The Meaning of Ichiro (49 page)

Some cynics called Matsui simpleminded, a workhorse without the brainpower to comprehend what all the attention really meant
or the sophistication to mimic Ichiro’s studied cool. But Matsui, who in fact had been an attentive student with high marks
in math (one who actually sat in the first row of the classes he attended), would shrug and say, in his coarse baritone, “I’m
just an ordinary guy.” He liked to have an occasional beer. He liked to shoot the breeze with the security guards and maintenance
personnel, and he liked to trade tapes from his extensive library of adult videos with reporters. (His reply, when asked about
his eccentric hobby, was a droll “Doesn’t everybody do this?”)

Said one Japanese journalist, describing Matsui’s affinity for such unique Japanese cultural institutions as no-panties
shabu-shabu
and hostess nightclubs, “Matsui is very unpretentious. All of us are horny guys more or less. But Matsui doesn’t attempt
to hide the fact. That’s a refreshing attitude which is one reason, I guess, why fans took to him so much.”

As the end of the 2002 season approached, Matsui endured public and private appeals from new Giants manager Tatsunori Hara
and others connected to the Giants, all orchestrated by Watanabe, calling on Matsui to stay for the sake of team and country.
There were letters from Yomiuri officials to Matsui’s parents asking them for their cooperation. Shigeo Nagashima, the just
retired “manager emeritus,” even took the unusual step of writing an op-ed piece in the
Yomiuri Shimbun’s
archrival, the
Asahi Shimbun,
urging his former charge not to desert. His teammates needed him, the nation of Japan needed him. If Matsui left the proud
Kyojin,
then would nothing be sacred anymore? It could very well mean the end of Japanese baseball, not to mention the civilized
world as the Giants braintrust knew it.

But Matsui was feeling other pressures as well. With the whole country buzzing about Ichiro Suzuki, if Hideki Matsui, the
jewel of the Central League, did not try his hand, people would say he was a wimp, that he had no guts, no
konj
.
It was a double bind. No matter what he did he would either be called a traitor or wimp. In the end, his manhood—and his
curiosity—won out, although he looked like a man on the way to the gallows, when he delivered his sayonara speech, rather
than one about to realize baseball’s biggest dream.

Despite whispers among Yomiuri management that Matsui was a deserter, the star’s decision was largely applauded by the Japanese
baseball-viewing public. The affection baseball fans held for Matsui was evidenced by the thunderous standing ovation he received
at a postseason exhibition game at the Tokyo Dome following his final appearance in a Tokyo Giants uniform—and this from a
crowd not known for such spontaneous displays of emotion.

They were also responding to his sincerity and the fact that he truly seemed torn between his affection for his fans and teammates
and his desire to go to the U.S. But the ovation also showed how much things had changed in Japan. (As Oh had put it when
he heard the news, “In my era, if I or Nagashima had said we wanted to go to the major leagues, 90 percent of the fans would
have been against it. Now, it’s reversed, 90 percent the other way.”)

The public’s feelings were summed up by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who told TV reporters, “It’s sad he won’t be at
the stadiums in our country anymore, but on the other hand, more and more Japanese sportsmen are making their mark on the
world stage. I think that is admirable.”

Public interest in Matsui’s migration to the U.S. was, if it can be imagined, higher than that for Ichiro. For one thing,
Matsui would be the first full-fledged power hitter from NPB to make the trans-Pacific leap. As the first Japanese to go bicep
to bicep with the andro-enhanced musclemen who had come to dominate North American baseball, it was hoped that he could single-handedly
erase the image of Japanese as practitioners of “small-ball.” Then there was the fact that he ultimately decided to play for
the New York Yankees, whose owner George Steinbrenner had been lusting after a Japanese star of his own after seeing what
Ichiro had done for the Seattle Mariners’ winning percentage and subsequent bottom line. After the Yankees had lost in the
first round of the 2002 playoffs to the Anaheim Angels, Steinbrenner’s scouts had told him that Matsui was just the man to
revivify his team.

The Yankees already had great name value in Japan, thanks to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, all of whom had played
in exhibition games there during their careers. DiMaggio had even come to Japan on his honeymoon with Marilyn Monroe. Yankee
Stadium, with its great tradition, was special to the Japanese and so was the city of New York. Seattle was one thing, but
the Big
Ringo
—hey man, that was the top of the heap. If Hideki Matsui could make it there, that would mean that Japan would, in a very
real sense, make it there as well.

However, even after declaring free agency, the process of extricating himself from the grip of the Giants to join the Yankees
had not been a simple matter for Matsui. Although on the surface it appeared that he had cleanly severed his ties with his
former team, in reality, it wasn’t quite so. Japanese society was in great measure about personal relationships, about
on
(obligation) and
giri
(duty) and
mentsu
(face). These were concepts that meant something to Matsui, and because it was his desire not to displease anyone more than
he already had, he continued to let the Giants participate in and influence his future—actually allowing them to act as a
go-between in negotiating with MLB and choosing which team he would play for. Thus, although many MLB teams had expressed
interest in the slugger’s service, when Watanabe announced to reporters that if Matsui absolutely had to go to the U.S., then
he should go to the Yankees, the only team in the United States deemed to occupy a social stratum equivalent to that of the
Kyojin,
the matter appeared to be settled for all and good (which was fine, by the way, with Matsui; he had been a Yankees fan for
a long time).

However, there was, as usual, more going on than met the eye. During 2002, officials from the Yankees, including vice president
Jean Afterman, had been invited to Japan several times to discuss a working arrangement between the two organizations, to
discuss player exchanges and development, among other things. Yomiuri was especially interested in a tie-up between NTV and
the Yankees’ cable sports network YES, whereby the Yomiuri Group would be first in line to obtain the rights to telecast the
New York Yankees games in Japan—once the old MLB contract with NHK had expired at the end of 2003. This would naturally have
enormous appeal if Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui were in the Yankees lineup and would make for an ideal sports viewing schedule:
Matsui/Yankees games in the morning and Yomiuri games in the evening, with Yankees game highlights flashed between innings.
They also wanted to convince YES to televise Yomiuri Giants games in North America, which, indeed, was something that could
come in handy in the event of another MLB strike.

The Yankees, for their part, were interested in player development and training, and, of course, Matsui. Related to this was
the presence of Yankees stars Bernie Williams and Jason Giambi on an All-Star squad of major leaguers that visited Japan for
a goodwill series of games against Japanese competition in the fall of 2002, a tour that was sponsored by the
Yomiuri Shimbun.
(The
Yomiuri Shimbun
and the
Mainichi Shimbun
had been alternating sponsorship of the event on a biannual basis for years.) Not once had Yankees owner George Steinbrenner
ever allowed any of his players to participate in such tours. This time, however, Steinbrenner sent over his two stars as
emissaries to woo Matsui and smooth relations with Watanabe’s people.

Incredibly, the Giants introduced the word “rental” into the negotiations—another bizarre indication of how differently the
Yomiuri group interpreted the term “free agency.” The Giants wanted an option clause put in Matsui’s contract whereby the
Yankees would “rent” Matsui for a period of, say, three years, after which he would be sent back to the Tokyo club, against
his will, if necessary. Said one involved official, “The Yomiuri people did not seem to understand how the U.S. system and
option clauses worked, because such an arrangement under MLB rules was not possible with a Japanese team without Matsui’s
consent, which he was in no position to give at the time. I found it amazing that they would try to set conditions like that.”

In the end, the Yankees and the Giants did cobble together a working agreement for player development, but one which did not
include rights to Yankees games (which, in any event, New York was forbidden to sell overseas without permission from the
MLB commissioner’s office) or rights to Yomiuri games in the States or any quid pro quo involving Matsui. In December, after
the agreement had finally been signed, Matsui hired Jason Giambi’s agent Arn Tellem to negotiate his Yankees contract, one
which set no conditions on the Japanese star’s future availability to his former team.

Just exactly how Matsui would do in his new milieu was a subject of much discussion in Japan during the postseason winter
months. Numerous big-league scouts had praised his patient, disciplined approach at the plate and his skill at running the
count to 3-2. This, combined with his natural power, they believed, would enable him to make the adjustment to big league
pitching. They saw him benefiting from hitting in a lineup that included an unusually high number of batting stalwarts like
Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams, not to mention the Stadium’s famously short right-field fence. Said Sammy Sosa,
who had given Matsui batting instruction in 1996 while visiting Japan on a postseason tour, “Man, that dude will hit .300
with 25 to 30 home runs.”

Others were not so sure. Succeeding as a power hitter in the biggest of leagues was a different proposition, given that the
unfamiliar assembly of pitchers Matsui would have to face (nearly four times as many, in toto, as he saw at home in his six-team
loop) generally threw at a greater velocity than those in the Japanese leagues and were not afraid to intimidate a rookie
batter by throwing high and inside. Moreover, many of them threw a two-seam fastball, a pitch rarely seen in Japan, that breaks
or slides down and away from a left-handed batter when thrown by a right-handed pitcher. Ichiro Suzuki was able to succeed
against such formidable opposition because of his speed. Even when he only managed to get a piece of the ball and send it
spinning on the ground, he could leg out infield hits. However, a power hitter like Matsui had to hit the ball squarely or
else watch his outs climb. And Matsui would no longer have the luxury of playing in the atmospherically challenged Tokyo Dome
(modeled after the Minnesota Twins Metrodome), where the ball traveled farther. Among the skeptics was Sadaharu Oh, who was
quoted as saying that it would likely take Matsui the better part of a year to reach his stride.

Some fans even questioned whether or not Matsui had the right personality for success in MLB. In a worrisome precedent, he
had performed miserably in that 2002 goodwill series with MLB All-Stars. Playing under intense media scrutiny, he failed to
hit a single home run, batting an embarrassing .161 in the process—this despite the fact that his less heralded Japanese teammates
pummeled top pitchers like Bartolo Colon and Brad Penny.

By Game 5, Matsui’s inability to hit home runs had so upset the Yomiuri sponsors that they hastily arranged a home run contest
between Matsui and MLB slugger supreme Barry Bonds. But even then Matsui could only muster four out-of-the-park blasts to
Bonds’s nine, batting against an easy-throwing batting practice pitcher. Afterward, Bonds snootily declared that Matsui would
be lucky to hit 10 to 15 homers in his first season in America (an assessment that would prove to be accurate, if unkind).

Hay Group executive and baseball fan Minato Asakawa, who spent years watching baseball in both Tokyo and New York, predicted,
“I think Matsui will have a hard time, at least in his first year, because he’s
too Japanese.
Ichiro and Nomo are not like other Japanese. They are independent. Too independent, perhaps. But to succeed in the U.S.,
you’ve got to debug your own Japaneseness. Matsui is too humble, too reserved, too accommodating. He’ll have a hard time …
at least in his first year, until he becomes less Japanese.”

Former Giant captain Kiyoshi Nakahata told
New York Times
correspondent Ken Belson, “He is so kind that his kindness doesn’t mesh well in the game. In games he is not so bold. His
strong point is that he’s nice. But also his weak point is that he’s too nice.”

Japan’s oft-lurid tabloids found other potential difficulties for Matsui to fret about. One series in an evening daily warned
that in addition to problems arising from language, food and travel, there were potential dangers from the rising use of steroids,
amphetamines and marijuana in MLB.