The Meaning of Ichiro (53 page)

Of course, not everything about the American experience has been pure unalloyed joy for the Japanese
yaky
migrant (something that has also been said in reverse for Americans playing in Japan). While, on the one hand, most Japanese
players appreciate the unconstrained nature of the U.S. system, they also think that it helps create “unfinished” athletes,
baseballers who are less skilled in the fundamentals and the finer points of the game—like the bunt, the hit and run, hitting
to the opposite field, base running, defensive relays and such—because they do not practice them endlessly from Little League
on up the way young ballplayers in Japan do. The Japanese have a term that they use to describe the American ballplayer in
general. It is
sabotteru,
and it means “lazy.” The constant American emphasis on power, they believe, is a detriment to equally important parts of
the game, like advancing the runner.

Japanese also look askance at certain long-standing American baseball customs like the quaint practice of chewing tobacco
and spitting it on the dugout floor—“disgusting” is the word cleanliness-conscious Japanese players commonly use to describe
it as they weave their way through the pools of tobacco juice. They find confusing the myriad unwritten rules of behavior
that major leaguers have concocted to protect their all-important “Major League Pride.” No bunting or stealing with a big
lead is one. No crowd-pleasing fist in the air (or
gattsu pozu,
as folks back home put it). The Japanese cannot understand why opposing players took offense at Tsuyoshi Shinjo’s gaudy show
of touching home plate with his hand, or why American players in the Hawaiian Winter League took exception to Kazuo Matsui’s
celebratory gestures when he played there some years earlier. To fans in Japan, such behavior is reminiscent of former Seibu
star Koji Akiyama, who would do a cartwheel and a somersault whenever he hit a game-ending blast. It is a mystery to the visiting
nihon-jin
why that kind of conduct is viewed as “showing up the opposition” in MLB and regarded as an invitation to reprisal in the
form of a fastball to the ribs, while similar behavior is seen and tolerated all the time in the NFL and the NBA. Then there
is the puerile tendency of their American teammates to play practical jokes on each other—like, say, putting itching powder
in a teammate’s talcum powder container. This is simply not done back home, where group
wa
is so important.

Other puzzlements include the presence of loud and abusive fans willing to fight to the death over possession of a foul ball
in the stands—a marked contrast to Japan, where batting-practice balls are politely returned to the ushers—as well as umpires
who cannot be intimidated, a phenomenon unknown in Japan, where they rank at the very bottom of the totem pole. What would
be considered a normal interrogation in Japan would get you thrown out of a contest in America and possibly suspended.

Outside the ballpark, adjustments are even more difficult. Few Japanese speak English well enough to carry on a conversation
with their teammates, and it is such a wearying experience to spend an evening over dinner communicating through an interpreter
that the development of meaningful cross-cultural relationships is impeded. Thus most Japanese players spend their off-duty
hours consorting with other Japanese expatriates or visitors from Mother Nippon, catching up on the news from back home and
trying to figure out what makes Americans tick. The 300,000 or so Japanese residents of the United States and the constant
flow of baseball tourists across the Pacific ensure that they do not totally lack for company. (Hideki Matsui, for one, complained
that hardly an evening went by in New York City that there wasn’t some group or another in from Tokyo that he was required
by social custom and good manners to favor with his presence.)

But their sense of isolation is heightened by the constant travel, the long airline rides and countless nights in strange
cities where most people have never even met a Japanese. (Kansas City is one of the least desirable destinations because it
is so difficult to find a decent Japanese restaurant there.) Tsuyoshi Shinjo described his three years on the MLB road as
a constant battle against loneliness and boredom. “You fly into a city,” he said, “you play a game that ends at 10 and then you’re ready to go out, but all the restaurants—Japanese or otherwise—are closing up. You go back to your hotel room,
order a cheeseburger from room service and turn on the TV, but you can’t understand what the people are saying. It can really
get to you after a while. I had to start carrying DVDs from Japan with me to keep my sanity.” Unlike many MLB players, most
Japanese athletes on the road leave their wives at home, in conformance with Japanese custom. In many cases, they leave them
all the way back in Japan, where the school system is considered more suitable for their children.

Life in America is a smorgasbord of new and strange experiences. In contrast to Japan, where public transportation is spotless,
state-of-the-art and run with the smooth efficiency of a Swiss watch (excuse me, Seiko), the American system is a disaster.
American subways, trains and buses often appear filthy and inefficient, and U.S. airplanes always seem delayed. Compared to
Tokyo taxis, which are models of comfort and hygiene (often featuring internal air fresheners and even backseat television
sets, among other accoutrements), riding in a New York cab could be, as Hideki Matsui put it, “scary.”

Then there is the American custom of tipping for such services which, many Japanese will tell you, is unfathomable and uncivilized.
On top of that are the subtle and not-so-subtle discriminations that people of Asian origin sometimes face. While Ichiro,
for one, claimed that he had never experienced any kind of anti-Japanese bias in America at all, others complained of hearing
racially derogatory insults from the stands, if not from other ballplayers, and not infrequent rudeness from salespeople,
who would then turn around and treat whites with the height of politeness.

In 2003, in fact, a young Japanese woman was moved to file a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against MLB, her former employer,
for “unreasonable, offensive and demeaning anti-Japanese and anti-Asian hostility,” charging an executive with repeatedly
referring to people of Japanese ancestry by the term “Jap” or “Japs.” Later that same year, a scout for the New York Mets
was fired for mocking the ancestry of an Asian Los Angeles Dodger executive.

If you asked Japanese what they like most about the U.S., they would probably mention the vast spaciousness of it all—the
large houses and the accessibility of golf courses (ideal for golf fanatics like Ishii and Hasegawa). It compares most favorably
to the cramped conditions on Japan’s four crowded islands. Added Seattle-based sportswriter Masayoshi Niwa, who has covered
the Mariners for years, “These guys absolutely love the freedom of being able to walk downtown in the cities without wearing
any sunglasses. It’s something they can’t do back in Japan—especially Ichiro. It’s why he finally decided to stay in Seattle
to train after the 2003 season ended. If he goes back to Japan, the media follows him everywhere.”

Ballplayers’ wives, if they come, might mention the enhanced social status of women in the United States, which stands in
marked contrast to Japan, where men often treat their spouses like servants. Shinjo’s wife experienced considerable shock
when she visited her husband in New York in 2001 and he peeled some fruit for her. “He never did anything like that for me
back in Japan,” she said.

If you asked Japanese, coming as they do from a relatively peaceful country with a comparatively low crime rate, what they
dislike the most about the U.S., they would probably mention the confrontational side of American society and its pervasive
crime—symbolized, to their minds, by America’s fixation with guns (ownership of which in Japan is severely limited). Said
sportswriter Niwa, “The players I know really worry about security, especially those with children. Dirty taxis and late-arriving
planes are one thing. That’s just part of life in the United States. But they really do worry about crime and guns and safety.
It’s one reason why Hasegawa, who has a son, likes Seattle so much. It’s safe.”

Sh
rai,
“The Future”

In the fall of 2002, Ichiro Suzuki predicted that the day would come when there would be “four, five and more Japanese players
on every MLB team.” As if to make his prediction come true, scouts from North America, impressed by the all-around ability,
the work ethic, the obedient manner and the comparative lack of greed at the salary table that the Mariners’ Nipponese Whiz
and his compatriots have demonstrated, have flocked to Japan in search of more new talent. The National High School Baseball
Spring and Summer tournaments at Koshien Stadium in Osaka, showcase for some of the best high-school talent in the land and
long a gathering spot for NPB scouts, has begun attracting MLB scouts as well—hoping to sign amateur stars right out of high
school and train them in the States. So have big-time college games.

Evidence of an intriguing future supply of talent could be seen at the 2003 Little League World Series, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania,
captured by a contingent from Fuchu, Japan, the third Japanese squad in four years to win the title. They were so dominating
that they outscored their opponents in the 18 tourney games they played 222-21, easily winning the final against Boynton Beach,
Florida, 10-1. Their star player was 5′5′′ pitcher Y
taro Tanaka, who weighs 181 pounds and resembles a small truck.

The Fuchu club is but one of 679 such teams in Japan, the second largest number in the world, after the U.S. But, unlike their
American counterparts, these Japanese play a season that lasts nearly the entire calendar year. They grow up superbly coached,
highly skilled in all the fundamentals, and with a better appreciation of the word “preparation” than their counterparts in
the U.S.

No doubt the MLB scouts were encouraged by the widely reported remarks of the Fuchu nine who visited Yankee Stadium in the
afterglow of their victorious world championship game and professed to dream of stardom in the States,
not
their native land. Young Tanaka flatly declared the only place he wanted to play when he grew up was in the majors. He said
he rarely missed a telecast of Hideki Matsui’s games with the New York Yankees, even if it meant he had to arise at two in
the morning to watch the first pitch of an afternoon Yankee Stadium contest.

The increasing foreign attention, and the steady hemorrhaging of baseball talent from Japan, raises the question of what will
happen to NPB—a proud organization that had once thought of challenging the U.S. in a “Real World Series” but is now seemingly
reduced to feeder status for MLB, helpless to stop the flow of the game’s best players out of the country. Sports columnist
Masayuki Tamaki, ruefully comparing the kidnapping of NPB players by MLB to the infamous abductions of Japanese citizens by
North Korean agents, said, “It makes me want to become a sports terrorist…. But then again, maybe you’ve got to destroy the
game in order to save it.”