JapanBall.com - Greg Shaw Guest Commentary

(Greg Shaw asked his wife to marry him at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, owns Cuban, Puerto Rican and Japanese baseball jerseys and writes a blog about the Cape Cod Baseball League, CodBall.com)

Editor of Codball.com

Editor’s note: In March 2003 – with an American war in Iraq looming -- commissioner Bud Selig cancelled a planned MLB opener in Japan between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland A’s. The article below was accepted by The Seattle Times op-ed page editor in 2003, but plans to publish it were scuttled when the game was canceled.

Before Ichiro Suzuki broke into the Seattle Mariners’ starting line-up in 2001, a Japanese player had never established himself in the big leagues as a position player. A year later, Ichiro was the American League batting champion and Rookie of the Year, even though he was no rookie. This season, the Mariners and the Oakland A’s will travel nearly 5,000 miles to Japan for opening day.

Over the years, baseball has evolved from a uniquely American past-time into beisbol, reflecting the influence of Latin players. On March 25, when the Mariners play their season opener at the Tokyo Dome, beisbol will be well on its way to becoming beesubooru (or “yakyu” for you real insiders).

Moving opening day to Japan is certainly shrewd marketing by Major League Baseball as it brings lots of affluent and enthusiastic Asian fans closer to Major League Baseball. But the move may prove to be even more profound than a marketing scheme. The infusion of Japanese work ethic, humility and a return to baseball fundamentals may turn out to be the very antidote needed to resolve continuing fan dissatisfaction. And it may build a new, more loyal base for future generations of fans in this country.

Just as DiMaggio and Mantle gave way to Clemente and Cepeda, so too are the names Suzuki, Matsui, Nomo, Sasaki and Hasegawa emerging as formidable baseball legends, albeit humble, hard-working ones. It took us generations to recognize the great but largely unrewarded talents of the Negro and Cuban leagues. In just a very few years, however, Major League Baseball is turning its schedule upside down to accommodate inter-league play with Japan’s Central and Pacific Leagues, players from which will take on Oakland and Seattle before their two-game opener.

Already scouts are looking further East to an even newer, possibly richer vein of talent in South Korea, which could become the new

Japan. Is it just me or have the World Series and All-Star Games already become something of a misnomer?

We’ve become complacent thinking of the Major Leagues as international because players are recruited from throughout Latin America . Beisbol: Latin America and the Grand Old Game chronicles the contributions and influence of Latinos on baseball over the years. Today, we couldn’t imagine baseball without a starting lineup that is weighted heavily to names from countries throughout Latin America . And baseball is so much better for it.

Fortunately for baseball and its fans, players like Clemente, Dave Concepcion, Luis Tiant and other Latin Hall of Famers clawed and fought their way into the bigs. But how many of us will remember Martin Dihigo of the 1940 Cienfuego Elefantes, arguably the greatest Cuban player of all time? Similarly, until Ichiro broke in – a seven-time batting champion for the Orix Blue Wave in Kobe – he was unknown and, truth be known, discounted. It took exactly one month in the American League, however, to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated under the headline, “Red Hot.”

Reaching out aggressively may prove to be an antidote to problems plaguing American baseball. Dissatisfaction about player salaries and disputes with management continue to damage the image of the game. Fans have had it. You can hear it in the quality of boos when Alex Rodriguez comes to bat. A-Rod signed with the Texas Rangers for a price that equals 10 nations’ gross domestic product. His numbers continue to inspire awe but his team has dwelled in the cellar of the AL Central. Meanwhile, the Arizona Diamondbacks organization, fearing the ramifications of fan dissatisfaction, this season is mandating that players spend 10 minutes before each game signing autographs.

Japanese players, with humility and passion for the game, are showing fans an attitude and approach they miss. For the first time since joining the Major Leagues, Ichiro is starting to speak out, though with typical understatement. He’s saying that he’d like to see more of a focus on fundamentals in American baseball. “As a player, I like to focus on small play,” he told The Seattle Times recently.

Pitching great Dave Stewart told writers during Ichiro’s first season in the U.S. that the Japanese star was more than a flash phenomenon. “We would watch him and be amazed at how well-rounded his game is. It truly reminded you of how players once were in this game, how they were so prepared for every facet of baseball.”

Last season, another Japanese sensation for the Mets, Tsuyoshi Shinjo, came to bat with two outs in the ninth inning with men on base and the score tied. He won the game with a single up the middle. After the game, reporters were comparing him to Ichiro. Shinjo’s reply? "I don't know why you guys always compare me to Ichiro; Ichiro is way beyond me, way better than I am. I just want to be a player all the fans have a good memory of."

There is a word for this in

Japan

-- kenson, or modesty.

While it is certainly new and innovative to reach out to Japan, MLB may well find that it is heading back to the future – a return to an era that emphasizes strong defensive play, modesty and a love of the game.

Ichiro cannot help but be compared with those players of old. Sports Illustrated wrote that he “runs to first in a Mickey Mantle-like 3.7 seconds.”

And so kids today are getting a taste of the excitement their grandparents once enjoyed – only the names are a little harder to pronounce. When Hideki Matsui of the Yomiuri Giants signed this season with the New York Yankees, David Letterman invited the man Japanese fans call Godzilla onto the show. In his list of “Top 10 Reasons” Matsui signed with the Yankees, Letterman observed, “Every Japanese child knows the legend of Jorge Posada” – the Puerto Rican catcher who will play alongside Matsui.

It’s not so far-fetched to think Japanese kids long to be Jorge Posada and that American kids, like Dusty Baker’s now famous five-year-old son and bat boy, might dream of one day playing for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in the Japanese Central League.