ace within three years.

In 1998, he had the season of his life when he led the BayStars to a rare Japan Championship. He set a record for saves with
45 (in 51 appearances over a 135-game season), another record for ERA with 0.64 and was selected as the MVP of the Central
League. Sasaki was so difficult to hit that opposing managers plotted game strategy versus Yokohama as if they only had eight
innings to play. Once he came on in the ninth, it was virtually impossible to score.