The Meaning of Ichiro (17 page)

Uchimura’s response: “I believe Mr. Frick should more deeply appreciate our position.”

Uchimura decided to let things simmer for a while. Then he brought Murakami’s father, a local postmaster, into the equation.
In a letter to Uchimura, the father had explained that he would never have given permission for his son (a minor under Japanese
law when the Nankai-San Francisco pact was struck) to go to the U.S. if he had known that Masanori would wind up as the property
of an American team.

“He’s my only son,” pleaded the elder Murakami. “I want him here with me, not stuck in some foreign country.”

Uchimura relayed these sentiments to Frick and Stoneham. Surely, as fathers themselves, they could understand, he said.

That apparently did the trick and the U.S. side caved.

On April 28, at Stoneham’s initiative, Frick ruled that although Murakami still had to play in San Francisco in 1965, he could
return to Japan in 1966, if
he
still wished to do so. In a joint statement, issued by the Giants and Frick, both parties said that they felt obligated to
remind their Japanese friends that “in any international agreement, sanctity of contract is the most essential feature.” Frick
then lifted the suspension.

Uchimura, relieved that he could now return to doing nothing, replied, “I feel the elder brother has given in to end the family
dispute.” The Hawks returned the $10,000 to the Giants, and Murakami, who had been working out at a Nankai training facility,
packed his bags and flew to California to catch the remaining five months of the season.

There were later unconfirmed reports that the U.S. State Department had intervened at the behest of the Japanese government
and asked MLB to back off, supposedly because it needed the support of the Japanese government on the Vietnam War. But William
Givens, who was on the Japan Desk in State at the time, said he heard nothing to suggest any U.S. involvement, on an official
or unofficial basis, in the dispute. Neither, for that matter, had anyone in the Foreign Ministry of Japan. Said spokesman
Kenjiro Sasae, “It is unbelievable that the government of Japan would interfere in such a personal matter.”

Uchimura denied there was any government intervention and so did Murakami. Said Cappy Harada, a San Francisco official in
charge of handling Murakami (and a well-known and highly regarded sports figure who helped organize many a tour of Japan by
U.S. major leaguers), “The idea that there was a political motive or political pressure is false.”

“It was Mr. Stoneham’s decision,” said Harada. “He gave in because he did not think it was something worth ruining international
goodwill for. Besides, he had gradually come to understand and appreciate the situation with Murakami’s father and that in
Japan being an only son counted for a lot. In the end, it was a pretty amicable resolution.”

However, the then-Los Angeles Dodgers executive Buzzie Bavasi, who was highly familiar with the affair, had a more pecuniary
explanation as to what had gone on, and why none of the MLB owners objected to the final compromise. “At the time,” he said,
“the Japanese clubs were paying more money than we were for certain players [i.e., the aforementioned Spencer, Marshall, Larker,
et al.]. Japanese clubs were purchasing player contracts from MLB clubs at fairly good prices. It kept some of the clubs afloat.”
(Selling the contracts of aging MLB name players to the Central and Pacific Leagues was a pattern that continued into the
late ‘60s and early ‘70s; the A-list of over-the-hill players includes names such as George Altman, Don Blasingame, Willy
Kirkland, Dick Stuart, Zoilo Versalles and Don Zimmer, among others.)

In San Francisco, Murakami picked up where he left off, pitching effectively and getting on famously with his teammates, especially
Willie McCovey, whom he affectionately called “Horse Face.” Catcher Jack Hiatt taught the linguistically challenged bullpen
ace that the customary phrase all American pitchers used to salute their manager when he came out to the mound to talk was
“Take a Hike!” (Murakami denied reports that he greeted the home plate umpire with the English phrase “cocksucker-san,” taught
by other teammates. “I had already learned all those bad English words in spring camp,” he said.)

Murakami was also given a day by Japanese-American fans in the Bay Area, which took place on August 15 of that year, the 20th
anniversary of the end of World War II. As part of a TV program aired in Osaka to celebrate the festivities, Hawks catching
great Katsuya Nomura telephoned Murakami, urging him not to forget his “real” fans and teammates back in Japan—as if that
were possible.

Murakami enjoyed himself so much that when he came home, he declared he was contemplating a third year in America. San Francisco
had offered him a whopping $15,000 to re-sign in 1966 and Murakami indicated that the very least the Hawks could do was to
match it. He inquired at the Japanese commissioner’s office as to what his status would be should he opt to continue playing
in San Francisco for another year—perhaps two. This was a stunning display of cheek and it raised the hackles of the leading
sports daily
Hochi Shimbun,
the PR rag owned by the Yomiuri group which had naturally been upset by all the media thunder Murakami had stolen from the
Tokyo Giants. The paper ran a story entitled “Selfish Murakami,” criticizing him for business techniques he had so obviously
learned abroad.

In fact, a bidding war did ensue for a time between Nankai and San Francisco, which in time upped their offer to $30,000 and
even volunteered to bring Murakami’s parents to the Bay Area for a month. But, in the end, Murakami opted to stay home, signing
a pact with the Hawks for “somewhat less than $30,000,” as he put it.

“I felt it was my personal obligation to the Nankai manager Kazuto Tsuruoka and others in team management to come back, but
my heart wasn’t in it.”

Other sources said the decisive factor was more pressure from his father. According to Harada, the father was growing increasingly
alarmed at the Americanization of his son. He was reportedly horrified at the fact that “Mashi” had a blonde-haired stewardess
for a girlfriend—a co-resident of the San Mateo Hotel where his son had been staying.

In December, after Masanori had agreed to stay in Japan, his father negotiated the final contract, with special bonuses to
come if Murakami proved himself in
Japanese
baseball.

Unfortunately, that was something Murakami would have a surprisingly difficult time doing. The Hawks had converted him from
a reliever to a starting pitcher so that, as one optimistic team representative put it, he could “aim for the all-time wins
record in Japan.” However, dissuaded by Nankai coaches from throwing the feared but impolitic brushback pitch—a technique
he had learned in the U.S., but which was considered at the time unsportsmanlike in Japan—he lost much of his effectiveness.
Playing in Nankai’s tiny bandbox of a ballpark, a decaying, molding structure distinguished by its skin infield and chipped
paint, which was a depressing comedown from San Francisco’s spanking new state-of-the-art home Candlestick Park, and under
the constant pressure of outlandish expectations, it took Murakami two seasons to win nine games, his overall ERA a blush-inducing
4.05. He was frequently stung by cries of “Go back to America” when he was knocked out of the box.

Murakami’s leading critic, the
Hochi,
reported that he had learned bad habits in America, such as chewing gum during games or throwing his glove at the bench and
kicking things when his pitching was off, behavior that pure-hearted Japanese athletes would never have been guilty of. The
paper also noted that Murakami was “morose” and didn’t seem to get along well with the other Hawks. He would eat at a separate
table in the team dining hall and was always the last player to leave the ballpark, long after the others had departed.

Murakami did have one good season in 1968, when he won 18 games, lost but four and compiled a 2.38 ERA—a record he achieved
ironically not as a high-octane speedballer, but as a breaking-ball technician. But then, he faded back into mediocrity. In
1982, he retired from baseball to become a sports commentator—one who would find new life in later years when Japanese stars
began emigrating to the United States. He was heard telling some interviewers curious about his inner feelings during the
international flap over his services that he had wanted to remain in the States, while telling others who asked him the same
question that his fondest desire had always been to return to Japan. In the conflicted world of Masanori “Mashi” Murakami,
it depended on who was asking the question.

For those who had fought so hard over his services, his failure to succeed at home amongst his peers was just further evidence
that Japanese baseball was gaining respectability, and that the day was approaching when Japan could take on the Americans
in their own game.

In addition to Murakami, there were, in fact, any number of Japanese players with the talent to excel at a higher level, performing
well against big league teams making biannual postseason tours to Japan. As the Japanese stars developed in size and strength
in the postwar era, in striking parallel to the then booming Japanese GNP, the goodwill games themselves moved from laughable
one-sided matches to rather closely fought encounters—although the visitors were clearly there on vacation, often playing
with hangovers. Yomiuri owner Shoriki, whose greatest team, behind Nagashima and Oh, would win nine straight Japan championships
(1965-1973), was now talking of an eventual “Real World Series” with the U.S. champions—an idea that was not total and complete
lunacy anymore (albeit one that would not be realized in the 20th century). In 1955, the New York Yankees would win 15 games
and tie one on their fall tour. A decade later, the Los Angeles Dodgers would struggle to a 9-8-1 mark.

American ballplayers who had played in Japan and were familiar with the Japanese game estimate that, at any given time, there
were two or three dozen players in Japan, mostly the pitchers, who had what it took to earn a spot on a big league roster.
There was Yutaka Enatsu, who packed a cruise missile for a fastball and set the single-season Japan strikeout record with
401 in 1968. Choji Murata had a world-class forkball, according to Americans who faced him throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, while
the entire starting pitching rotation of the Yomiuri Giants in the late ‘80s was deemed by Matt Keough, a former Oakland A’s
pitcher who played for the Hanshin Tigers during that time, as the “best pitching staff in the world, bar none.”

But none of these stars would ever get the chance to follow in Murakami’s footsteps. As a result of the trans-Pacific tiff
over Murakami, the U.S. and Japan commissioners had signed something called the United States–Japanese [sic] Player Contract
Agreement, informally known as the “Working Agreement,” in which both sides pledged to respect each other’s baseball conventions.
Since Japanese owners were very much like MLB owners—titans who ruled with an iron hand and their very own reserve clause—bolting
for the U.S. was not considered an option by the game’s luminaries.

So strong was the grip of the owners that the term “indentured servitude” was perhaps the only way to describe the situation
of the players—as it was with the Americans at the time. But the inability of these athlete-serfs themselves to change the
situation contrasted greatly with what their counterparts across the Pacific would do and pointed out some seemingly basic
differences between the Japanese and American way of doing things.

The baseball reserve clause was an American invention, officially known as Section 10A of the UPC (Uniform Players Contract)
in MLB. Dating back to the 19th century, it essentially bound a player to one team for life by rendering baseball clubs the
rights to their players in perpetuity. Its language went like this: “On or before January 15 … the club may tender to the
Player a contract for the term of that year by mailing the same to the Player. If prior to the March 1 next succeeding said
January 15, the Player and the Club have not agreed upon the terms of such contract, then on or before 10 days after said
March 1, the Club shall have the right to renew this contract for the period of one year.”

The renewal was
automatic.
Thus a player was always separated from freedom by two years: one for the length of the standard contract and one year for
the club’s option on it. It was argued that the club’s option was renewable into perpetuity.

A player dissatisfied with what he was paid could decline to sign his contract and refuse to report to spring training, but
that was about all he could do besides complain to the press about the way he was treated. If the player did not come to terms
by March 1, the owner of the team could fill in whatever salary he liked, up to the maximum allowable cut of 25 percent. The
owner could keep him, sell him, trade him or send him down to the minor leagues. The player could scream until the cows came
home but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. As John Helyar, author of the classic
Lords of the Realm,
put it, “The reserve clause amounted to modern-day slavery.”

In the U.S., it should have been a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, passed by Congress in 1890 to control American
business monopolies. However, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down in 1922 exempted baseball from that antitrust law on
the somewhat dubious grounds that the game was not “interstate commerce” and should not be subject to control by the federal
government.

A famous lawsuit filed against Major League Baseball by Curt Flood, an All-Star center fielder employed by St. Louis who refused
to accept a trade in 1970, unsuccessfully tested the reserve clause. Flood claimed that baseball had violated his basic rights
as a citizen, but his argument was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court in 1972, which said that although the reserve
clause was illogical and inconsistent, it was up to the United States Congress—not the judicial branch of government which
had set the precedent in the first place—to address the matter and legislate accordingly.