SABR Asian Baseball Research Committee Blog

Asian Baseball History and Culture is Our Passion

Category: Nichibei Yakyu

  • Tommy Lasorda: Baseball’s Global Ambassador and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 1993 Friendship Tour of Japan

    Tommy Lasorda: Baseball’s Global Ambassador and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 1993 Friendship Tour of Japan

    by Mark Langill

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week Mark Langill highlights the Dodgers 1993 trip to Japan .

    What felt like a nostalgia trip unexpectedly served as a dress rehearsal for the next frontier of professional baseball when the 1993 Los Angeles Dodgers staged a modest five-game “Friendship Series” in Taiwan and Japan.

    Nobody could’ve predicted a “Tornado” on the horizon, one of the nicknames bestowed upon Kintetsu Buffaloes pitcher Hideo Nomo, who in 1993 was a four-time All-Star and former Pacific League MVP. His contract issues with Kintetsu led to his retirement from Japanese baseball after the 1994 season, an exit strategy discovered by agent Don Nomura when analyzing the sport’s seemingly ironclad working agreements covering the United States and Japan. Nomo became only the second player from a Japanese professional league – and the first in 30 years – to play in the majors during his National League Rookie of the Year campaign with the Dodgers in 1995.

    “There was no business reason for the 1993 Japan trip, other than growing baseball at the international level,” said Fred Claire, a 30-year Dodger executive who was the team’s general manager from 1987 to 1998. “[Brooklyn Dodgers team President] Walter O’Malley’s global vision of the game was continued by his son, Peter. But when you go back in time, the thought of a player from Japan playing in the majors seemed like an impossible reach. There were no major-league teams scouting in Japan. There was no reason to use those scouting resources because there were players from Latin America, Mexico, and other parts of the world.”

    Manager Tommy Lasorda’s Dodgers became the first major-league team to play in Taiwan, posting a 1-2 record in Taipei against all-stars from the Chinese Professional League. Los Angeles then traveled to Fukuoka, Japan, for a pair of games against a combination of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks of the Pacific League and the Yomiuri Giants of the Central League.

    Nomo wasn’t part of the exhibition at the newly opened Fukuoka Dome in 1993. Claire didn’t stick around for the Japan portion of the trip, flying from Taiwan to Los Angeles and continuing to Naples, Florida, for a meeting of major-league general managers.

    Instead of a stealth scouting mission, the 1993 trip represented another chance for Peter O’Malley to promote international baseball. He was 18 years old in 1956 when the Brooklyn Dodgers spent nearly five weeks in Japan after the World Series. His roommate was broadcaster Vin Scully, who reported on the 19-game exhibition for Sport magazine.

    During their ownership of the franchise between 1950 and 1998, the O’Malley family used Dodgertown, the spring-training facility in Vero Beach, Florida, along with Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles after its 1962 opening, to host international events.

    After selling the Dodgers to Fox Group in 1998, O’Malley kept his ties to the Vero Beach area, at one point operating a lease at “Historic Dodgertown” in a partnership with his sister Terry Seidler, Nomo, and former Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park, who in 1994 became the first player from Korea to appear in the majors. The Vero Beach complex was taken over by Major League Baseball in 2019 and renamed after Dodgers Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson.

    The O’Malleys and Lasorda were also close to Rod Dedeaux, the University of Southern California baseball coach who won 11 NCAA titles during his 45-year tenure. Dedeaux played two games at shortstop for the 1935 Dodgers and was a longtime champion of international baseball. He coached Team USA in a baseball exhibition during the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo and in the 1984 Olympics baseball tournament at Dodger Stadium. (Japan defeated Team USA in the Gold Medal game.)

    In a 1991 interview with the Mainichi Daily News, Peter O’Malley outlined his hopes for a true global baseball series. Dodger Stadium played host to the 1991 International Baseball Association World All-Star Game with top amateur players representing 28 countries.

    I’m an advocate of such competition. And I think my colleagues in the majors are quickly becoming receptive to such an idea, too. I don’t think major-league baseball feels threatened at all. On the contrary, I get the feeling baseball’s leaders think the timing is just about right. Logistics – travel, etc. – are no longer a problem. Baseball is extremely popular and profitable outside the U.S. in many countries like Japan and Korea. The competitiveness is there. I think they feel now’s the time to capitalize on it and move on it.

    It will be the best two teams going at it in a seven-game World Series. Say, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chunichi Dragons. But the international playoff would involve more than just the U.S. and Japan. After all, there are some strong Latin American leagues and the Korean pro league is coming on fast. It’s only been in existence for 10 years and look at how many competitive players there are. And pro ball is catching on in Taiwan. Plus, who knows where else the sport might also grow rapidly. The possibilities are endless and exciting.

    As publicity director of the Dodgers in the early 1970s, Claire accompanied Dodgers Alan Foster and Von Joshua along with a dozen other major-league players on a trip to Japan sponsored by the Nichiren-Shoshu Buddhist sect. As vice president of marketing in 1980, Claire, along with O’Malley, traveled to Japan to negotiate with Mitsubishi officials as the Dodgers became the first team with a color video scoreboard, debuting “Diamond Vision” at the 1980 All-Star Game.

    Lasorda, who died in 2021 at 93, spent 71 years in the Dodgers organization. The former left-handed pitcher, bumped from Brooklyn’s 1955 roster to make room for rookie Sandy Koufax, first arrived in Japan in the spring of 1965 for a series of clinics with fellow scout Kenny Myers. Lasorda had also worked with members of the Tokyo Giants during the first of their five trips to Vero Beach between 1961 and 1980.

    Lasorda’s 1965 arrival at the airport in Tokyo was fitting for a man still a decade away from international celebrity. Nobody met Lasorda and Myers at the airport because the baseball officials had the wrong date. The scouts went to the Hilton Hotel and rested after their nine-hour flight.

    During their three-week trip, Lasorda and Myers toured various landmarks and baseball facilities, including the Imperial Palace and the Olympic Village. Working with the Yomiuri Giants prior to their spring training, Lasorda gave tips to the pitchers. Myers, who converted Los Angeles prep track star Willie Davis into a left-handed-hitting center fielder, worked with Yomiuri hitters.

    In his diary, Lasorda made notes on everything from his dinner reviews – “the most tender steak I ever ate” – to the training methods and facilities of his Japanese hosts. The lineup for manager Tetsuhara Kawakami’s 1965 Giants included outfielder Sadaharu Oh, third baseman Shigeo Nagashima, and lefty pitcher Masaichi Kaneda. All four Giants later had their uniforms retired, the same honor eventually bestowed to Lasorda by the Dodgers.

    Our second day of training was just about the same as our last. The Japanese coaches believe in a lot of calisthenics and they spent about 2 hrs. a day on it. We work out from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with no breaks in between. We had a meeting of the manager and the coaches. They asked our opinion of the day’s work and we gave it to them – they must concentrate more on the fundamentals. These people are anxious to learn – they want to surpass the Americans in baseball.

    The pitchers here in Japan have no idea how to throw a curveball and no conception of throwing a changeup. I will have to concentrate on these two factors very much. The stars of the team, Nagashima, 3B, ‘O’, 1B and Kaneda, P – are really nice guys and they have accepted us. I have pitchers hollering around camp and Mgr. said he never heard so much life.

    Spring training in 1965 became significant for both Lasorda and US-Japan baseball relations. Because the major leagues were implementing an amateur draft in June, Lasorda as a scout could no longer use his charm and negotiation tactics to sign top prospects, as he did the previous summer with Los Angeles prep star outfielder Willie Crawford. Lasorda drove Crawford to his high-school prom and delivered a stirring eulogy at the funeral of Crawford’s grandfather, a man whom Lasorda had never met.

    At the time of the Lasorda-Myers trip, the status of Japanese pitcher Masanori Murakami remained in limbo after the San Francisco Giants had promoted the lefty from Class A Fresno in September 1964. The Nankai Hawks had sent the 20-year-old Murakami to the United States for minor-league experience in the summer, but his success at Fresno led the Giants to promote him to the majors. San Francisco wanted to keep Murakami, who signed a major-league contract, and the Hawks demanded the return of their prospect. A compromise was finally reached: Murakami would spend one more season in San Francisco and return to Japan in 1966.

    After Lasorda’s 1965 Japan trip, which concluded with side trips to Bangkok, New Delhi, Iran, and Tel Aviv, it was back to Dodger Stadium for his next assignment. Scouting director Al Campanis decided Lasorda should become a minor-league manager. His first team produced a 33-33 record at Pocatello, Idaho, of the rookie-level Pioneer League. Lasorda worked his way up the ladder in the Dodger farm system and eventually replaced Walter Alston as Dodgers manager in September 1976.

    Life in Southern California would never be the same as Lasorda hugged his players – a stark contrast to Alston’s “Quiet Man” persona – and claimed to “bleed Dodger blue.” Frank Sinatra sang the National Anthem for Lasorda’s first Opening Day in 1977. With a big lead in September, Lasorda sent comedian Don Rickles – wearing a Dodgers uniform and number 40 – to the mound to visit with a suddenly confused reliever, Elias Sosa.

    After becoming the first National League skipper to win pennants in his first two years since Gabby Street of the 1930-31 Cardinals, Lasorda was invited to manage a team of National League all-stars against a team of American League stars on a postseason trip to Japan in 1979. In true Lasorda fashion, he motivated his team by privately telling each individual that the Most Valuable Player of the series was going to receive a new automobile. When Cincinnati’s George Foster won MVP honors, he received a bouquet of flowers and a shoulder shrug from his manager. “That’s what I heard,” Lasorda claimed with a straight face.

    Lasorda, though, was disappointed with American League manager Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles. During a controversial play, Weaver argued with umpires and used language the otherwise feisty Lasorda didn’t think appropriate in a goodwill exhibition setting.

    The 1993 trip to Japan was extra-special because Dodgers All-Star catcher Mike Piazza happened to be Lasorda’s godson; his father, Vince Piazza, was a longtime friend from Tommy’s hometown of Norristown, Pennsylvania. A 62nd-round draft choice in 1988, Piazza rewrote the Los Angeles rookie record book in 1993 with 35 home runs, 112 RBIs, and a .318 batting average.

    Piazza played a key role in returning the Dodgers to a respectable 81-81 record in 1993 after a 99-loss disaster in 1992 in which the team finished in last place for the first time since 1905. The Dodgers enjoyed knocking the 103-win San Francisco Giants out of the pre-wild-card format postseason with a 12-1 victory on the final day of the regular season as Piazza clubbed two home runs.

    Piazza and former World Series pitching star Orel Hershiser were the Dodgers marquee names on the tour. Two other rookies became future stars – pitcher Pedro Martinez, traded by the Dodgers to Montreal weeks after the Japan tour, and Yomiuri Giants outfielder Hideki Matsui.

    In addition to baseball, the Dodgers took a tour of Dazaifu, an ancient Japanese regional center, and the Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine. Lasorda and several Dodger players visited a children’s hospital and passed out Dodger souvenirs and commemorative pins.

    Lasorda provided the photo-op of the tour during batting practice on November 2 by throwing his arms around American sumo star Chad Rowan, who wrestled in Japan under the name Akebono Taro. Earlier in 1993, the 360-pound Rowan made history by becoming the first non-Japanese wrestler to reach Yokozuna status, the highest rank in sumo. Rowan, in town for a wrestling tournament, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

    “The Fukuoka Dome was out of this world,” said first baseman Eric Karros, the 1992 NL Rookie of the Year. “We took a tour before the first game and saw the large training facility and practice areas. There were large mirrors where the Fukuoka players practiced their swings.

    The Dodgers wore a small black patch with “IKE” in white letters on their uniforms in memory of Akihiro “Ike” Ikuhara, the longtime assistant to Peter O’Malley, who died in October 1992.

    Ikuhara joined the Dodgers organization in the spring of 1965 after asking Japanese sportswriter Sotaro Suzuki for an introduction to O’Malley in order to study American baseball. He joined the Dodgers’ Spokane team in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, where O’Malley was general manager. Ikuhara moved to the Dodgers in 1967. He supervised visits to the United States by the Yomiuri Giants in 1967, 1971, 1975, and 1981, along with the visits of the Samsung Lions of South Korea in 1985 and the Chunichi Dragons of Nagoya, Japan, in 1988. Ikuhara teamed with Nagashima in broadcasting the World Series back to Japan from 1981 to 1986. He was named to the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002.

    In the series opener, the Dodgers staked Hershiser to a 3-0 lead in the first inning against pitcher Kenichi Wakatabe of the Hawks. Brett Butler reached first on an error. Jose Offerman and Piazza hit consecutive RBI doubles and Tim Wallach drove home Piazza. The Japanese scored twice in the sixth on three hits, including a double over the head of Darryl Strawberry in right field. Chihiro Hamana’s RBI single in the seventh tied the game.

    In the bottom of the 11th inning, number-9 hitter Hiroshi Yugamidani greeted reliever Jim Gott with a line drive to center. Butler tried a shoestring catch, but the ball went past him. A relay throw from shortstop Offerman to backup catcher Jerry Brooks made the play at home plate close, but Yugamidani was ruled safe and gave Japan a 4-3 victory. Yugamidani batted .203 with one home run during the regular season.

    Although many Dodgers thought the runner was out at home, Lasorda didn’t protest the call. In the clubhouse, Hershiser took the umpire’s decision in stride because it was an exhibition. Someone asked Lasorda what would have happened if that call was made during a regular-season game. He simply smiled.

    In the second game, on November 3, Dodgers pitching yearned for the airport shuttle while struggling in a 16-1 loss. Were it a spring-training game, the umpires might have offered the teams an early exit. Instead, the capacity crowd of 42,000 watched the combined Fukuoka-Yomiuri squad score nine runs in the fifth inning on four hits and five walks. Overall, the Dodgers pitchers allowed 15 walks and three wild pitches. A leadoff double in the fifth inning by Chihiro Hamana off starter Ramon Martinez triggered the landslide. Relievers Felix Rodriguez and Jonathan Hurst followed Martinez to the mound as five of the fifth-inning walks were with the bases loaded. The Japanese added five runs in the eighth off reliever Jim Gott.

    Hurst, who pitched for the Dodgers’ Triple-A Albuquerque affiliate in 1993 after being claimed on waivers from the Montreal Expos, had been a late addition to the Asia tour roster for bullpen insurance. With veteran Dodgers pitchers Kevin Gross, Tom Candiotti, and Todd Worrell not making the trip, the Dodgers also brought along Rodriguez, who in 1993 converted from catcher to pitcher at Class-A affiliate Vero Beach.

    The Dodgers left Asia with a dismal 1-4 record. “I’m disappointed. I’d be lying if I said anything else,” said Lasorda. “When you go a month and then you just throw batting practice, [and] you don’t play in game situations, then it makes a difference.” But “We made these people happy anyway. We made the folks in Taiwan happy and we made the people of Japan happy.” “It’s all in fun anyway,” added Darryl Strawberry.

    Lasorda remained the Dodgers manager until the summer of 1996, when a mild heart attack in June led to his retirement. His last full season in the Los Angeles dugout coincided with Nomo’s 1995 arrival – via a minor-league contract because a strike by the Players Association had led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and had frozen 40-man rosters during the winter. Nomo attended spring training with Dodgers minor leaguers and was promoted after the strike ended.

    Lasorda’s trademark as a manager was providing postgame food in his office, a way to keep communication lines open with his players. Lasorda, who often served Japanese cuisine in Nomo’s honor, recalled his 1965 Japan trip in which Kaneda cooked a four-course dinner for a visiting Dodgers scout.

    “Just when baseball had its problems, here comes this young man from Japan with a unique delivery and great ability,” Lasorda said in 1995 as Nomo started the All-Star Game in Texas. “All of a sudden, he’s got the world chasing him and wanting to see him pitch.” Among those watching was Murakami, who became a baseball commentator for NHK after an 18-year pitching career in Japan. Murakami worked many of Nomo’s games at Dodger Stadium and on the road.

    Lasorda was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. He came out of retirement at age 72 to coach Team USA in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. With O’Malley and Dedeaux in attendance, Lasorda’s team – a collection of minor-league players and veteran major-league catcher Pat Borders – stunned Cuba, 4-0, in the Gold Medal game.

    In 2006 Commissioner Bud Selig named Lasorda baseball’s official ambassador for the inaugural World Baseball Classic and did so again in 2009 when the Classic was played at Dodger Stadium. In 2008 Lasorda was honored with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, by the Emperor of Japan for his contributions to Japanese baseball. He made countless trips to Japan, serving as a key liaison between the Dodgers and the Orix Buffaloes in their “friendship” agreement.

    “It’s amazing to watch Tommy Lasorda go through an airport in Japan,” said Acey Kohrogi, the Dodgers’ director of Asian operations from 1995 to 2013. “Everyone else gets their identification and passport ready to go through security. Tommy just keeps on walking, smiling and waving.”

    Overall, Lasorda visited 28 countries in his lifetime, including Colombia, Denmark, Monaco, Norway, Bermuda, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan. He continued to travel during the next two decades, attending his final game at the 2020 World Series in Arlington, Texas, when Los Angeles defeated Tampa Bay at Globe Life Field, a neutral site necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “I don’t know if there was a better ambassador to the game than Tommy,” Fred Claire said. “Not because he was a Dodger, but because who he was. The primary reason was his absolute love of the game. It didn’t matter what country Tommy was in. In his own way, Tommy spoke every language. Obviously, he was always good with Spanish. But Tommy had that way of breaking through all barriers to teach, to promote, and talk about the game.”

    Tommy Lasorda: Baseball’s Global Ambassador and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 1993 Friendship Tour of Japan
  • Redemption: The 1992 MLB vs Japan All-Star Baseball Series

    Redemption: The 1992 MLB vs Japan All-Star Baseball Series

    by CARTER CROMWELL

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week CARTER CROMWELL explains how the MLB All-Star team exacted revenge for their 1990 loss.

    For the MLB All-Star team, the 1992 series was all about redemption. Nothing less.

    Two years earlier, an American team boasting stars like Randy Johnson, Roberto Alomar, Barry Bonds, Lenny Dykstra, and Ken Griffey Jr. had won just three of eight games to become the first major-league all-star team to lose an exhibition series against their Japanese hosts. Along the way, the team “played and behaved like ugly Americans … with nonchalance and arrogance.” In short, it was not pretty. It was memorable mostly for the bad taste it left, and Cecil Fielder was determined that there would be no repeat performance in 1992.

    As a member of the 1990 team, Fielder had witnessed the disappointment firsthand. It had come a year after his single season with the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League, in which he hit 38 home runs, drove in 81 runs, and posted a 1.031 OPS in only 106 games. Though he’d left after that season and made a triumphant return to the US majors in 1990 with 51 homers and 132 RBIs for the Detroit Tigers, he had remained a hero – almost a god – to the Hanshin fans. One article about the 1992 series described people in a train station seeing him sitting in one of the cars. They rushed over and, reverentially, covered his window with their palms. “I think they view me as a son they sent off to America who has done extremely well,” Fielder was quoted as saying. “They feel responsible for me doing well, like maybe Japanese baseball helped me to do some things. If that’s what they want to think, hey, beautiful.”

    Since he’d learned to respect the culture and the style of play in Japan, the 1990 experience was even more galling. “I think we came over here [in 1990] with an attitude that, because of our names and who we were, we just had to lower our gloves out there and we’d win,” Fielder said before the 1992 series began. “We got beat up, and it was not a good feeling.” “I don’t think everybody who came here really believed that the Japanese players could play baseball.” “I hope this team understands that they’re going to beat you if you just go through the motions.”

    It did, according to Mark Langston, then a California Angels pitcher. “There’s no doubt that the loss in 1990 made us more focused when we went over there,” said Langston, who pitched well in two starts against the all-Japan club in 1992. “The series came a month or so after our season had ended, so we all had to get back into the competitive mode, but there was a sense of urgency. Cecil talked a lot about it. He said we should enjoy Japan but be prepared to play well and get the job done on the field.” Fielder, who was said to have been embarrassed by his teammates’ attitudes in 1990, added, “I didn’t want this time [1992] to be like last time.”

    It wasn’t.

    In his welcome statement in the official series program, Ichiro Yoshikuni, commissioner of Nippon Professional Baseball, said, “I hope that these top major league players … are ready to avenge their defeat since the MLB team lost two years ago.”

    They were.

    The series opened with a game against the Yomiuri Giants that was followed by seven games against a Japanese all-star team. Beforehand, an American columnist for the English-language Japan Times newspaper predicted “the Giants to beat the jet-lagged MLB stars, then a 3-3 split with one tie between MLB and the All-Japan team.”

    He was right about the tie.

    Otherwise, the Americans showed little evidence of letdown. They opened with an 11-0 thrashing of the Yomiuri Giants, with Fielder hitting a homer, and followed that by going 5-1-1 against the All-Japan team. Their only loss came in the fourth game after a day off taken up by shopping with their wives. “Man, playing a doubleheader was easier than that,” infielder Dave Hollins of the Philadelphia Phillies cracked.

    And the Americans were playing a very talented Japanese team, one that included seven players who would eventually earn induction into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame: catcher Atsuya Furuta, outfielder Koji Akiyama, infielders Hiromitsu Ochiai and Kazuyoshi Tatsunami, and pitchers Masaki Saito, Kazuhiro Sasaki, and Hideo Nomo.

    Sasaki later pitched four seasons for the Seattle Mariners, winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2000 and twice making the American League All-Star team. At the time of the 1992 series, he was 24 and had just completed a season in which he had been voted Fireman of the Year in the Central League thanks to his 12-6 record, 21 saves, and 135 strikeouts in 87⅔ innings.

    Nomo, of course, was later a trailblazer when, in 1995, he leveraged a loophole in the rules to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers and become the first Japanese to play in the major leagues since Masanori Murakami pitched for the San Francisco Giants in 1964-1965. At the time of this series, though, he was just 24 years old and coming off his third season with the Kintetsu (now Orix) Buffaloes. He had gone 53-27 in those first three campaigns, leading the league in victories and strikeouts each time, and taken Rookie of the Year and MVP honors.

    The others were just as transcendent. One of the finest hitters in Japanese baseball history, Ochiai played with four teams over 20 seasons, batting .311 with 510 homers, 1,564 RBIs, and a .987 OPS. He was three times a Triple Crown winner and 15 times an all-star. Furuta played 18 seasons with the Yakult Swallows, batting .294 for his career, winning two Central League MVP Awards, and becoming the first catcher to win a batting title in the Central League. Tatsunami was a .285 hitter over 22 seasons with the Chunichi Dragons. He had 2,480 hits, the eighth-best total in NPB history.

    Akiyama played 20 seasons. He was a 12-time Gold Glover and an eight-time selection to the Best Nine, while hitting 437 home runs. Saito pitched 18 seasons for the Yomiuri Giants, posting a 180-96 record with a 2.77 earned-run average and 1.105 WHIP. He led the Central League in victories five times and in ERA three times. He was an all-star and a Best Nine selection five times each and won four Gold Glove Awards.

    Before the series began, Griffey Jr. had said he thought the Japanese players were as good as major leaguers. “My dad (Ken Griffey Sr.) warned me about them,” said Griffey Jr. “[So] I took them seriously.” Langston added, “We knew the Japanese were very good. They had a few power hitters and a good running game. They were extremely sound fundamentally, were good at putting the ball in play, and wouldn’t beat themselves.”

    Manager Tom Kelly’s squad was more than simply a group of players with big names and flashy statistics. His two brightest stars – Fielder and Griffey Jr. – had been on the 1990 team. Fielder had finished second in the American League MVP Award voting in 1990 and 1991. From 1990 to 1992, he had hit 130 home runs and driven in 389 runs, becoming the first player in 71 years to lead the majors in RBIs three consecutive seasons. Griffey Jr. was coming off his fourth major-league season, in which he batted .308 with 27 home runs, 103 RBIs, and an .896 OPS.

    The roster also included Hollins and Darren Daulton of the Philadelphia Phillies, Travis Fryman and Mickey Tettleton of the Tigers, the Minnesota Twins’ Shane Mack, Bob Tewksbury of the St. Louis Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bob Patterson, and Eric Karros of the Los Angeles Dodgers (winner of the 1992 National League Rookie of the Year Award). They were all very good players who complemented bigger names: Fielder; Griffey Jr.; Langston; Mark Grace of the Chicago Cubs; Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros; Larry Walker of the Montreal Expos; Roger Clemens and Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox; Ozzie Smith of the Cardinals; Jack McDowell of the Chicago White Sox; and Dennis Martinez of the Montreal Expos. “Our roster was stacked,” Langston said. “The team we went over there was going to be very hard to beat. We had too many weapons for them all to be held in check.”

    And that proved to be the case.

    The series got underway on October 30, 1992, when the Americans played the Yomiuri Giants in the Tokyo Dome. The Giants occupy a position in Japanese baseball much like the one the New York Yankees do in the major leagues. It is the oldest of the current Japanese teams and the most successful, having won 17 Japan Series (Japan’s equivalent of the World Series), 26 Central League championships prior to 1992, and nine titles in the Japanese Baseball League, the forerunner of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). Also on that night, Shigeo Nagashima – considered by some to be the greatest player in Japanese history – was returning as the Giants manager after having managed the club from 1975 to 1980.

    Before the game, Kevin Costner, who has starred in several baseball-themed movies, took batting practice with the American team, and he and Langston had a reunion of sorts. “A couple of years before, I’d played in a celebrity softball game in which he’d played third base,” Langston said. “I’d just signed with the Angels, and he’d tell me after every inning that he thought I was going to have a great season. Instead, I had the worst year of my career. So when I saw him in Tokyo, I reminded him of that, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, I lived and sweated every game you pitched that year.’ It was funny that he remembered that.” Costner, in Tokyo to promote his new film The Bodyguard, hit some good line drives off Martinez in batting practice before missing terribly at a curveball.

    Once the game began, though, the US team didn’t miss many. The Americans rolled to an 11-0 victory behind a three-run homer by Grace, solo shots by Fielder and Griffey Jr., and a combined one-hitter by Clemens and Greg Swindell of the Cincinnati Reds. Langston recalled Clemens setting the tone early on. “There was some sort of a screen behind home plate – not like the netting we had back home – and he deliberately threw his last warm-up pitch hard and high over the catcher’s head. The ball stuck in the screen, and the crowd went nuts,” Langston said with a laugh.

    The US team led just 2-0 after five innings, but a five-run sixth highlighted by Grace’s home run put the game out of reach. Clemens and Swindell allowed just three baserunners – a walk to catcher Shinichi Murata, an error by Smith that let third baseman Kaoru Okazaki reach base, and a third-inning single by Kazunori Shinozuka on a hard shot just past Clemens. “I would really have liked to have been alert and picked up that ball that went up the middle,” Clemens said afterward. “[W]ith what Swindell did, we would have had a no-hitter.”

    As the Japan Times reported, “The Major League baseball all-stars showed the Japanese fans and players they mean business this time around after losing the 1990 series … [and] … the Giants completely avoided living up to their nickname in front of 43,000 noisy fans.” Kelly remarked with vast understatement, “I think [the US team is] a little bit better prepared than they were two years ago.”

    Clemens, in particular, had taken the series seriously. Known as “Rocket-san” to the Japanese fans, he had worked hard get used to the generally smaller Japanese strike zone by throwing back home to his 5-foot-5 wife, Debbie. “But I only threw 70 or 75 miles an hour to her,” he said.

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    Redemption: The 1992 MLB vs Japan All-Star Baseball Series

  • 1956 NY Yankees Tour of Japan Footage

    1956 NY Yankees Tour of Japan Footage

    Here some great colorized footage from the Yankees tour. Note the cheerleaders on top of the dugouts–the forerunners to oendan.

    https://youtu.be/YyhVD6bNdG0?si=D4Sd3RoG1uNXAfoU

  • ‘There’s No Joy in Tokyo’: The 1990 Super Major Series

    ‘There’s No Joy in Tokyo’: The 1990 Super Major Series

    by Robert Fitts


    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week Rob Fitts focuses on the 1990 Super Major Series– the first time Japan captured the series against an MLB visit team.

    In the mid- to late 1980s, tensions between the United States and Japan rose to a level not seen since World War II. Americans were frightened at the rising strength of the Japanese economy.

    Japanese imports, especially automobiles and electronics, seemed to be taking over the American market. At the same time, Japanese investors began purchasing American real estate, companies, and institutions such as the Pebble Beach golf club and CBS Records. Both politicians and the public feared that Japan would soon surpass the United States economically, marking the end of “the American century.” Japan-bashing – verbal attacks on Japan and physical attacks on Japanese goods – became widespread and talk of “economic war” was endemic.

    As the Japanese economy rose, so did the nation’s prowess at baseball. The Nippon Professional League had been gradually improving since World War II. Touring major-league squads, which had beaten their hosts so handily in the 1950s, now faced stiffer competition. The 1974 Mets (9-7-2), 1981 Royals (9-7-1), and 1984 Orioles (8-5-1) had all struggled in Japan. In 1986 the first Nichibei All-Star Series was held, won by the major leaguers six games to one, but in 1988 the Americans escaped with a 3-2-2 record. The time was ripe for the Japanese to defeat America at its national pastime.

    On October 31, 1990, a 26-man US all-star team arrived in Tokyo for the eight-game Super Major Series. Leading the Americans was Chicago Cubs manager Don Zimmer, who had played for the Toei Flyers of the Pacific League in 1966. Zimmer did not do particularly well in Japan, on or off the field. He hit just .182 in 203 at-bats and had trouble adapting to the culture. “I don’t eat all that raw fish. I couldn’t stand the smell. I lived on a diet of Campbell’s tomato soup and flounder.” Arriving in Japan for the second time, he told reporters, “It’s a great honor for me to be named manager of the all-star team of the major leagues. At the same time, my heart is filled with expectations. We formed the strongest team ever and will play a showdown with a Japan all-star team. I hope Japanese fans will enjoy each of the games.”

    Observers noted right away that the visitors were hardly “the strongest team ever.” Dave Wiggins of the Japan Times wrote, “Sorry to say, but that upcoming all-star baseball series here pitting the Major Leagues against the Japan League will not be a ‘very best vs. very best’ type match-up. The host Japanese contingent does consist of the best available talent at each position. However, some of the major leaguers on hand, though they are solid players, are not the best in the majors at their spots. … The Hallmark Greeting-Card Company has a famous advertising slogan: ‘If you care to send the very best, send Hallmark.’ Somehow I don’t think Hallmark and Major League Baseball do much business together.”

    Headlining the American roster were National League MVP Barry Bonds, Oakland A’s ace Dave Stewart, Cincinnati Reds “Nasty Boy” Rob Dibble, and father and son teammates Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. Also on the roster were two up-and-coming young players who were eventually enshrined at Cooperstown: Randy Johnson and Robert Alomar.

    The real star, however, was American League home run and RBI champ Cecil Fielder. After signing professionally in 1982, Fielder spent eight years trying to break into a major-league lineup with little success. In late 1988 the Toronto Blue Jays sold his contract to the Hanshin Tigers of the Central League. Fielder blossomed in Japan, batting .302 with 38 home runs and a 1.031 OPS. With his mammoth production and physical size, he became a favorite among the rabid Hanshin fans. His success in Japan allowed Fielder to sign with the Detroit Tigers as a free agent after the 1989 season. Probably no one expected Fielder to surpass his NPB numbers in the majors, but he nearly did – leading the American League with 51 home runs and 133 RBIs along with a .277 batting average and a .969 OPS. For most Japanese fans it was a validation of the strength of Nippon Professional Baseball, showing that the leagues were not that far apart.

    “In most cases, foreign players have been at the end of their careers when they come here,” explained Peter Miller, a consultant to the Major League Baseball Players Association who lived in Tokyo at the time. “But Cecil, he learned patience at the plate and how to hit home runs here. Then he went back. Now, he’s considered a hometown boy.” Everywhere Fielder went he was mobbed by Japanese media and fans. “Fielder’s every move provoked a commotion. Dozens of photographers, standing at ease most of the time, would spring into action with each Cecil sighting.”

    Opposing Fielder and his major-league teammates was a strong Japanese squad. Built around a rotating roster, the squad contained nearly every star in the league. The Japan All-Stars consisted of a core 20-man roster that included future Hall of Famers Hideo Nomo, Koji Akiyama, and Hiromitsu Ochiai. This core roster was supplemented by six additional players for each of the eight games. The team’s manager and coaching staff also rotated. Motoshi Fujita managed the first two games, Masaaki Mori the third, Koichi Tabuchi the fourth, Katsuhiro Nakamura the fifth, Masaichi Kaneda the sixth, and Sadao Kondo the final two. In all, 62 of the eligible 64 men played on the Japanese squad.

    The series opened at Tokyo Dome on Friday evening, November 2. Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd started for the major leaguers against a 22-year-old rookie named Hideo Nomo. Known as “The Tornado” due to his corkscrew windup, Nomo was not drafted after high school by any professional team. Instead, he honed his skills in Japan’s industrial leagues in 1988 and pitched for Japan’s Olympic team. The Kintetsu Buffaloes drafted Nomo in 1989 and he made his professional debut the following season. He was an instant success, leading the Pacific League with 18 wins, 287 strikeouts, 235 innings pitched, and a 2.91 ERA. He won the league’s MVP and Rookie of the Year Awards.

    Nomo’s debut against major-league hitters, however, did not start well. He began by walking leadoff hitter Ken Griffey Jr. and then plunked his father. Following Japanese baseball etiquette, the young pitcher removed his cap and bowed to Griffey Sr. to show that the errant pitch was unintentional. The son then stole third base as Nomo retired Julio Franco, putting runners at the corners with one out and Cecil Fielder coming to the plate. Perhaps overawed by Fielder’s reputation, Nomo walked the Tiger intentionally and would now have to face Barry Bonds with the bases loaded. Bonds responded with a sharp single to center, scoring Griffey Jr. It looked as though it would be a long night for the Japanese team and its fans, but then the American bats went silent. Nomo pitched out of the inning by retiring Kelly Gruber and Jesse Barfield. Nomo and relievers Hiromi Makihara, Yukihiro Nishizaki, Masumi Kuwata, and Masao Kida surrendered just one more hit (an infield single by Sandy Alomar Jr. in the seventh) and no runs over the next eight innings. Zimmer noted that the Japanese kept the major leaguers off balance by pitching “backwards.” “Every time [they] got behind a hitter, they never threw a fastball. They’d throw curves, fork balls and we didn’t hit them.”

    Overall, Boyd and relievers Randy Johnson and Rob Dibble pitched well, allowing only four hits and striking out 12, but the Japanese bundled their hits. In the third inning, Takahiro Ikeyama doubled off the left-center-field wall with runners on first and third to put his team on top, 2-1. Tatsunori Hara then singled in Ikeyama to increase the lead to 3-1. The NPB All-Stars scored again in the seventh to seal the victory as Kaoru Okazaki scored on Akinobu Okada’s sacrifice fly.

    One of the game’s highlights came from Dibble. “The fans were … in awe of the speed of the Nasty Boy’s pitches as the radar readings were flashed across the scoreboard. The murmurs grew louder and louder as pitch after pitch exceeded 150 kilometers per hour (93 mph). Yomiuri shortstop Masahiro Kawai, aware of Dibble’s ability to heave the horsehide more than 100 mph, drew laughter and applause for doffing his cap after he grounded out to second. He was ecstatic, he had hit the ball.”

    The loss did not seem to concern Zimmer or his players. Since 1951 visiting major-league squads had lost nine of the 19 opening games. The Americans usually arrived jet-lagged and out of practice. “For most of the guys, it’s been a month since they faced live pitching,” noted Fielder. “It’s going to take a couple of days to get our timing back. Once we get our mechanics back, we’re going to show a good brand of baseball.”

    The visitors’ slump continued the following day as a sellout crowd of 56,000 packed Tokyo Dome for the second game. In the second inning, Koji Akiyama doubled off starter Chuck Finley and scored on an attempted steal of third as catcher Mike Scioscia’s throw went into left field. In the bottom half of the inning, the Americans grabbed the lead as Fielder singled and scored on Glenn Davis’s two-run homer. But then the Japanese pitchers took over and retired 20 of the next 21 batters. Meanwhile, the NPB All-Stars retook the lead in the third inning on a two-run single by Kazuhiko Ishimine and added an insurance run in the top of the ninth to lead 4-2.

    Chunichi Dragons rookie closer Tsuyoshi Yoda, “usually noted for his pinpoint control,” began the bottom of the ninth by walking Chris Sabo and Barry Bonds. The excited fans rose to their feet as Cecil Fielder strode to the plate with the tying runs on base. But those expecting the fairy-tale ending were disappointed as Fielder grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. With two outs and Sabo on third, Davis picked up his third RBI of the evening with a single, but Ozzie Guillen flied out to end the game and give the Major League stars their second straight defeat. To quell the major-league bats, manager Motoshi Fujita had used five pitchers: starter Masaki Saito (three hits in two innings), Kazutomo Miyamoto (no hits, one walk in three innings), Tomio Watanabe (perfect for two innings), Hiroaki Nakayama (one perfect inning), and Yoda. Zimmer noted that it was difficult for his batters because “the Japanese ‘might only use a pitcher for two innings and then he’s gone and then you have to start over again’ learning the next pitcher.”

    After a rainout on Sunday, November 4, the series continued the following day at Seibu Stadium in Tokorozawa, a suburb of Tokyo. Lions manager Masaaki Mori took over the helm for the Japanese squad. Before the game, Mori warned the media and fans not to underestimate the visitors after the two losses, noting that the players had been away from the game for a month. “It is wrong to consider that the major leaguers’ strength has diminished,” he concluded.

    Dave Stewart, the intimidating ace of the Oakland Athletics, took the mound for the Americans against Hisanobu Watanabe of the Seibu Lions. The major leaguers struck early as Ken Griffey Jr. doubled and scored on a single by Barry Bonds with one out in the first. Stewart battled the NPB All-Stars, holding them scoreless until the fifth, when they pushed the tying run across on doubles by Tsutomu Ito and Hatsuhiko Tsuji.

    The major leaguers had plenty of chances to score as they racked up 11 hits, worked out three walks, and had two hit batsmen off a succession of six pitchers. In the sixth, they left the bases loaded as Glenn Davis struck out looking to end the inning. Julio Franco and R.J. Reynolds began the seventh with back-to-back singles, but Franco was out trying to advance to third on Ozzie Guillen’s fly out to center field and Greg Olson struck out to retire the side. In the top of the eighth the Americans threatened again, placing runners at the corners with two outs but Hideo Nomo, on in relief, induced Davis to ground back to the mound for the third out.

    The Japanese broke the tie in the bottom of the eighth as Kenichi Yamazaki singled off Rob Dibble. Mori brought in speedster Norifumi Nishimura to pinch-run and he stole second before scoring on Makoto Sasaki’s single.

    Once again Yoda came on to close the game, and once again the rookie nearly fell apart. After allowing hits to Franco and Reynolds, Yoda retired Guillen but walked pinch-hitter Mike Scioscia to load the bases. Bearing down, the closer retired Chris Sabo on a shallow fly ball and Griffey Jr. on a groundout to end the game. “I’m trying everything to win,” proclaimed Zimmer. “We want to win. We all want to win. But they’ve outplayed us. They’ve won three in a row. All we can do is to come out tomorrow and try to win.”

    Only 23,000 came to watch the fourth game, at Heiwadai Stadium in Fukuoka. To top the skid, Zimmer turned to Blue Jays ace Dave Steib, who had just finished a strong season with 18 wins, a 2.93 ERA and a no-hitter against Cleveland on September 2. The game remained close for three innings as the Japanese scored one in the first and the Americans tied it on Jesse Barfield’s home run in the second. But in the top of the fourth, the roof collapsed on Steib and his teammates as the Japanese took a 3-1 lead on a two-run single by Koji Akiyama. They added three more runs the next inning, another three in the sixth, highlighted by Hiroo Ishii’s two-run homer, and capped it off with a two-run seventh. In all, the NPB All-Stars scored 11 times on 20 hits, four walks, and four American errors. Makoto Sasaki led the onslaught by going 5-for-6 while Ishii went 3-for-3 in the 11-6 victory.

    With the fourth consecutive Japanese victory, the media on both sides of the Pacific began paying more attention to the series. Newspapers across the United States ran an Associated Press article that began, “First it was cameras, cars and electronics. And now, horror of horrors, is baseball to be the next U.S. industry to find itself outgunned by the Japanese juggernaut? The question, which would have evoked laughs last week, seems suddenly pertinent after the showing of a major league all-star team touring Japan for an eight-game series.”

    Some in the Japanese media began to crow. One Nippon Television national newscaster proclaimed that “the major leaguers have received a lesson since coming to Japan.” Another NTV announcer during the nightly sports highlights on November 6 pontificated “about the strong Japanese yen and the weak American dollar and strong Japan league pro baseball players and weak American major leaguers. And then for good measure, he add[ed] the Americans have lost face.”

    According to Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid,

    Sportscasters here have put together a hilarious bloopers tape made up of bonehead plays made by the visiting Americans. As the tape unfolds, we see Cleveland catcher Sandy Alomar Jr., the American League’s rookie of the year, drilling a pick-off throw so far into right field that the runner he is trying to nail manages to score from first. Montreal pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd is seen talking to himself after walking in a run; three U.S. fielders bump into one another while a pop fly drops in short right; and American manager Don Zimmer of the Chicago Cubs looks sorrier and sorrier in the forlorn U.S. dugout.

    Other Japanese, however, were angry with their team’s success. “We would rather see the Americans play very well and have the Japanese lose,” said Takeyuki Hayashi, a baseball writer for Nikkan Gendai. “We want to see what we cannot watch from our own players. We want to see power and speed. … It’s not a matter of winning or losing. We just want to watch good baseball.”

    Many concluded that the major leaguers were not taking the games seriously. A columnist for Shukan Gendai “contended that the U.S. players have been spending too much time at soapland,” the Japanese term for erotic wet massage parlors usually run by prostitutes. Most critics, however, believed that the visitors just lacked focus and the desire to win. Mikio Takeda, of the tour’s sponsor Mainichi Newspapers, noted that the “Japanese [are] very disappointed. I really felt like the Japanese players can never beat these guys. But look at the result. After the Americans lost the first game, maybe they’re sleepy. Then second loss, third, fourth. I figured maybe [the] Americans [are] weak.”Kazuhiro Kiyohara, the Japanese first baseman, added, “I really know Americans play better; I’ve gone over there. … I know Japanese can’t play with the Americans. But the American players maybe lost their concentration.”When asked if he felt the major leaguers were trying, Hideo Nomo said, “I don’t know. I’m sure I want to win, but I don’t know about them.”

    The defeats led to a rift in the major-league squad. “This is supposed to be our all-star team,” said coach Don Baylor. “We haven’t executed. We’ve played poor baseball. Some guys are here on vacation and maybe some guys came here to take the money and go home.” Ken Griffey Sr. noted the lack of intensity among some of the younger players: “There’s a difference and I think it started with the guys who came up after 1985. They want to win. [But] Sometimes you wonder if they know how all the time.” Griffey Sr. felt the need to have some discussions on attitude with his son. One “centered on young Griffey’s casual stroll off the field after making an out.”

    Twenty-six-year-old Rob Dibble said, “Our guys are just doing this for fun and a little more baseball. There’s not a lot riding on these games and nobody’s going to go out and get hurt, either. The pitchers aren’t throwing 100 percent and just throwing strikes and getting them out as best you can. But when you come down to it, your livelihood is in the States. That’s what it’s all about.”

    But veterans like Dave Stewart disagreed, “We came over here to win; this isn’t a joke. Maybe we should refocus on what we should be doing. They’re trying to beat us. Why shouldn’t we be trying to beat them? … I didn’t come 8,000 miles to lose. Losing ruins your whole day.”

    On November 7 fans came out to Koshien Stadium, home of the Hanshin Tigers, to welcome Cecil Fielder back to Osaka. Journalist Harry F. Thompson observed, “While all 58,000 seats are not sold out for Wednesday’s game (strange, considering how the Japanese have taken to public gloating in recent days over their surprising lead in the fall exhibition tour), crowds have formed outside ticket windows since sunrise in hopes of buying a cheap ($23) bleacher seat.”

    Randy Johnson took the mound for the Americans. The 6-foot-10 left-hander had just finished his second full season in the big leagues and showed promise with a 14-11 record and a 3.65 ERA, and was named to the American League All-Star team. His league-leading 120 walks, however, were worrisome. At the time, few would have predicted that he would mature into a Hall of Fame pitcher. The Japanese All-Stars pounced on Johnson as Hiromitsu Ochiai hit a two-run homer in the first and Katsumi Hirosawa hit a two-run home run in the fourth. The Japanese scored another in the fifth on a botched pickoff to enter the eighth inning with a 5-2 lead.

    Chris Sabo began the inning with a single to left off southpaw Shinji Imanaka and an out later Barry Bonds followed with a single to center. Then hometown hero Cecil Fielder came to the plate. Fielder had had a disappointing series, going 2-for-17 without an extra-base hit. But on his special day, the big slugger came through, blasting a curveball deep into the left-field bleachers to tie the game, 5-5. “They were laughing at us after the fourth loss,” said Fielder. “They were having a great old time in the other dugout. But they sure got quiet in a hurry, didn’t they? This one felt real good.”

    Surprisingly, Japanese manager Katsuhiro Nakamura left Imanaka on the mound. He retired Glenn Davis but Julio Franco singled and stole second, bringing up right-handed batter Jesse Barfield with two outs. Rather than bring in a righty to face Barfield, Nakamura stayed with Imanaka. Barfield punished them by smashing a home run to deep left to capture the lead. In the ninth, with a battered Imanaka still pitching, the Americans added to their lead with a two-run homer from Griffey Jr. and a solo home run from Bonds. The night ended with a 10-5 major-league victory. The suffering Imanaka got the loss, having surrendered eight hits and eight runs in two innings. “We were getting tired of losing,” noted Griffey Jr. “We finally won one, and it felt good. Now, maybe, we can go out and win the next three.”

    But it was not to be. On November 9 at Chiba Lotte Marine Stadium, the Japanese All-Stars went out to a 4-0 lead in the second inning and added two more in the fourth against starter Dennis Boyd. Although the Americans got three back, including a run off 21-year-old Hideki Irabu, they entered the seventh inning down 6-3. Reliever Hisao Niura immediately ran into trouble, giving up a hit and two walks to load the bases with one out. Game 6 Japanese manager Masaichi Kaneda brought in Yoshihisa Shiratake but to no avail as Kelly Gruber hit a two-run single and Jesse Barfield followed with a game-tying single past shortstop Takahiro Ikeyama.

    Tsuyoshi Yoda shut down the major leaguers in the bottom of the eighth and the teams entered the ninth knotted, 6-6. Zimmer gave the ball to Bobby Thigpen, the White Sox closer, who had a 1.83 ERA and 57 saves during the 1990 season.

    Katsumi Hirosawa led off by slicing a line drive down the right-field line. Barfield sprinted to his left and made a sliding catch to save an extra-base hit, ripping his pants in the process. “Earlier in the game, Barry Bonds and Griffey and I got together and decided to take the line away from those guys,” said Barfield. “The left-handed guys were hooking the ball down the line and the righties were slicing the ball. So I just moved over a couple of steps. I had a good jump on the ball. Had I been straight up, I never would have gotten to the ball. … That’s one of my favorite plays – running to my left and sliding after the ball.” Thigpen then walked the next two batters. With the game on the line, he settled down and got consecutive groundouts to end the inning.

    Yoda pitched a scoreless bottom of the ninth. As the Americans collected their items off the bench and headed to the locker room, one of their teammates asked,

    “Where’s everybody going?”

    “It’s over. In Japan, games end in a tie,” he was told.

    “A tie? What do you mean a tie game? We don’t play to ties!” the player asked incredulously.

    “I haven’t been in a tie since Little League” … Rob Dibble said with disgust.

    “It’s the first time in my life and I don’t like it,” Jesse Barfield added.

    At least, “It’s better than losing,” said Don Zimmer, shrugging his shoulders.

    With the tie, the Japanese All-Stars clinched the eight-game series. Not counting the San Francisco Giants’ 3-6 record during their 1970 spring-training games in Japan, it was the first time a professional American team would leave Japan with a losing record.

    After playing strong baseball for six games, the Japanese squad seemed to relax after clinching the series. Game 7 at Tokyo Dome was sloppy with the hosts “committing three errors, two wild pitches, a passed ball and a hit batsman.” Even with these gaffes, the major leaguers had difficulty scoring off the five pitchers used by the Japanese. The Americans’ first run came in the fourth when Fielder walked and moved to second on a passed ball. Glenn Davis grounded to short and Fielder got hung up between second and third. Shortstop Takahiro Ikeyama “ranged far to his right to make the stop and tried to pick Fielder off second with an off-balance throw. The ball sailed wide of the base and into shallow right field, allowing Fielder to lumber around third and barely beat the throw to the plate.” Lenny Dykstra put the Americans up 2-0 the following inning with a home run down the right-field line.

    Meanwhile, starter Dave Stewart dominated the NPB All-Stars, throwing six shutout innings, until the seventh. The inning began with a double by Norihiro Komada. After a spectacular diving catch by shortstop Ozzie Guillen, Atsuya Furuta singled home Komada. Koji Akiyama then tripled off the right-field wall to score Furuta and tie the game, 2-2. In the top of the eighth, the numerous Japanese misplays caught up with them. Ken Griffey Jr. led off with a single, advanced to second on a wild pitch by Kazuhiko Daimon, and kept running, just beating the throw as he slid safely into third base. After Dykstra popped out, Daimon uncorked a second wild pitch, allowing Griffey to score. Now up 3-2, Zimmer brought in Dibble, who closed the game with two scoreless innings to seal the 3-2 victory.

    Chuck Finley took the mound at Tokyo Dome on November 11 for the final game of the series. Finley had not pitched well in his first start, losing Game 2. And he looked shaky in this final outing as he walked Hiromitsu Ochiai and Hiroo Ishii in the second but was saved by inducing Mokoto Sasaki to ground into a double play to end the inning. As the game went on, Finley settled down and looked stronger, keeping “the Japanese hitters off balance by changing speeds and working the corners with his forkball.” At the end of three innings, he had a no-hit shutout.

    The first two Japanese batters reached base in the fourth on consecutive errors by Ozzie Guillen and Kelly Gruber, but Finley retired the heart of the opponents’ order – Ochiai, Katsumi Hirosawa, and Ishii – to keep the shutout and no-hitter alive. As Finley thwarted the Japanese, his teammates put up five runs. Three came in the second inning off Hideo Nomo when Greg Olson “drilled a waist-high fastball deep into the left-field bleachers.” “I played in six of the eight games, mostly as a late inning defensive replacement,” said Olson. “It was great to make my only hit such a big one.” The Americans picked up two more runs in the third on RBI doubles by Griffey Jr. and Gruber.

    At the end of the fifth inning, Zimmer, following a game plan designed to protect his starter’s arm, took Finley out despite the no-hitter. “After throwing 240-plus [sic] innings [during the 1990 season] you don’t know how your arm’s going to react after you shut it down for a month and then crank it back up,” Finley explained. “I could’ve gone one more inning but I wasn’t going to push it.” While Finley had been primarily using off-speed pitches, reliever Randy Johnson threw hard. “I don’t think these guys [the Japanese] have seen many fastballs over 90 miles an hour,” Johnson noted. The contrast helped baffle his opponents. Johnson cruised through the remaining four innings, striking out four and walking two. “The crowd was into it,” said Johnson.

    “Every time Randy threw a strike in the last inning you could see him grip his glove a little harder,” said the catcher, Olson. “It was the same for me. I didn’t want to make any mistakes in the last inning so I said let’s go with his best pitch, so he went fastball the whole last inning. We didn’t even mess around with anything else.”

    “I started getting pumped up in the last inning and threw a lot of strikes,” said Johnson. “Maybe I had a little more adrenaline today because there was a no-hitter on the line. Maybe it was because the reputation of American baseball was on the line.”

    “It was a good way to close for us,” said Cecil Fielder after the 5-0 win. “I just came to have some fun.” But Japan Times writer Greg Hardesty summed it up best: “Any lingering snickers among critics of the Major League’s lackluster performance in the Super Major League Series’ early games were silenced forever when catcher Tsutomu Ito of the Seibu Lions flew out to right fielder Jesse Barfield to end the history-making game.”

    Although the Americans had redeemed themselves in the final games, their losing record received national attention. Critics often related the Japanese success on the diamond with their economic success and the ongoing US-Japan trade issues. “Made in Japan: Better Baseball” read a headline in Newsweek. Jim Impoco of U.S. News & World Report wrote, “Future historians attempting to pinpoint the end of the American Century may want to look no further than a short-porched ballyard near the heart of this teaming capital where a major-league-baseball all-star team from the States came, saw – and was conquered. … At a time when U.S. industry is under mounting pressure from hard-charging Japanese competitors, it’s hard to resist comparisons.”An exasperated American banker working in Tokyo exclaimed, “We’re not even No. 1 in baseball anymore. … What’s left?”

    Japan Times columnist Dave Wiggins, however, disagreed. “The reality of the situation is that this recent ‘goodwill’ series is, or at least should be, all about baseball – nothing else. Not economics and certainly not a country’s worth.” There were, Wiggins argued, several reasons for the Japanese victory.

    As pointed out before the games began, the major-league roster consisted of talented players willing to make the postseason trip to Japan – not the best players in the league. Of the 30 top batters in the 1990 major-league season, according to Wins Above Replacement (WAR), only six came to Japan. None of the top 10 pitchers, according to WAR, and just three of the top 30 made the trip. In contrast, the 64-man Japanese roster included nearly every top Japanese player. It was a true all-star squad. Furthermore, most of the Japanese managers took advantage of the large roster to limit their pitchers to just two innings per game. During the eight-game series, the Japanese used 35 different pitchers. As a result, the Americans rarely faced the same pitcher twice, denying them the opportunity to see all of their opponents’ pitches or determine pitching patterns.

    The monthlong layoff between the end of the major-league season and the trip to Japan with only one day of recovery and practice after arrival undoubtedly hurt the American players. Bodies became sore and stiff; the hitters had lost their timing and the pitchers lost the feel of the ball. “If you lay off for about a month, you might as well be off for the whole winter. You lose your edge very quickly. It’s taken us a little time, but as the series progressed I think we played a little better baseball,” reflected Mike Scioscia. Nearly all the players complained about the layoff and difficulty of playing at full intensity. But other visiting American teams had suffered similar layoffs and still returned home with winning records.

    The biggest factor in the American defeat was the strength of the Japanese players. Not only did they play with intensity but the gap between the major leagues and Nippon Pro Baseball was narrowing. “I frankly don’t think there’s much difference anymore,” said Cecil Fielder. “The Japanese have come a long way, and you can’t really say they’re far behind now.” In the first all-star series, held in 1986, the Americans comfortably won six of the seven games as the Japanese team ERA was a lofty 6.71. “When I played there in 1986, the pitching wasn’t that good,” recalled Jesse Barfield. “The difference is [now] they’re getting their breaking balls over anytime in the count. They didn’t do that in 1986. They had to rely on fastballs and they weren’t blowing them by us. Now they have some pretty decent cheese to set up that off-speed stuff anytime they want to throw it.” Two years later, the Japanese staff held the visitors to 3.98 earned runs per game, as the major-league team escaped with a 3-2-2 record. In 1990 the Japanese ERA was nearly identical, 4.06, but their teammates raised their batting average more than 30 points, from .212 to .245. (The Americans hit .250 during the series.)

    “Their hitters are getting bigger and stronger,” explained Zimmer, “and their pitching is terrific. They have good stuff, change speeds well and most of all, have outstanding control.” “Maybe in the past, the U.S. could just show up and win easily, but no more. In the future the Major Leaguers will have to take these games more seriously and prepare better if they hope to win. The Japanese have become that good. We should have learned an important lesson.”

    Commissioner Fay Vincent agreed. “We’ve clearly got to do a better job starting with the process because you don’t want to come over here and be embarrassed. And everyone involved has got to be embarrassed, starting with me and going down to the players.” “When this is over,” he added, “we’ll sit down and think about what we can do to improve the caliber of play.”

    And indeed, when the major-league all-stars returned in 1992, they were prepared for revenge.

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    ‘There’s No Joy in Tokyo’: The 1990 Super Major Series
  • The 1988 Major League-Japan All-Star Series

    The 1988 Major League-Japan All-Star Series

    by CHRIS HICKS

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week CHRIS HICKS tells us about the 1988 MLB vs. NPB all-star series.

    The 1988 Major League-Japan All-Star Series was the 24th time that major leaguers had gone on a goodwill tour of Japan. Although many independent tours had happened over decades, the semiannual Japan All-Star Series had only begun in 1986. On that tour, the major-league All-Stars won the series six games to one. Gearing up for the seven-game 1988 event, the American press, public, and those involved in professional baseball all expected a similar performance.

    Future Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson of the Detroit Tigers managed the US team, called the M.L. All-Stars, along with coaches Roger Craig of the San Francisco Giants and Alex Grammas of the Tigers. Anderson had previously managed the Cincinnati Reds in a tour of Japan in 1979, winning the series 14 to 2 with 1 tie. During a workout in Los Angeles on November 1, Anderson announced his goal for the team: winning all seven games. However, he also knew a sweep of the series would not be easy, acknowledging that the Japanese had much improved since the last time he was there. “If we don’t go and play them hard, they can beat us,” Anderson warned. He declared that the outcome would be determined mostly by the effort of the M.L. squad. Anderson added that the social aspect was what the players would remember for the rest of their lives. He spoke of reciprocal respect between the Japanese and American players, ensuring that “the players will never enjoy anything more than their 12 days in Japan.”

    The Major League Baseball Players Association and the commissioner’s office worked together to carefully assemble a squad of players. None of the players on the 1986 squad were chosen for this iteration of the tour. In contrast to the older players who toured Japan in 1986, the 1988 team was almost entirely a group of young stars and players who were just coming into their own, including Benito Santiago of the San Diego Padres, Willie McGee of the St. Louis Cardinals, Fred McGriff of the Toronto Blue Jays, and David Cone of the New York Mets. Five of the chosen players were later enshrined in the Hall of Fame: Greg Maddux of the Chicago Cubs, Paul Molitor of the Milwaukee Brewers, Alan Trammell of the Tigers, Barry Larkin of the Reds, and Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins. Puckett commented, “You couldn’t put a better one together.” Six of the hitters had batting averages of .300 or above and five had more than 24 home runs. The pitching staff was also strong, including four 20-game-winners, all Cy Young Award contenders.

    The players were selected not only for their talent, but also for “their diplomatic skill.” At this point, Japan had emerged as an economic superpower, contending with the United States. Japan invested heavily in American industries and real estate. The popularity of Japanese products with American consumers resulted in a sizable trade deficit and threatened American manufacturing jobs, which led to resentment and anti-Japanese rhetoric. Politicians capitalized on the discontent of many Americans whose livelihoods were threatened by the shift in the economy during the 1980s. These leaders fanned anti-Japanese sentiment further. Lawmakers were even photographed destroying imported Japanese products with sledgehammers on the Capitol Hill lawn.

    At the same time, Congress passed major legislation benefiting the Japanese American community by a veto-proof majority. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was passed to address actions toward Japanese Americans in World War II. The measure acknowledged the injustice of placing Japanese Americans in internment camps, and provided reparation payment to them. It served as a formal apology and signified the intent to award those who had suffered internment a $20,000 tax-free disbursement. These reparation payments only later came to fruition, though. The funding that had been allocated for them disappeared before the payments were made. The next year’s austerity budget reduced or eliminated funding for many programs. Ironically, the Japanese government supported the American budget cuts, demanding continued financial austerity when it agreed to stabilize the US dollar in December 1988.

    During the 1988 season, Los Angeles Dodger Orel Hershiser’s scoreless streak was one of the top news stories. On September 28 Hershiser pitched 10 innings, extending his run to 59 scoreless innings and breaking Dodgers Hall of Famer Don Drysdale’s record of 58⅔ innings set in 1968. Drysdale, who was a broadcaster for the Dodgers, was in attendance. On the heels of Hershiser’s achievement, the Dodgers went into the playoffs, ending up in the World Series against the Oakland A’s. Hershiser’s Dodgers won the Series in five games; Hershiser was named the Series’ Most Valuable Player.

    During the 12-day stretch between the World Series and the start of the Japan tour, coverage of Hershiser dominated the sports pages. He originally declined to participate in the tour. However, his contract with the Dodgers expired at the end of the 1988 season, and he agreed to go on the tour, possibly hoping his performance would have a beneficial effect on his salary negotiations. He said he wanted to stay with the Dodgers, but was open to the possibility of playing in Japan in 1990, when he could change teams. The record-breaking streak was alive, and many expected him to lengthen it with more innings in the following season. In early 1989, Hershiser was able to leverage all of these factors to sign a record-breaking three-year contract worth $7.9 million with the Dodgers.

    The US All-Star team gathered for a workout in Los Angeles on November 1. Their flight left the next day, giving the players time to get acclimated to their surroundings. Although they could recover from the long flight before taking the field, they didn’t have the same opportunity to rest before playing their roles as ambassadors. It was a two-hour drive from the airport to their hotel, but mere minutes after arriving, the players had to appear at a press conference at the hotel.

    The Japanese public treated manager Anderson “with the reverence accorded a Zen master.”Japanese baseball fans were very welcoming, latching onto such stars as Hershiser and future Hall of Famer Puckett. Based on his physique, Puckett was likened to a Sumo wrestler; Hershiser was acclaimed for his historic performance on the mound in 1988. One Japanese reporter said of Puckett, “We have never seen anyone like him before.” An American reporter responded: “Neither have we.”

    The media did not disappoint its public by focusing coverage on these players. Hershiser, tapped to start the series opener, expressed concern about being at a disadvantage facing new batters. Still, Hershiser asserted that his “competitive juices will be flowing.”Puckett was also eager to get on the field in Japan, saying, “I’ve been off for almost a month, and I’ve got the itch to play again.” That evening, a banquet was held for the two teams. Hershiser was seen showing Japanese pitchers how he gripped different pitches. The American press referred to his demonstrations when they discussed Hershiser’s performance during the series.

    On November 5 the series began at the Tokyo Dome, the only domed stadium in Japan. The dome was at capacity, with 56,000 in attendance. In a broadcast first, ESPN aired the game live starting at 11:30 P.M. ET. The announcers ESPN used for this game and one other in the series were Baltimore Orioles broadcaster Jon Miller and future Hall of Famer Don Sutton, who had just retired after 23 years as a major-league pitcher.

    The Japanese All-Stars won the first game, 2-1. In the fifth inning Seattle Mariner Harold Reynolds drove in Willie McGee for the only M.L. run.The score was tied, 1-1, until the bottom of the ninth, when Japanese designated hitter Kazuhiko Ishimine of the Hankyu Braves hit a walk-off RBI single, known in Japan as a “sayonara hit,” on a pitch from San Diego Padres pitcher Mark Davis. This first game was an adjustment for the Americans. Not only had they not faced the Japanese pitchers before, but the crowds were different. They were largely silent until cheerleaders led them in “loud and monotonous” cheers.

    The second game of the series, on November 6, was also played at the Tokyo Dome, again before a sellout crowd of 56,000. The major leaguers went out to an early lead on a solo home runs by Cincinnati’s Barry Larkin and Ellis Burks of the Boston Red Sox. They added a third run in fifth inning as pinch-runner Vince Coleman stole second and third and scored on a wild throw by catcher Tsutomu Ito. In the fifth the Japanese tied the score on an error, a walk and three hits but the visitors retook the lead in seventh as Molitor singled in Burks.

    In the bottom of the seventh with one out, Hiromi Matsunaga and Akinobu Mayumi singled off David Cone. With runners at the corners, Shinji Hata grounded to second. Second baseman Vance Law attempted to tag Mayumi as he ran towards second, but Mayumi swerved out of the baseline to avoid the tag. Law then threw to first to retire Hatta as Matsunaga crossed the plate. The umpire ruled Mayumi safe a second and allowed the run. Anderson charged on to the field to protest and “a heated argument ensured,” but the call stood and the game was tied, 4-4.

    In the top of the ninth, after Molitor had knocked in Dave Henderson to give the major leaguers a 5-4 lead, reliever Genji Kaku of the Chunichi Dragons came in with Vince Coleman on first and Willie McGee on third. American umpire Jim Evans then called a balk, a rule that was rarely enforced in Japan, on Kaku allowing McGee to score. After the game Kaku complained, “How can they call a balk when we don’t even know what they are?”

    Down 6-4 in the bottom of the ninth, Matsunaga, Mayumi, and Hiromitsu Ochiai each singled off Cone to narrow the score to 6-5. Anderson brought in Doug Jones to close the game but Hideaki Takazawa greeted him with a double to tie the score. Jones then intentionally walked Yutaka Takagi to load the bases with one out before striking out slugger Kazuhiro Kiyohara and inducing Katsumi Hirosawa to ground out to third. As the teams had agreed not to play extra innings during the series, the game ended in a 6-6 tie.

    On November 8, Game 3 was played at Heiwadai Stadium in Fukuoka, where 32,000 fans saw the American bats come alive. The Americans topped the Japanese All-Stars 16-8. Willie McGee, Ellis Burks, Harold Reynolds, and Bobby Bonilla all hit home runs. Makoto Sasaki of the Nankai Hawks had three RBIs for the Japanese squad. He hit a home run off Orel Hershiser, who pitched in relief of Greg Maddux.During the game, the Americans had a guest in their dugout, Yasokichi “Sally” Konishiki. The 530-plus-pound Sumo wrestler from Hawaii was the heaviest Sumo competitor in history at that point. The players were fascinated by the hulking figure of Konishiki as he signed autographs for them.

    The Americans celebrated their first victory by joking around with the fans. Greg Maddux, for example, had a 10,000-yen note attached to a string and dangled it in front of fans. In 1988, the bill was worth US $81. Roger Craig faked throwing his cowboy hat to the crowd, and Rafael Palmeiro threw an empty baseball box into the stands. The fans, who were eager to see the American team, relished the attention.

    Hershiser had to leave the tour unexpectedly after the game. He returned home to California to be with his sick son. The two-month-old boy, Jordan, had been born with fluid in his lungs, making even a cold a serious condition. Hershiser had struggled mightily in this series, exiting with a 7.37 ERA, the polar opposite of the stats he turned in during the 1988 season. Despite this performance, the focus of the tour remained the interaction with the Japanese. Reflecting on his experience in Japan, Hershiser said the media and fans treated him “like … a rock star.”

    Game 4 took place on November 9 in Osaka’s Koshien Stadium. The crowd of 30,000 saw the Americans win their second game in a row, 8-2. Andres Galarraga of the Montreal Expos had three RBIs while Jimmy Key of the Toronto Blue Jays gave up just two hits with six strikeouts in five innings of work. The Japanese got their runs from a seventh-inning homer by the Hanshin Tigers’ Akinobu Mayumi off Mark Davis. Doug Jones of the Cleveland Indians closed out the game with three strikeouts in the final two innings.

    Game 5 saw a return to the Tokyo area on November 10 when 23,000 fans went to see the contest at Seibu Stadium in Tokorozawa. The Americans took their third in a row, 3-1. Cincinnati’s Danny Jackson, the New York Mets’ David Cone, and Kansas City’s Mark Gubicza combined to give up just three hits and strike out nine. Rafael Palmiero of the Cubs, Vince Coleman of the Cardinals, and Tim Laudner of the Twins had doubles; Coleman also had a stolen base.

    Also on November 10, the Cy Young Awards were also announced. Jackson and Cone finished second and third, respectively, in the National League vote and Gubicza finished third in the American League. The three men celebrated that night. Gubicza told reporters, “We were commenting on how nice it would have been if we could have been on the same staff together, but it turned out just great for all of us. We all had dream seasons.” The three pitchers had all been on the Kansas City Royals’ staff in 1986.

    In Game 6, on November 12, a sellout crowd watched as the Japanese squashed any ideas of a continued US winning streak. The Nippon team came back to win its second game, 5-4, behind the efforts of the Nankai Hawks’ Makoto Sasaki, who had two hits, two runs, and an RBI. Barry Larkin was the star for the Americans with two doubles and two RBIs. Greg Maddux, working in relief with a 3-0 lead, gave up five runs, six hits, two walks, and a wild pitch in a little over two innings; the result was four runs for the Japanese. In the field, first baseman Rafael Palmeiro had an error as a ball went under his glove and rolled to the left-field wall during Japan’s decisive seventh-inning rally.Hiromi Makihara of the Yomiuri Giants gained the win, pitching four scoreless innings and striking out Dave Henderson with a split-fingered fastball that American pitching coach Roger Craig had just taught him. This was the second and last game of the series that ESPN showed live.The games the cable network aired were the only two the M.L. All-Stars lost, showing their worst performances to the American television audience.

    The seventh and final game of the series was played on November 13 before a sold-out crowd at the Tokyo Dome. Vince Coleman had a solid day with three singles. Overall the game saw a lack of offense. It finished in a 0-0 tie after nine innings, again because of the series’ no-extra-inning rule. The Americans had a chance to score in the first after Coleman and Paul Molitor led off with singles, but Masumi Kuwata of the Yomiuri Giants retired Puckett on a groundball and struck out Fred McGriff and Bobby Bonilla. Mark Gubicza, David Cone, and Doug Jones allowed only three hits while striking out seven Japanese hitters.

    The major-league All-Stars won the series 3 games to 2 with 2 ties. The outstanding players of the series were Barry Larkin and Hiromi Makihara. Larkin hit .476 (10-for-21). Yomiuri Giants pitcher Makihara had nine strikeouts in nine innings and a Game 6 victory under his belt.

    Sparky Anderson said, “The Japanese should stop comparing themselves to Americans. They are good baseball players, period. They should stand on their own.” Hershiser commented, “Their pitching is real strong. I think it’s the closest thing they have to the big leagues.” Excuses abounded for why the major leaguers had not performed more strongly against the Japanese, whose talent was seen as far inferior to that of the Americans. According to Steve Wulf of Sports Illustrated, they included, “They weren’t in shape; they didn’t take the series seriously; they were playing under foreign circumstances.” To support the criticism that the major-league team was not taking the games seriously, Wulf pointed to the two teams’ behavior during batting practice. The Japanese were seen as taking a very serious approach, focusing on the game. In contrast, the Americans seemed to be overconfident, throwing around a football on the field instead of maximizing the practice.

    Wulf broached the idea of a US vs. Japan world series. Sparky Anderson praised the Japanese, commenting that pitcher Hiromi Makihara “would make any pitching staff in baseball.” Makihara, asked if he would like to play baseball in America, said, “If that is possible, I’d like to.” Anderson also liked the idea of eventually having a US vs Japan world series, but said it would take time for the Japanese talent levels to rise to the level of the Americans. Toru Shoriki, owner of the Yomiuri Giants, agreed. “Having a real world series between Japan and the US has been my lifelong dream,” he said. “We are still a long way away, but as this tour has shown, we are progressing.” Though the Americans still won the series, the fact that the Japanese came within one game of winning for the first time could be considered a moral victory.

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    The 1988 Major League-Japan All-Star Series
  • Baseball from Mars: The 1986 Super Major Series

    Baseball from Mars: The 1986 Super Major Series

    by James Forr

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week JAMES FORR tells us about the begins of the MLB vs. NPB all-star series..

    Opposing thoughts can complement one another and fill our lives with elegant contradictions. In ancient Chinese philosophy, this theory was known as yinyang. In Japan, the word is inyo.

    Although frequently associated with Eastern thought, inyo is a universal part of the human experience. Any virtue can be a vice. There is no light without shadow. Love is the first cousin of hate.

    By 1986, America’s visceral wartime animosity toward Japan had long receded. In its place bubbled a complex brew of fascination and fear. Inyo.

    In September 1980, NBC aired a nine-hour miniseries called Shogun, an adaptation of a novel about an Englishman in feudal Japan. Shogun’s scenes of sexuality and violence were shocking for its day, and the show featured extended stretches of Japanese dialogue with no English subtitles. It was a weird choice for a prime-time network slot, and some executives feared it would be a disaster.

    Instead, it was all anyone could talk about. Nearly one-third of all Americans watched Shogun, a cultural phenomenon that “spurred a faddish mania for all things Japanese.” Before long, sushi became mainstream in the United States, loyal communities of anime fans popped up out of nowhere, and the hoity-toity set grew enchanted with Kabuki theater and Japanese fashion.

    Meanwhile, the term “Made in Japan” was taking on new meaning. For years, Americans had derided Japanese products as cheap crap doomed to fall apart five minutes after you left the store. However, by the mid-1980s, even if you weren’t scarfing down eel rolls or watching Star Blazers, you might have been driving a Honda, listening to music on a Sony Walkman, or replaying your favorite shows on a Panasonic VCR.

    In contrast, US manufacturing was in decline, which wounded Americans’ national pride and inflamed insecurities about the nation’s economic future. While Japan was becoming cool, it was, at the same time, emerging as a bogeyman for those fears.

    Democratic nominee Walter Mondale gave voice to this apprehension during his presidential campaign, asking a group of steelworkers in 1984, “What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around the Japanese computers?” Conservative lawmakers called for boycotts. Frustrated autoworkers and other self-styled patriots got into the spirit by pulverizing Japanese cars with sledgehammers.

    Oddly, in certain ways, Americans held Japan in higher regard than Japan held itself. Inyo.

    The searing humiliation of World War II still lingered in the folds of Japan’s collective memory, and a nagging sense of inferiority was never far from the surface. The country and its people felt a constant pressure to measure themselves, particularly against the West.

    “I always felt Japan collectively was looking in the mirror saying, ‘Look at us!,’ and then looking around and asking, ‘How do we stack up?’” observed Michael Shapiro, who worked as a correspondent for the New York Times in Tokyo from 1984 to 1988.

    These conflicted feelings extended to baseball, where American and Japanese cultures had overlapped clumsily around the edges for decades. The Japanese considered American players to be, well, a little too American. In this highly collectivist culture, the gaijin from the West who joined Japanese teams often called attention to themselves in most unfortunate ways – berating umpires, criticizing managers, abusing equipment, and starting fights.

    “There were stories about how gross American ballplayers were,” said Shapiro, who traveled with the Baltimore Orioles during their 1984 tour. He recalled the team bus rolling through crowded streets as one player exposed himself through the window, a pair of sunglasses perched on his penis and a cigarette tucked under his scrotum.

    Americans might have been obnoxious, but in baseball they were the yardstick. So, with the revulsion came a certain hypnotic allure. Inyo.

    Although television coverage of American baseball was sporadic, astute Japanese fans knew all about the stars of the US game and built them up into superheroes. American teams made goodwill visits of Japan every few years, but no team of big-name all-stars had made a tour to compete solely against the Japanese since 1953. Here was an opportunity.

    On August 25, 1986, after 19 months of discussions, Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth and Nippon Professional Baseball Commissioner Juhei Takeuchi announced that all-stars from both leagues would meet in a seven-game series in Japan November 1-9. It was dubbed in Japan the Super Major Series.

    “Major-league baseball was trying to spread its wings,” remembered Boston’s Rich Gedman, one of the players selected. “For Japan, it was probably a measurement of where their game was at. For us, it was to give American baseball exposure to the world.”

    Really, though, it was less a measurement of the Japanese game as it was a measurement of the Japanese. Some of the best players in Nippon Professional Baseball were Americans, but when one of those expats, Leron Lee, asked to represent Japan, he was rebuffed. “No. Japanese only. Sorry.”

    Greg “Boomer” Wells received the same line. After being “sold like a slave” by the Minnesota Twins to the Hankyu Braves in 1983, Wells immediately established himself as one of Japan’s most fearsome sluggers. Yet, there was no room for him with the Japanese all-stars. “I would have loved to have played because I had something to prove, too,” Wells said.

    Wells believed his omission also was a lost symbolic opportunity, a missed chance to show the world a different face of the Japanese game. These newer American stars like Wells, Leron and Leon Lee, and Randy Bass weren’t cynical retreads trying to score one last baseball paycheck. They were young and skilled and they treated the game and the nation with respect.

    “We were a part of Japanese baseball,” Wells insisted. “We were changing Japanese baseball and changing the way they thought of Americans. So we wanted to play. But they didn’t want that. They wanted to play them on their own. They wanted to prove something.”

    The US team consisted almost entirely of players who had been chosen for the 1986 All-Star Game in Houston. It wasn’t a tough sell. To travel to a new country and share a clubhouse with supremely talented peers was enticing. The money probably didn’t hurt, either. Each American received $30,000, plus all expenses paid for themselves and a companion.

    While coverage was limited in the States, the series was all over the front pages of Japan’s sports dailies. “Everything was about how great the majors were, but it was almost like they were from Mars,” joked Jim Allen, who was teaching English in Hamamatsu and who later became a journalist and statistical analyst specializing in Japanese baseball. “It was like the major leagues were a league meant for aliens. ‘We play baseball, they play baseball. But their baseball is different.’”

    “There was so much respect and reverence toward the major leaguers from the Japanese media, the fans, and even the players,” remembered Rob Smaal, who covered the series for the Japan Times. “It was like, ‘We’re going to get pounded by these guys, and it’s going to be an honor to get pounded by these guys.’ I was taken by the fact that it wasn’t, ‘Let’s go win this thing.’ It was more like, ‘Let’s watch these guys perform.’”

    But even when optimism is in short supply, there is always hope. After all, Japan had won a number of games against the two most recent major-league clubs to visit, the 1984 Orioles and the 1981 Kansas City Royals. Those weren’t all-star teams, of course, and the Americans spent half the time drunk or hungover, but still, wins are wins.

    “The Japanese were practicing furiously,” according to Smaal. “It was important to them to perform well. They didn’t want to be embarrassed.”

    The Japanese team was mindful of the historic context of the event. “In the past we studied the Americans in baseball. Now we want to lead,” proclaimed Hiroshima Carp legend Koji Yamamoto, who at age 40 was making his final appearance as a player.

    Recently retired Yokohama Taiyo Whales manager Sadao Kondo, chosen to pilot the Japanese squad because he had been the eldest manager in NPB, offered a warning for the Americans. “If they think they are here for a sightseeing tour, they may be in for a shock.”

    US manager Davey Johnson made sure there was none of that. He, too, had something to prove. Johnson had just piloted the New York Mets to a World Series title. Now, only weeks after his greatest success, he was returning to the site of his greatest failure.

    Johnson’s entire Japanese experience had been streaked with inyo. A three-time Gold Glove winner and four-time All-Star, Johnson left the Atlanta Braves to join the revered Yomiuri Giants as their starting third baseman in 1975. He wasn’t the first big-name major leaguer to sign with a Japanese team; however, for a prominent American to come over near the peak of his career, as Johnson did, was unheard of.

    His arrival was both eagerly anticipated and deeply controversial. The Giants had won 10 pennants from 1963 to 1974, their “pure-blooded period” when they employed no foreign players at all. Many fans and even some players preferred it that way.

    Johnson flopped – spectacularly. He struggled with the language and the culture and hit just .197. The Japanese press was brutal, dubbing him, “Dame Johnson,” which loosely translates to “No-good Johnson.” To boot, the Giants tumbled to last place.

    Johnson rebounded in 1976 and helped the Giants rocket to a pennant, but he clashed with his manager, the legendary Shigeo Nagashima, and chose to return to the United States – not exactly in disgrace, but hardly awash in glory.

    Ironically, unlike many gaijin, Johnson actually enjoyed Japan, which made his experience all the more painful. Ten years later, as he prepared for the Super Major Series, the wound still festered. As he told historian Robert Whiting, “I especially wanted to do well because of what had happened before.”

    Johnson was no authoritarian, but he implored his team to take the tour seriously. Indeed, players reportedly were chosen not only for their talent, but also for their professionalism. Fun would be had, but these particular guys weren’t going to drink themselves blind every night or spark any international incidents.

    Johnson led his squad through two days of workouts at Dodger Stadium before chartering a 747 to Tokyo. According to Cal Ripken, “At the first team meeting, Davey said, ‘Let’s go over the signs. … Aw, the hell with it. Let’s not have any signs.

    “‘And no take signals, either.

    “‘On 3-0, you’re all swinging.

    “‘Anytime you want to steal, then steal.’”

    The clubhouse roared at every line, but Johnson was serious. The way he saw it, the best strategy was no strategy. According to Washington Postcolumnist Thomas Boswell, Johnson’s experience in the country taught him he could rattle the Japanese by throwing the book out the window. Japan would play its way – traditional, disciplined, cautious. The Americans would swagger in and do whatever they darn well pleased.

    “[Baseball officials] figured we weren’t taking it seriously enough,” said Ripken. “They were wrong. We played together great. Davey had jacked our confidence sky-high.”

    The US contingent arrived in Tokyo on October 30. Their hosts welcomed them with an imperial feast, complete with ornate ice sculptures; taikodrums; servers dressed as Geisha offering up sushi, Kobe beef, and other delicacies; and a bottomless well of desserts and alcohol.

    “They really rolled out the red carpet,” marveled Smaal. “Reporters are generally slobs, walking around in T-shirts and jeans. They said, ‘Guys, please, jacket and tie required for this thing.’ What a festival they put on.”

    The next day both teams appeared for workouts at Tokyo’s venerable Korakuen Stadium, Johnson’s home ballpark when he was with the Giants and the site of the series’ opening two games. Michael Shapiro wrote in the New York Times that Johnson looked like “a man who, when his life is rosiest, happens to run into the high school flame who broke his heart.”

    He enjoyed a pleasant reunion with his erstwhile teammate, the great Sadaharu Oh, Yomiuri’s manager, who served as a coach for the Japanese all-stars. As the old friends exchanged pleasantries, Johnson turned to reporters and said, “He was the guy. I used to cry on his shoulder.” Oh replied wistfully, “Good things and bad things.”

    Texas Rangers reliever Greg Harris says the atmosphere was loose, but he and his teammates knew they had a job to do. They prepared almost the way they would have for regular-season games in the States. “It was a mindset of, ‘We’re representing the United States. We better be serious here.’ We didn’t want to lose.”

    The highlight of that first workout was batting practice. Japanese players stood slack-jawed as the Americans launched one ball after another deep into, and sometimes over, the bleachers. After Ripken ripped a drive to the base of the scoreboard, some 450 feet away, three-time NPB Triple Crown winner Hiromitsu Ochiai of the Lotte Orions could only shake his head. “Look at that,” he gasped. “Nobody in Japan could do that, not even me.”

    That spectacle replayed itself throughout the series. “The fans really enjoyed watching power hitters,” according to José Canseco, who reportedly cracked a seat with one of his interstellar pregame shots. “They really got into [batting practice] more than the game.”

    “The ballparks were really, really small and everything was going over the fence,” said Harris. “You’re shagging fly balls, but everything in the air was gone. You might as well have just sat in the stands.”

    Game 1 likely would not have been played in the United States. After ceremonies that featured the Japanese, American, and Canadian national anthems, a persistent drizzle transformed into a steady rain. Even though the grounds crew emerged multiple times to manicure the mound, US pitchers Teddy Higuera and Willie Hernandez each slipped repeatedly in the expanding quagmire. Johnson, alarmed, tried to get the game stopped, but the umpires were determined to squeeze in an official game, risk of injury be damned.

    The rain limited attendance to a disappointing 34,600 but failed to dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm. Fans waved American flags, rattled plastic noisemakers, and bellowed fight songs and chants. That atmosphere was something new for the Americans, including California Angels pitcher Mike Witt.

    “They had cheering sections and drums. It was almost like going to a football game. Constant noise and chatter.” Witt said.

    One recurring song, set to the Mickey Mouse Club theme, drove Cincinnati reliever John Franco to distraction. “I’ll probably fall asleep tonight with that same M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E tune ringing in my ears,” he quipped.

    Amid the din, the Americans took a quick first-inning lead when Ryne Sandberg drove a hanging slider from Yomiuri’s 16-game winner, Suguru Egawa, over the fence for the first run of the series. Moments later, Dale Murphy’s two-run blast made it 3-0.

    In the bottom of the first, the Japanese readied themselves to face Mike Scott, who was an intriguing figure for fans like Shinichi Ota. “Until his visit,” Ota wrote, “the split-fingered fastball was not known in Japan.” Scott had just captured the National League Cy Young Award after winning 18 games and leading the Houston Astros to the NL West title.

    Yoshihiko Takahashi opened the bottom of the first with a single, but Scott immediately picked him off. Japanese baserunning pratfalls became a leitmotif of the series. In those days of Astroturf infields across the major leagues, only the most audacious baserunners would put one foot outside the dirt cutout when taking a lead. Japanese runners, though, routinely took leads with both feet on the turf.

    “It was like, ‘Is this for real?’” said Harris. “Their own pitchers had slow moves, so they were able to get back, but we knew what to do. We’d just pick them off left and right.”

    Then there was Tony Peña behind the plate. His arm was impressive even to Americans; for the Japanese, it was like science fiction. “He picked a runner off second base without standing,” marveled one fan, Hitoshi Morita. “The runner had been walking back to the base and suddenly the second baseman caught the ball and tagged him. It was amazing.”

    Japan cut the lead to 3-2 later in the first on run-scoring hits from Ochiai and Koji Akiyama. Scott’s mysterious split-fingered fastball proved not too perplexing, after all. “I guessed he might not have been carrying his Vaseline in Japan,” joked one fan, Takeyuki Inohiza, referring to Scott’s reputation for doctoring baseballs. Scott blamed the weather. “It was a little wet throwing off that mound. We’re not used to playing when it’s that slick.”

    In the fifth, third baseman Hiromichi Ishige flubbed Murphy’s two-out groundball, which allowed Peña and Tony Gwynn to score and made it 5-2. Meanwhile, Higuera took over for Scott in the middle three innings and allowed just two baserunners while striking out six.

    In the seventh, with the score 6-3, the umpires finally halted play and awarded the game to the Americans. In the press box, Japanese sportswriter Kenichi Haruda turned to a colleague and predicted, “I think this is going to be a bad series for us.”

    By the start of the second game, the skies had cleared and 47,000 packed into Korakuen. Yomiuri’s Hiromi Makihara pitched brilliantly in front of his home fans, striking out five and allowing one hit as Japan led, 2-0, heading into the sixth.

    However, reliever Yutaka Ono immediately stumbled, with walks to Ozzie Smith and Jesse Barfield. Smith scored on a throwing error by the shortstop, Takahashi. Later, after a walk to Ripken, Glenn Davis launched a three-run homer to put the Americans up 4-2. “The pitcher that gave up the big home run to Davis had control problems,” said Johnson. “It looked like he was trying to throw too hard.”

    In the ninth, Barfield’s homer was the centerpiece of a five-run outburst, as the Americans prevailed, 9-2. US pitchers –Witt, Harris, Franco, and Jeff Reardon – combined to strike out 15.

    “The first inning, I got my breaking ball hit consistently,” remembered Witt. “Then I figured out they were really late on the fastball and couldn’t get the gist of the speed and movement of it, so I went with that the rest of the time I was there.”

    “Their style of pitching over there is to spot it, mix it up, and throw off-speed stuff,” Witt said. “The way the hitters get out on their front foot with their hands back is more conducive to hitting breaking balls and off-speed stuff than fastballs.”

    To make it even tougher, series organizers were using a special baseball, one that was a bit lighter than the ball used in the United States but heavier than the one used in Japan. “Trying to hit those fastballs from the American pitchers feels like hitting a steel pipe,” moaned Ochiai. “When I hit the ball, I can feel the vibrations from the impact flow all the way back into my arms. There’s just no way we can beat that kind of pitching.”

    The venue shifted to Seibu Stadium, on the outskirts of Tokyo, for Game 3. Jack Morris, Rick Rhoden, and Hernandez combined on a three-hitter and Peña homered as the visiting stars won their third straight, 3-0, in a brisk 1 hour, 56 minutes.

    The Americans lost one of their catchers during the game. Rich Gedman was warming up Rhoden in the bullpen without a mask when a forkball glanced off the tip of his mitt and shattered his cheekbone.

    “It was kind of messy,” Gedman deadpanned. At the time, his wife was away on a shopping excursion arranged by the series organizers. “The wives had a great time, but mine didn’t, in particular, because she found out that I was traveling on a bullet train to get to her and fly home.”

    Sadao Kondo admitted that reality had landed hard. The Americans looked almost like the bulletproof giants that fans thought they were. “[W]e would like to win at least one game,” the skipper told reporters.

    Next, the teams trekked west to the port city of Fukuoka, on the southernmost island of Kyushu. The venue was Heiwadei Stadium, a historic park built in the shadow of the remnants of a seventeenth-century castle and known for its udon noodle soup. Before 27,000, the Americans hammered Japan, 13-3, on the strength of a 17-hit barrage that featured two home runs apiece from Barfield, Von Hayes, and José Canseco.

    Johnson noted afterward that his hitters were “beginning to come around” after their post-regular-season layoff. Witt figured it was just a matter of time. Japanese pitching was simply overmatched. “They didn’t have anyone throwing 95 over there. Our guys knew they could always [be ready to] react to a breaking ball, knowing they could hit any fastball thrown at them.”

    For Game 5, the series zigzagged about 400 miles back east to Koshien Stadium, near Osaka. With two aboard and the game tied, 2-2, in the seventh inning, Frank White’s groundball devoured Yoshihiko Takahashi at third. Davis and Murphy scored, and the Americans led 4-2. As White told it, Takahashi “came running over to second base, shaking his hand, and shouted, ‘Too strong, too strong.’”

    But moments later, the Japanese pieced together three infield hits, two errors, a wild pitch, and a pair of bloop singles against Reardon, Montreal’s fireballing closer. With the score tied, 4-4, Fujio Tamura of the Nippon Ham Fighters flicked a two-run, bases-loaded single over White’s outstretched glove and into shallow right field for the go-ahead runs.

    The US team got runners to the corners with no one out in the bottom of the eighth, but Hankyu’s Yoshinori Sato struck out Canseco, Davis, and White to snuff out the rally and preserve Japan’s 6-4 victory, its lone win of the series.

    As they traversed the country, the Americans received what was, for most, their first exposure to Japanese culture. The most fascinating things were the minutiae of daily life, things most Japanese probably took for granted.

    “I had never seen cabs that had automatic-open doors,” said Canseco. “They had this car there that looked like a go-cart with a box on it. It must have been maybe six feet long, at the most.”

    The shopping grabbed Greg Harris, specifically a trip to the towering Mizuno flagship store in Tokyo, where he was fitted for his first set of golf clubs. “Each floor was a sport. I had never seen anything like that. We could pick out what we wanted and they would pack it up and send it back.”

    What stood out in Witt’s memory was the traditional chabudai tables in restaurants. “The table we sat at was no more than 18 inches off the ground,” he chuckled. “I’m 6’7”. Mike Scott is about 6’3”. You got Rick Rhoden, Buddy Bell, José Canseco – all these big dudes trying to sit cross-legged, putting our legs under this table. It was not happening.”

    After the ornate welcome banquet, Rob Smaal, the reporter from the Japan Times, took Rhoden and Hayes to Tokyo’s fashionable Roppongi district, where the nightlife is always hopping. “[Hayes] was a super-nice guy. He was interested in seeing everything. I showed him my apartment, which was tiny. He’s like, ‘Wow, that’s impressive that you can live here.’ He wanted to take it all in.”

    Rhoden, not so much. “He was more like the typical American – ‘I can’t believe you’d live in this kind of squalor!’” Smaal said with a laugh.

    Yokohama Stadium, just south of Tokyo, hosted the sixth game, which was a snoozer. Hayes and Cal Ripken each homered twice as the US cruised, 15-3. A notable moment was the final home run for Koji Yamamoto, a stalwart in Hiroshima since 1969 and one of Japan’s premier power hitters, with 536 career home runs.

    “I’ve enjoyed this series, seeing some of my old friends from the States,” Yamamoto reflected. “So, I’m swinging relaxed and the ball just made it into the stands.”

    One of those old friends was Ripken, who had toured Japan with the Orioles two years earlier. Ripken credited his offensive outburst to some pregame advice from Yamamoto. “[He] pointed out that my swing has changed since 1984.” Ripken was a well-known tinkerer, so that wasn’t surprising. However, Yamamoto had an idea. “He suggested I get out in front of the ball more. I tried it and it worked.”

    US Navy Lieutenant Commander Tom Gorsuch of Baltimore hollered, “Way to Go, Cal!” as Ripken rounded the bases after one of his home runs. Gorsuch was among hundreds of American service members in attendance at Game 6, many of whom were stationed at nearby naval installations at Atsugi and Yokosuka. “I’ve been suffering from withdrawal symptoms,” Gorsuch said. “I haven’t seen a big-league game in two years, and before that I’d seen at least one Orioles game every year for 25 years.”

    Petty Officer Mike Honeysett of Detroit secured autographs from the two hometown Tigers on the tour. “Morris and Hernandez all the way. They’re my boys.” Honeysett and his fellow petty officer, Bill Pearson, tried to get the wave going during the game and bellowed “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at high volume. “I just love sports,” said Pearson. “We go to the Mirage Bowl, the Japan Bowl, anything that’s sports from the States, we go.”

    The series concluded back at Korakuen Stadium, where things ended as they had begun. Barfield, Peña, and Davis each homered to lead a 13-hit onslaught and Rhoden spun three-hit ball over five innings as the Americans swamped Japan, 9-4. The US team won six of the seven games, outhomering Japan 19-2 and outscoring them 59-21.

    Peña batted .318, caught every inning after Gedman’s injury, and was named the American MVP. Several other players had magnificent tours, too. Ripken hit .500, while Barfield batted .450 with 4 home runs and 9 RBIs. Hayes hit only .182, but all four of his hits were home runs. Rhoden and Higuera combined for three victories and 15 scoreless innings. The Hanshin Tigers’ Akinobu Okada, who batted .500 (8-for-16), was named Japan’s MVP.

    Davey Johnson thought the quality of play in Japan had deteriorated over the preceding decade. “Guys like Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima, and Koji Yamamoto stood head and shoulders above these guys.” Johnson speculated that if the Japanese all-star team played in a major-league division, they would finish .500 – at best.

    Witt may have been even less impressed. He compared the quality of competition to what one would see in winter ball. “There were [the equivalent of] fringe major leaguers and really good Triple-A players. They were really skilled but did not have the physical prowess that we had.”

    Bob Brown of the Baltimore Orioles, who handled media relations for the series, was confounded. “As long as they’ve been playing the game so seriously, you’d think they’d be able to play us tougher now,” he said.

    The humbling results raised two questions for the Japanese – “What happened?” but also “Who cares?” Inyo.

    Without question, the thorough wipeout was embarrassing. “It’s a mistake to think we can ever challenge the Americans,” said the Triple Crown winner Ochiai. “We’re like a team of Little Leaguers playing adults.”

    Nonetheless, although they looked at the series as an opportunity to measure themselves, and although the series suggested they didn’t measure up very well, the lords of the Japanese game almost seemed to pretend it hadn’t happened. Japan’s approach to baseball emphasized relentless drills and practice, risk-averse in-game strategies, and a rejection of weight-training methods common in the United States. Those philosophies did not shift easily.

    “It gave them something to think about, but it really didn’t change anything,” according to Boomer Wells, who played in Japan until 1992. “It was sort of like if your team hasn’t won a game and you’re playing against the best team – you have nothing to lose, no pressure. That’s kind of how they took it.”

    Maybe it was also because the Japanese saw themselves as playing a fundamentally different game, one that was purer at its core. Kondo conceded the “big difference in speed and power” between his team and the Americans, but journalist Jim Allen argued that there was an unspoken ‘but’ at the end of that phrase.

    “That is a stock quote. In one way it is praise; in another way it is an insult,” Allen explained. “What the Japanese are telling you is, ‘They’re big and strong, but we play the game the right way. We work harder at the fine points of the game. We are craftsmen. They are just big, fast guys who play baseball.’” In other words, sizing up Japan against the Americans was a little like comparing Snoop Dogg and Stravinsky – fun and interesting, sure, but ultimately futile and kind of pointless. That’s how they rationalized it, at least.

    Perhaps the series lacked any immediate overarching impact, but Sadaharu Oh later told Allen that it began to inspire some younger players who would make their names in the future. “Japanese baseball has narrowed the gap quite a bit for a number of reasons,” according to Allen, “but Oh credits a lot of that to the major-league tours of Japan.”

    In the coming years, those other reasons included the trailblazing efforts of Hideo Nomo and Ichiro, Japan’s victories in the World Baseball Classic, and increased television coverage of major-league baseball. But, true to the philosophy of inyo, the twenty-first-century triumphs of Japanese baseball may have taken root in the mire of one of its starkest defeats.

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    Baseball from Mars: The 1986 Super Major Series
  • The 1984 Baltimore Orioles Tour in Japan: The Final Attempt at a True World Series

    The 1984 Baltimore Orioles Tour in Japan: The Final Attempt at a True World Series

    by Carter Cromwell

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week Carter Cromwell tells us about the 1983 Baltimore Orioles visit to Japan.

    When the idea arose of a major-league team making a tour of Japan after the 1984 regular season, the grand vision – the hope – was that a true world series could finally take place.

    It didn’t quite work out that way.

    Ideally, the major-league representative would have been the Detroit Tigers, who outpaced all comers from Opening Day and easily won the World Series. But the logistics weren’t workable, so the 1983 champion Baltimore Orioles were invited. It was envisioned that the Yomiuri Giants – essentially, the New York Yankees of Japanese baseball and owned by the tour sponsor, Yomiuri Shimbun media group – would easily win the Japan Series, as they had so often done.

    It didn’t quite work out that way.

    In 1984 the Orioles slid from World Series champions to fifth place in their division. And the Giants – runners-up in the Japan Series in 1983 – finished third in the Central League and did not make the postseason.

    So the expectations were lowered, and the agenda was rewritten. Rather than two champions battling, the final schedule had the Orioles playing five games against the 1984 Japan Series champion Hiroshima Carp, five games against the Giants, two against a Japanese all-star team, and three against teams comprising players from two different clubs. The trip, spread over 22 days, coincided with the celebration of professional baseball’s 50thanniversary in Japan.

    As one writer noted, “To many Japanese, it was if someone slipped in two glasses of Coke for the Pepsi Challenge.”

    Still, the Japanese always took very seriously opportunities to play against American teams. In the years since, Japan has proved its baseball capabilities, winning the first two World Baseball Classics and the Gold Medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, but at the time the country was still striving to equal the United States, and fans were looking for any evidence that the Japanese game was catching up.

    When Baltimore had its first practice after arriving in Japan, the Japanese press reported on how much power the Orioles displayed. Sadaharu Oh, the former Yomiuri Giants star, Japan’s all-time home-run leader (868), and by then the Giants’ manager, said of the Orioles, “We are going to learn more from them than they get from us. … They are 75 years ahead of us.”

    Many Japanese, though, including Nippon Professional Baseball Commissioner Takezo Shimoda, wondered if the gap was that yawning. While the Japanese didn’t have the power of the Americans, they felt that “like judo masters,” they “could turn the Americans’ strength against them.”

    And, indeed, Baltimore did not have a cakewalk. The Orioles went 8-5-1 overall: 4-1 versus Hiroshima and 4-1 against Yomiuri, but 0-3-1 against the combined teams and all-star teams. The Japanese had certainly improved since the last time Baltimore had come to Japan. The 1971 Orioles, a powerhouse club that had been upset by Pittsburgh in the World Series, toured Japan after that season and posted a 12-2-4 record. Those Orioles were 8-0-3 against the Giants – who had just won their seventh consecutive Japan Series title – including four shutouts and a no-hitter.

    It had been a month since the Orioles had completed their season, while the Carp had finished up their campaign just a week earlier with a victory over the Hankyu Braves in the Japan Series. It was hard to tell how seriously the Americans took the games. It was, after all, an exhibition tour, and a chance for the entourage to sightsee and experience Japan. And of course, the Orioles were getting paid – each player was to receive $22,500 (around $60,000 in 2022 dollars) plus expenses for his family.

    Players said pitchers did not want to risk arm injuries in games that meant nothing as far as a pennant chase went. First baseman Eddie Murray said, “You just come over here to enjoy yourself and try to play a good game of baseball.”

    Baltimore, though, did play five intrasquad games just before leaving home in an effort to stay sharp, and manager Joe Altobelli said, “It would be silly to come all the way over and not give them the best possible Baltimore Orioles.”

    The games began on October 27 at Korakuen Stadium, the home of the Yomiuri Giants from 1937 until 1988, when the Tokyo Dome opened next door. Korakuen Stadium was also, for various periods of time, home to seven other Japanese professional teams, and it housed the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame until the advent of the Tokyo Dome.

    Game 1 was all about Hiroshima left-hander Kazuhisa Kawaguchi. He had just completed his fourth season in NPB with a middling 8-6 record and a 4.23 earned-run average, but he looked like a world-beater against Baltimore. He went the distance, allowed just six hits, and drove in the only run of the game with a second-inning single off Orioles starter Mike Boddicker, who had won 20 games and made the American League All-Star team in 1984.

    Baltimore had three scoring threats. They loaded the bases in the first inning on a single by Cal Ripken Jr., a walk to Eddie Murray, and an infield hit by Gary Roenicke, but couldn’t push across a run. John Shelby got as far as third base in the fifth inning, but he could get no farther, and in the seventh they had runners on first and second with no outs and failed to score. Asked what he thought of the Orioles’ hitters, Kawaguchi said, “I don’t know. They all looked alike to me.” The Carp got only three hits against Boddicker, Bill Swaggerty, and Sammy Stewart, but Kawaguchi made the difference.

    “I want[ed] to see a home run,” said disappointed fan Harumi Michikawa, who was watching American baseball for the first time.

    Altobelli fell back on the tired-but-true cliché: “Good pitching will stop home runs every time. He’s a good kid, Kawaguchi.” “Our pitchers did very well,” Altobelli added. “Boddicker just got one ball up (against Kawaguchi). We’ll win tomorrow.”

    His prediction was on the mark.

    Infielder Todd Cruz, who in 1984 had hit only three home runs in what turned out to be his last season in the major leagues, smacked two the next day and made a diving catch from his third-base spot to lead the Orioles to a 5-3 victory over the Carp. Cruz’s solo shots came in the seventh and ninth innings before a reported crowd of 45,000 in Korakuen Stadium.

    Hiroshima jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the third, but Murray tied the game with an RBI single in the fourth inning. After Cruz homered, Hiroshima rallied with two seventh-inning runs to take a 3-2 lead, but Baltimore regained the lead in the top of the eighth when Murray and Ripken hit RBI singles. Storm Davis went five innings for the Orioles, allowing just one run, and Mark Brown, Tom Underwood, and Nate Snell finished up.

    The atmosphere surrounding the second game was spiced by a flap between managers Altobelli and Takeshi Koba of Hiroshima. Japanese rules at the time required lineups to be exchanged by both managers at the same time 30 minutes prior to a game. Japanese managers would usually reveal their starting pitchers at this time, forcing opposing managers to guess whether their players would be facing a left-handed or right-handed starter. Unaware of this rule, Altobelli brought two lineups to home plate two minutes before the start of game 2 and handed the umpires his preferred lineup once he determined that Koba was starting right-handed Kazuo Yamane.

    “You call this major league?” Koba asked after the game. “We are playing here. We should play by our rules.” Altobelli, who took responsibility for the mix-up before the second game, said simply, “In our minds, all managers think alike. He’s looking for any advantage he can get and I’m doing the same thing.”

    The Orioles gained the advantage, winning the next three games over Hiroshima by scores of 5-3, 7-5, and 5-2.

    In Game 3 before just 15,000 fans on a cold, windy night at Seibu Stadium, the Carp scored on a first-inning sacrifice fly by Koji Yamamoto (an eventual Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame inductee) and a two-run home run off Ken Dixon in the fourth by outfielder Tatsuaki Ogawa. However, Larry Sheets helped the Orioles overcome the early deficit. His seventh-inning solo home run tied the game, 3-3, and the Orioles took the lead later in the inning when Ripken tripled and came on home on Murray’s sacrifice fly. In the next inning, Sheets doubled home Al Bumbry for an important insurance run.

    Sheets, who had been called up late in the season after batting .302 at the Triple-A level, said the Japan series was “a proving time for me. Good play will give me a better chance to make the team next year.”His .400 average, 4 home runs, and 11 RBIs on the tour led to a long look in spring training of 1985 and an eventual eight-year big-league career.

    The next night, October 31, before 20,000 fans in Yokohama Stadium, Baltimore again came from behind to win. The Orioles scored four times in the top of the ninth inning on a single by Jim Traber, a pinch-hit double by Ken Singleton, and a two-run single by Lenn Sakata. That rally came just after Hiroshima had scored twice in the bottom of the eighth inning on hits by Shinji Hara and Kiyoshi Yamanaka to take a short-lived 5-3 lead.

    Hiroyuki Saito had given the Carp a 2-0 lead on a home run off Orioles starter Dennis Martinez. Sheets then doubled in a run in the third inning, and Sakata’s groundout in the fourth tied the score. Sheets hit another RBI double in the seventh inning, but Hiroshima tied the game in the bottom of the inning on a single by Yoshihiko Takahashi.

    A day later, 16,000 spectators in Osaka saw Murray drive in three runs with two home runs and Vic Rodriguez hit a two-run shot to lead Baltimore to a 5-2 victory and a 4-1 series win over Hiroshima. Kawaguchi was less successful than in his first outing, giving up three runs and eight hits in five innings. Mike Flanagan started for the Orioles and allowed four hits over five scoreless innings. Stewart earned his first save of the series. Altobelli said afterward that “[a]fter the loss in the first game, I thought it would be a little tough. But we played the best game of the series today.”

    The Orioles and Yomiuri Giants played the first of five games between the teams two days afterward, and Baltimore won, 7-4, on the strength of home runs by Murray, Ripken, and Sakata. Murray’s homer, a three-run shot, came in the first inning, and Ripken’s blast in the fifth gave the visitors a 5-1 advantage before 50,000 fans in Korakuen Stadium. Sakata homered in the sixth inning.

    Davis allowed four runs and eight hits in his five innings, while Snell and Stewart combined to hold the Giants hitless in the final four innings. Yomiuri starter Takashi Nishimoto, who had posted a 15-11 record in the regular season, gave up five runs and seven hits in his five innings of work. Outfielder Sadaaki Yoshimura was 3-for-5 with an RBI for the Giants. (Yoshimura batted .433 in seven games during the tour.)

    On November 4 Baltimore faced an all-star team made up of players from the 12 NPB teams and lost 5-4 as its three-run ninth-inning rally fell short. All-Japan scored single runs in each of the first three innings on a hit by Masayuki Kakefu of the Hanshin Tigers, a home run by Masaru Uno of the Chunichi Dragons, and another RBI single by Kakefu. Murray, who batted .367 with 9 home runs and 21 RBIs on the tour, homered in the seventh inning, but the all-stars scored twice in the eighth on run-scoring singles by Makoto Shimada of the Nippon Ham Fighters and Takayuki Kono of the Nankai Hawks. Baltimore got a two-run homer by Ripken and a solo shot from Murray in the ninth to get within a run, but reliever Kazuhiko Ushijima of the Dragons stopped the bleeding by striking out Sheets, Traber, and Singleton to end the game.

    All-Japan took another one-run victory two days later in Okayama, scoring six runs in the eighth inning to erase a 7-2 deficit and win 8-7. Stewart, who had saved four games earlier in the Orioles’ tour, didn’t have it this time. With two out in the eighth, he walked two batters to force in a run, allowed a two-run single to Masataka Nashida of the Kintetsu Buffaloes, and later gave up a three-run home run to Yomiuri second baseman Kazunori Shinozuka, who had led the Japanese Central League that season with a .334 batting average. Baltimore had gained its lead largely on the strength of three runs in the seventh and two in the eighth. Sheets hit a two-run homer in the seventh.

    The next game, played in a light drizzle before 16,000 fans in Hiroshima, featured Baltimore against a team comprising players from the Carp and the Giants. The game was called after nine innings and ended in a 5-5 tie. The Orioles scored twice in the first inning on Traber’s two-run homer, in the second on Gary Roenicke’s solo shot, and once in the fourth on Murray’s sixth homer of the series. Yoshimura hit a two-run homer in the third inning off Martinez and got another run in the fourth when third baseman Victor Rodriguez misplayed a groundball, allowing Kiyoyuki Nagashima to score from third base. Nagashima scored again in the sixth inning from third base when Orioles reliever Mark Brown dropped the ball while covering first base. Mitsuo Tatsukawa then hit a double to give the Japanese a 5-4 lead, but Traber hit his second home run of the game in the eighth to tie the score.

    Next, on November 9, the Orioles played the Giants again, this time in Kumamoto, and won 11-6, capitalizing on a 14-hit attack and four Yomiuri errors. Ripken, who batted .315 on the tour, was 4-for-5 with a home run, and Sheets, Cruz, and Rick Dempsey also homered. The Giants scored five runs in the fourth inning to take a 5-2 lead, but Baltimore rallied with six runs in the fifth as Dempsey, Ripken, and Cruz homered, and two more runs scored on a wild pickoff attempt.

    The teams traveled to Kokura, in southwestern Japan, for the next game. Playing before a crowd of 26,000, the Orioles held off a furious rally by Yomiuri to win 9-8. The Orioles jumped to a 4-0 lead after two innings – Rich Dauer’s two-run homer in the second was the highlight – and added five more in the fifth and sixth innings to lead, 9-3. Bumbry, a .360 hitter on the tour, homered in the fifth, and he and Floyd Rayford did the same in the sixth. The Giants nearly came all the way back, though, as Yasutomo Suzuki hit a two-run shot in the eighth inning and then two Baltimore errors in the ninth aided a three-run outburst that fell just short of tying the game. Though shaky, Swaggerty pitched the final two innings and managed to hold off the Giants, who outhit the Orioles 14 to 12.

    The same teams played again the next day before 31,000 in Kokura, and Baltimore had to again hold off a Yomiuri rally. Three-run homers by Murray and Sheets helped the visitors to a 9-0 lead after 4½ innings, but Yomiuri scored five times in the last half of the fourth, the big hit being a two-run home run by Kenji Awaguchi. The Orioles got a run in the fifth on Mike Young’s homer and then three more in the eighth to lead 13-5. The Giants, however, scored four runs in the eighth and ninth innings against Stewart to make the final score 13-9. Snell, the second Baltimore pitcher, picked up his fourth win of the tour. Giants starter Hiromi Makihara took the loss. Shelby, Sheets, and Murray combined for 10 RBIs, and Sheets went 4-for-5 at the plate.

    The next stop was Nagoya on November 13, where Baltimore played a team composed of players from the Dragons and Giants, who had finished second and third respectively in the Central League’s regular season. The Japanese team took a 5-1 lead after three innings, the big blow being a three-run homer in the third by Chunichi’s Masaru Uno. After Murray ripped a two-run shot in the sixth, Uno answered with a solo homer in the bottom of the inning. The Japanese scored twice more in the seventh, and Ripken homered for the Orioles in the eighth but it wasn’t enough as the Japanese won 8-4.

    A couple of days later, the Giants got a measure of revenge by defeating Baltimore 10-5 at Kusanagi Stadium in Shizuoka. Yomiuri scored all its runs in the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings. The Orioles held a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the fifth. Coincidentally, just as Altobelli was telling a Japanese television interviewer that he was impressed with how the Japanese teams could create big innings, the Giants got to Flanagan, the Orioles starter. Yoshimura’s three-run home run was the highlight of a five-run outburst that got a laugh out of Singleton. “I’ll always remember Flanny for his sense of humor,” Singleton said. “I’ll never forget … when Altobelli went to the mound to ask [Flanagan] what was wrong, and he said, ‘That’s the problem with being on this side of the earth. My pitches go the other way.’”

    The Giants got three more runs in the sixth inning and then a two-run homer in the seventh by first baseman Kiyoshi Nakahata, who batted .571 in eight games during the tour. Cruz, Roenicke, and Murray all homered for Baltimore, but their efforts weren’t nearly enough, as the Orioles got only five hits off four Yomiuri pitchers.

    Baltimore was to play the next day in Kawasaki against a combination team of Lotte Orions and Yokohama Taiyo Whales players, but bad weather canceled the game and ended the tour.

    Statistically, the Orioles played somewhat better than their hosts. They had a .269 team batting average to .263 for the Japanese. Baltimore had a huge 35-12 advantage in home runs, but outscored the Japanese only 87-77 over the 14 games. Murray hit nine home runs for the Orioles, tied for the third highest total for a player during a single tour; only Babe Ruth with 13 in 1934 and Hank Sauer with 12 in 1953 had hit more. (Johnny Bench also hit nine in 1978.) The Orioles’ 35 home runs topped their 1971 tour total by one but did not come close to surpassing the team totals for the 1934 All-Americans (47), the 1953 Eddie Lopat All-Stars (42), or the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers (40).

    Singleton remembered the frustration Murray’s power display caused the Japanese pitchers. “Once we were playing in one of the old outdoor stadiums, and the opposing pitcher threw at Eddie’s head and knocked him down,” Singleton said. “Eddie got up, stared at the pitcher, and then ripped the next pitch. The fans all stood up, hoping someone would catch it, but it went completely out of the ballpark – 500-something feet.”

    “He was deliberately slow rounding the bases; I bet he took 30 minutes to do it,” Singleton added with a laugh. “We were yelling at the Japanese pitcher to keep throwing at us.”

    Uno led the Japanese in home runs with three in the three games in which he played. Awaguchi batted .429 in 14 at-bats. Hiroshima third baseman Sachio Kinugasa, an eventual Japanese Hall of Famer, hit just .136 in eight games. Kinugasa later surpassed Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-games streak and finished with 2,215.

    On the pitching side, the Orioles posted a 4.83 earned-run average, while the Japanese had a 5.71 mark. Snell was the most impressive Orioles pitcher, going 4-0 with a 1.08 ERA. He had gone 1-1 with a 2.35 ERA in seven innings after a late-season call-up in 1984. Club officials had thought he was 29 years old, but when they arranged for his passport prior to the Japan trip, they discovered that he was 32. Nonetheless, he stuck with the Orioles in 1985 and went 3-2 with a 2.69 ERA, pitching 100 innings – all in relief. He then played two additional seasons in the majors.

    Of the Japanese pitchers, 24-year-old Kazuhisa Kawaguchi had a 2.25 ERA in 16 innings over three games, and he struck out 16 batters. He went on to have an 18-season NPB career. Only two others – Suguru Egawa and Takashi Nishimoto, both of the Giants – pitched at least 10 innings. Egawa had a 3.00 ERA, and Nishimoto’s was 5.40. Two of the Japanese pitchers – Manabu Kitabeppu of Hiroshima and Masaki Saito of the Giants – later made the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. Kitabeppu, who had just completed the ninth of his eventual 19 NPB seasons, threw nine innings and posted a 4.00 ERA. Saito, who had just completed his rookie season, allowed seven hits and two walks in four innings and had an 11.25 ERA.

    Inevitably, key topics of conversation were the differences between the US and Japanese styles of play and how well the Japanese matched up against the Americans. That is still true today, but it was even more so at that time, when fewer Americans were knowledgeable about Japanese baseball.

    Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey noted the contrast between the small ball of the Japanese and the wait-for-the-big-inning Americans that still exists, saying, “The Japanese like to hit and run. They like to steal bases. They generally play a much more aggressive, a little quicker game than the Americans do.”

    As previous American players had learned, the umpires’ strike zone for foreign players can be much wider. As Sakata remarked, “If you’ve got a strike zone from your neck to the ground, it’s hard to hit.”

    Stan Isle explained in The Sporting News:

    The Orioles’ exhibition tour of Japan provided some interesting contrasts in baseball technique. Ray Miller, Baltimore pitching coach, was surprised to learn that most Japanese pitchers throw hard every day and warm up much longer than their American counterparts. “The Japanese pitchers could throw a lot harder if they didn’t have them throwing 24 hours a day,” Miller said. He also noted that most Japanese pitchers have a hitch in the middle of their lengthy windups … [something major leaguers would discover 11 years later when Hideo Nomo debuted with the Los Angeles Dodgers]. Also, many Japanese hitters have hitches in their swings and lift their front feet in the manner of Sadaharu Oh. “They can get away with that stuff because the Japanese pitchers can’t throw hard enough,” said Ralph Rowe, Orioles batting instructor. Pitcher Sammy Stewart found Japanese hitters especially anxious to protect the plate on a two-strike count. “It’s like it’s a sin for them to strike out,” Stewart said, “but it’s OK to ground out.”

    Clyde Haberman of the New York Times noted, “Japanese teams spend many more hours in practice than the Americans are used to. Players carry their own bags and bats. The Japanese put far more emphasis on fundamentals. … Americans who insist that they know more about the game usually find their suggestions ignored, and sometimes scorned. The concept of team play almost always overrides individual considerations. Displays of temper and hurt, regarded by many American players as marks of desire and hustle, tend to be viewed by Japanese as selfish.”

    “A lot of guys get here thinking it will be easy [in Japan] hitting 30, 35 homers, batting .300,” said Tim Ireland, who played for the Carp in 1983 and ’84. “Then they find it’s a lot harder than they thought, and many just can’t deal with the Japanese way of doing things. I’ve gotten where I can tell in a few minutes whether someone is going to make it. … The biggest problem is communication. You’re isolated a lot of the time, with a language you don’t know and, for some families, it’s a style of living they can’t adjust to. In the States, if you’re a ballplayer, you’re just a commodity. But here you’re an imported commodity, and it’s worse.”

    In the wake of the tour, opinions seemed to be leaning slightly toward the sentiment that the Japanese game was getting better vis-à-vis the American game. After the first game, Altobelli commented, “Our team is superior in power and the Carp in speed. A trade between the two teams would make the best team.”

    Singleton, who had also played on the 1979 American League all-star team that toured Japan, said he wasn’t impressed with the Japanese pitchers at that time but “was more so when we went back there in 1984. They moved the ball around a lot and threw from different angles. And, certainly, they’ve had guys come over to the US since then and do well.”

    The mass-circulation newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, whose conglomerate owns the Yomiuri Giants, wrote that “the Orioles’ win-loss record shows that Japanese players’ abilities are almost the same as American players, but it is still true that Japanese pro baseball is behind the US in terms of power and speed of its players.”

    The 31-year quest for an international world series by matching the Japanese and major league champions in an exhibition series had failed yet again. Beginning in 1953 Japanese organizers had tried to predict the World Series winner and invite that team to Japan. Although the predictions sometimes came close, a reigning World Series champion had never visited the Land of the Rising Sun. It was time for a change. The Orioles became the last major league club to face the Japanese champion in post-season exhibition series. The next time major leaguers visited Japan it would be under a new format.

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    The 1984 Baltimore Orioles Tour in Japan: The Final Attempt at a True World Series
  • A Near Escape: the 1981 Kansas City Royals Tour of Japan

    A Near Escape: the 1981 Kansas City Royals Tour of Japan

    by Chris Hicks

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week Chris Hicks tells us about the 1981 Kansas City Royals visit to Japan.

    For decades it had been the hope of Matsutaro Shoriki, the owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun Group, a conglomerate that produces the Yomiuri Shimbunnewspaper and owns the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, that there would one day be a “true world series” played between the champions of the World Series and the Japan Series. After Matsutaro’s death in 1969, his son Toru continued the dream. The concept gained traction in 1971 when Commissioner Bowie Kuhn accompanied the Baltimore Orioles on their Japanese tour. When he returned to the States, Kuhn announced that he and the baseball commissioner of Japan, Nobumoto Ohama, had agreed to a “‘joint feasibility study’ of an international World Series.” Although no agreement emerged from the study, Shoriki continued to invite championship-caliber major-league teams to face off against the Japanese champion. Arrangements for the postseason tours, however, had to begin before the start of each season so Shoriki needed to guess which club would win the World Series. In 1974 he invited the New York Mets, a season after they had won the National League pennant, and in 1978 the Cincinnati Reds, but neither came to Japan as the reigning World Series champion.

    Early in 1981, Shoriki invited the Kansas City Royals, the defending American League champions, gambling on their continued success. Should the Royals win the 1981 World Series and the Yomiuri Giants win the Japan Series, then the eight scheduled games between the teams would fulfill the dream of a “true world series.” The Royals’ full schedule in Japan consisted of 17 games played in 14 cities between October 28 and November 24,1981.

    But the 1981 season was filled with frustration for the Royals. The team struggled in the first half of the season with a 20-30 record before the players union went on strike on June 12. The strike ended 50 days later. As the players returned to the field for the All-Star Game in Cleveland on August 9, the owners hammered out the logistics of the interrupted season. The division leaders when the strike began would face the division winners (based on records after the strike) of the post-strike season in the playoffs.

    Not long after the season resumed, the Royals fired manager Jim Frey and replaced him with Dick Howser. The team went on to win 30 of its last 53 games and finish at the top of the AL West Division in the season’s second half. The season’s arbitrary break into unequal halves shut some teams with overall winning records out of the playoffs. In the AL West, the Royals, with an overall 50-53 season record, went to the postseason while the Texas Rangers (57-48) and Chicago White Sox (54-52) stayed home. Royals third baseman George Brett, commenting on the Royals’ inclusion in the playoffs, said, “We don’t belong. We know it.” Oakland swept the Royals to advance to the second round of the playoffs.

    Looking for a better 1982 season, Howser used the games in Japan to test staff changes and prepare his team. Immediately after the season, the Royals had hired Cloyd Boyer as the pitching coach and Joe Nossek as the third-base coach so that these integral members of the coaching staff could use the trip to get to know the team’s players. Coach Jim Schaffer and minor-league instructor Gary Blaylock also accompanied the team.

    The Royals took nearly all of their regular players to Japan, including stars Brett, Frank White, Willie Wilson, Dennis Leonard, and Dan Quisenberry. The only regular not making the trip was center fielder Amos Otis, who had just signed a new two-year contract and declined to go, stating that his priority was healing a leg injury and preparing for the 1982 season. Howser brought along a handful of young players who spent most of the 1981 season with Triple-A Omaha. The tour offered an ideal opportunity to evaluate Onix Concepcion, Tim Ireland, Pat Sheridan, Daryl Motley, and Atlee Hammaker.

    For Hammaker, the Japan tour was not just about baseball. In 1954, after serving in the Korean War, his father, Col. Charles A. Hammaker, was stationed in Kyoto, where he met his future wife, Saeko. As a child, Atlee lived in Japan for a year with his grandparents, an aunt, and his mother while his father served in the Vietnam War. Hammaker’s grandmother was at the airport to greet her grandson and the rest of the Royals team when they arrived on October 28.

    The team spent two days resting and practicing before beginning the 17-game series on Saturday, October 31. The first two games were against the Central League champion Yomiuri Giants in what the organizers had hoped would be the opening games of the unofficial international world series.

    A crowd of 32,000 came to Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo to watch Jim Wright face Giants ace Suguru Egawa, who captured the 1981 Central League MVP honors with a 20-6 record and a 2.28 ERA. Despite giving up two hits in the first inning and six hits overall, Egawa pitched well, blanking the Royals though four innings. “[He] had good control today,” said Wilson. “He can make it in the majors.” By the fifth inning, however, Wilson noticed something. “He was running the same pattern on me, fastball, curveball, fastball, curveball. … [H]e threw the fastball, so I waited for the curve.” Wilson guessed right and sent the next pitch into the right-field stands to give the Royals a 2-0 lead. The Royals added another run in the seventh when Wilson singled to score Clint Hurdle. Meanwhile, Wright held the Giants to three hits before Hammaker entered the game in relief in the fifth inning. With his Japanese relatives in the stands watching, Hammaker pitched three one-hit, shutout innings to earn the 3-0 victory before Quisenberry closed out the game. Howser praised his pitchers’ performances: “Our pitchers were too good for the Giants.”

    In the third inning Hal McRae collided with Giants second baseman Kazunori “Toshio” Shinozuka while breaking up a double play, injuring his calf. McRae was removed from the field on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. He missed the next four games and was not at full strength when he returned.

    The second game between the Royals and Giants at Korakuen was an extra-inning nailbiter. The Royals scored in the fourth inning as Frank White doubled off Giants starter Takashi Nishimoto and later scored on a balk. The Giants came back with a vengeance in the bottom of the inning when Yasutomo Suzuki hit a two-run double and Takashi Yoshida hit a pitch from Rich Gale over the outfield wall to score three more runs, making it a 5-1 ballgame. The Royals responded with two in the fifth on a two-run home run by Onix Concepcion but missed an opportunity for a third run when Frank White was unable to knock in Willie Wilson, who tripled with two outs. Home runs by George Brett in the sixth and Jamie Quirk in the seventh tied the game, 5-5. The Giants had opportunities in the sixth and eighth innings but failed to score. Yomiuri reliever Mitsuo Sumi struck out seven Royals in a row in the eighth and ninth and the beginning of the 10th before Concepcion doubled, stole third, and scored on a single by Wilson. Renie Martin held the Giants scoreless in the bottom of the 10th for the thrilling 6-5 victory.

    The Royals enjoyed the Japanese fans and their cheering sections with their rhythmic chants accompanied by horns, drums, and whistles. Quisenberry and Martin made up songs to the beat. “We kinda hot dog for them during batting practice and make them laugh,” said Quisenberry. They’re so much nicer than American fans. No fights in the stands, always polite, quick to laugh.”

    The third game of the series had the Royals taking on a new opponent, the Japanese All-Stars, at Korakuen Stadium on Tuesday, November 3. Six future members of the Japanese baseball Hall of Fame appeared in the game: Yutaka Fukumoto, Tatsunori Hara, Choji Murata, Hiromitsu Ochiai, Tsutomu Wakamatsu, and Koji Yamamoto. The scoring got underway in the first on a two-run homer by Willie Aikens. But in the bottom of the first, Tomohisa Shoji began with a double off Larry Gura. Gura then walked Hiromichi Ishige and threw a wild pitch, allowing the runners to move up a base. Yamamoto singled Shoji home and Ochiai singled to score Ishige. Hara followed with a three-run inside-the-park home run to give the All-Stars a 5-2 lead. Shoji added another run with a solo homer in the second. Neither team scored again until the top of the seventh inning, when Brett hit a solo home run off reliever Tatsuo Komtasu. In the bottom of the inning, Ishige put the final nail in the Royals’ coffin with a solo homer of his own, handing the Royals their first defeat of the series. Japanese Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko witnessed the 7-3 victory.

    The Royals saw new surroundings but a familiar opponent when they played in Sendai’s Miyagi Baseball Stadium against the Yomiuri Giants on November 5. Yomiuri began with a run in the first inning as Yasuyuki Nakai doubled off Atlee Hammaker and came home on Kazunori Shinozuka’s single. The Giants scored three more in the third. Starting pitcher Shoji Sadaoka singled, Tadashi Matsumoto tripled, and Nakai hit another double before scoring on a fly out by Shinozuka. Yomiuri struck for three more runs off relief pitcher Jim Wright in the seventh inning to make the final score 7-0. Sadaoka gave up just one hit in six innings and reliever Hisao Niura pitched three innings of two-hit shutout ball to draw the series even at two wins and two losses. Yomiuri manager Motoshi Fujita noted, “Sadaoka succeeded in keeping the balls low and his balls were quite well controlled today.”

    In the fifth game the Royals played southwest of Tokyo at Yokohama Stadium against a combined team of Taiyo Whales and Yomiuri Giants. The Royals had no trouble getting runners on base but struggled to get them across home plate in a 9-1 drubbing. In a sloppy first inning, the Japanese scored three runs on two walks, two errors by Brett, a sacrifice fly and a passed ball. The Royals pushed a run across in the second inning on Pat Sheridan’s sacrifice fly with the bases loaded but the Japanese added runs in the third and sixth innings to lead 5-1 before Tomio Tashiro sealed the game with a three-run homer in the seventh. The Giants-Whales added a final run in the eighth. The Royals offense left 13 runners on base. Howser noted, “Our boys are hitting well … but the ground is slippery resulting in many errors. We will try to win three straight games from Sunday.” While their husbands were playing, the wives did a little sightseeing. They visited Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park and the Great Buddha, a 37-foot bronze statue dating from the thirteenth century, in Kamakura.

    The series returned to Korakuen Stadium as the Royals took on the Giants in the sixth game on Sunday, November 8. Kansas City jumped out to an early lead as Brett hit a solo home run (his third of the series) in the first off Yomiuri starter Hajime Kato, but the lead was fleeting as starter Dennis Leonard gave up a grand slam to Kenji Awaguchi in the third inning. Willie Aikens and Yasutomo Suzuki also hit solo home runs as Yomiuri won, 6-2. The loss was the Royals’ fourth straight and the visitors had a dismal 2-4 record.

    In Game 7 on Tuesday, November 10, at Seibu Stadium, a combined Yomiuri Giants-Seibu Lions team looked to hand the Royals their fifth straight loss. George Brett started things off with a two-run home run in the first inning off starter Masayuki Matsunuma. But the lead was lost in the second inning when the Japanese scored four against starter Paul Splittorff, highlighted by a two-run double by Hiromichi Ishige and a solo home run by Tatsunori Hara. Brett struck back with a solo homer in the third to narrow the score to 4-3. The Japanese however, solidified their lead in the next inning as Ishige doubled in two runs after a successful double steal by Yoshiie Tachibana and Takanori Okamura. Hara knocked in the final run in the fifth inning on a sacrifice fly to hand the Royals a 7-3 loss. With the loss, the Royals had dropped five straight, setting the record for the most consecutive losses by a major-league team in a postseason tour of Japan. After the game, Howser said he “regretted” being the first American pro manager to lose five straight in Japan. He noted that his pitching staff “was in poor condition” and that except for Brett the Royals “couldn’t buy a hit.”

    The Giants and Royals left the Tokyo area the next day. The fans at Kusanagi Ballpark in Shizuoka were treated to a pitchers’ duel between the Royals’ Mike Jones and the Giants’ Hisao Niura in the eighth game. Over the first five innings, Jones blanked the Giants on one hit and Niura nearly matched him with two hits surrendered. Kazuaki Fujishiro replaced Niura in the top of the sixth and gave up a leadoff double to U.L. Washington. Washington moved to third on a fly out and scored on John Wathan’s single. Relievers Renie Martin and Dan Quisenberry locked down the game with four innings of one-hit shutout ball as the Royals won, 1-0. “I’m relieved,” said Howser after the win. “Our pitching has shaped up and [I] think we could play better in the remaining games.”

    The next day, November 12, the teams traveled west to Nagoya, where Kansas City played a combined Yomiuri and Chunichi Dragons team in the ninth game of the series. Brett continued hitting the ball well, belting a solo homer off starter Tatsuo Komatsu in the first inning. From there on, however, the only scoring came from the Japanese squad. Royals starter Larry Gura struggled, giving up a two-run homer to Yasunori Oshima and two solo home runs to Masaru Uno. After the 5-1 loss, Howser noted, “A homer by George Brett isn’t enough to win a ballgame.”

    Games 10 through 12 occurred in the area around Kyoto and Osaka. The schedule also allowed time for the Royals to do some sightseeing. The group shot the rapids on the Hozu River in traditional flat-bottomed boats steered with oars and powered by the current and bamboo poles. They also went to Nijo Castle in Kyoto, a home of the Shogun from the early 1600s, that was later named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The touring party not only enjoyed the cultural sites but also shopping and eating. “The Royals are eating plenty of things they can’t spell and … some things they’d rather not have identified,” wrote Mike McKenzie of the Kansas City Star. “We’re eating like kings,” said Quisenberry. “Some guys are gaining weight. Not getting like Sumo wrestlers, but gaining.” During his brief time in Japan, Quisenberry became a Sumo fan. “They’re better than our pro wrestling. They psych each other out, and they’re for real. I can’t understand anything they’re saying, but it’s fun to watch.”

    On Saturday, November 14, the Royals played a Yomiuri and Hankyu Braves combined team at Nishinomiya Stadium. The teams stayed locked in a pitching duel with the score tied 1-1 until the eighth inning. Royals starter Dennis Leonard surrendered just the one run and three hits in seven innings, while the Japanese used four pitchers to hold the Royals. In the top of the eighth, designated hitter Hal McRae clocked a two-run homer off reliever Tomoyuki Sekiguchi to take the lead. In the bottom half of the inning, Quisenberry relieved Leonard and gave up a two-run home run to Kenji Awaguchi that tied the game at 3-3. The game remained scoreless through the 10th inning and then was declared a tie.

    With the 3-6-1 record, the Japanese media claimed the Royals were either not taking the tour seriously or were just not that good. After the 10 games, the Japanese had outhit them .238 (78-for-328) to .217 (74-for-341) and outscored them 49 to 23. Fans complained that they paid $22 to $25 a ticket to see “a feeble American team.”

    “We are trying,” said Dennis Leonard. “They are just embarrassing us. We’ve been outhit, outpitched, outplayed. I think when we came over here, we thought it was going to be a cakewalk. Instead, we’re struggling.” George Brett said, “Nobody likes to lose. We’re professionals. We go out and try to win every game. We just can’t seem to get the big hit when we need it.”

    “The team is mad,” said Quisenberry. “It’s depressing. A lot of guys 5-feet-6 and 150 pounds are hitting home runs against us. Their pitchers are throwing straight fastballs, letter high, and we’re popping up and striking out. The game is over, and we’re beaten 7-1, and we can’t figure out why or how. … Players come back to the bench after striking out or giving up a key hit, and they’re mad at the world. Not quite like the regular season, but almost. We don’t like to get embarrassed.”

    Howser and some players blamed the losses on the lengthy layoff between the end of the Royals’ season and the start of the games in Japan, noting that the Japanese had ended their playoffs only days before the start of the tour. “Not working out before we came hurt us more than I thought it would,” noted McRae. “Personally, I’m not in good shape,” Leonard admitted. “In previous years, we probably could have overcome [the layoff],” said Frank White. “But the Japanese players have improved, especially their pitching.” Quisenberry agreed: “About 50 percent of the pitchers I’ve seen could play in the major leagues. They are much more surehanded than we are in the field. … Their hitters are very disciplined, hardly ever striking out with their short, compact swings.”

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    A Near Escape: the 1981 Kansas City Royals Tour of Japan
  • The 1979 Major League All-Star Series in Japan

    The 1979 Major League All-Star Series in Japan

    by Carter Cromwell

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week Carter Cromwell tells us about the 1979 MLB All-Stars visit to Japan.

    When a group of major-league baseball all-stars traveled to Japan in November 1979 for a series of games, it represented a shift, of sorts. Since the end of World War II, most baseball tours of Japan had been by single teams. A US all-star team had not played in Japan since the Eddie Lopat All-Stars made the trek after the 1953 season.

    The 1979 tour was dreamed up by Philadelphia Phillies Vice President Bill Giles and Cappy Harada, who was born in Santa Maria, California, to Japanese parents and at the time was director of the international division of the Major League Baseball Promotion Corporation. This was the first time the United States had sent complete American League and National League all-star teams to Japan for a series.

    The American squad was divided evenly among American Leaguers and National Leaguers and was managed by the Orioles’ Earl Weaver and the Dodgers’ Tom Lasorda respectively. The schedule ran from November 7 to November 20, with the US teams playing seven games against each other and a combined US club playing twice against a team of Japanese players.

    In the years since, the Japanese have consistently demonstrated their baseball prowess in various international competitions. But though it had made strides, the game in Japan in 1979 was still not the equal of the game in the United States, so the Japanese were eager to see the Americans play. Virtually every ticket for every game was sold in advance, with the most expensive costing $22,or about $89.79 in 2022 dollars.

    Of course, the Japanese weren’t unfamiliar with US players, since they could watch videotaped highlights of US games on television on Sundays, and newspapers and magazines in the country reported on the major leagues. An Associated Press story noted, “[Pete] Rose is at least as familiar a name in Japan as Jimmy Carter. The escapades of Reggie Jackson and the salary hassles of [Dave] Parker are followed with keen interest. Ever since American teachers introduced the game to Japan in the 1870s, the Japanese have looked upon America as baseball’s holy land – at the same time aspiring to build their own version to match it.”

    So actually seeing the Americans play in person was an exciting proposition.

    Though some like Jim Rice, George Brett, and Jack Clark had to pull out of the tour beforehand for various reasons, the US roster was loaded. It included eventual Hall of Famers Rod Carew, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, Ted Simmons, Paul Molitor, and Phil Niekro. The California Angels’ Don Baylor was coming off the best season of his career, in which he had hit 36 home runs, driven in 139 runs, and was voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player. Others might be classified in the so-called Hall of the Very, Very Good – players like Parker, Cecil Cooper, Lance Parrish, Larry Bowa, Bill Madlock, Jim Sundberg, Dennis Martinez, Tug McGraw, and Ken Singleton. Singleton, in fact, finished second to Baylor in the MVP voting that year after hitting 35 home runs, driving in 111 runs, and posting a .938 OPS. There was also Rose, who would be in the Hall if not for his gambling issues.

    “[Rose] is my favorite American player,” said Japanese Hall of Famer Sadaharu Oh, who holds the world career home-run record (868). “He never misses a game.”

    Nonetheless, a spokesman for the Japanese baseball commissioner’s office said the Japan team will be “playing to win.” And there was no doubt that it was a strong club. Compiled by a vote of sportswriters, it included eight players who would eventually gain induction into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame – first baseman Oh, plus outfielders Yutaka Fukumoto, Koji Yamamoto, and Tsutomu Wakamatsu, and pitchers Choji Murata, Keishi Suzuki, Hisashi Yamada, and Manabu Kitabeppu.

    Oh, of course, was the biggest name. He had even received a National Hero Award from the Japanese government after exceeding Hank Aaron’s career record of 755 home runs. Sometimes referred to as the Bamboo Bambino by the Japanese news media, he had a slash line of .301/.446/.634 over 22 seasons with the Yomiuri Giants. He drove in 2,170 runs in his career, even though the Nippon Professional Baseball season was 22 to 32 games shorter than that of the American majors.

    “I really like to watch Oh swing,” Rose said. “He picks up his front leg but doesn’t go forward until he’s ready to commit himself. He keeps his hands and his weight back until he’s ready to swing.”

    In 1979, at the age of 39, Oh had just completed his next-to-last season and had hit 33 home runs while batting .285, driving in 81 runs, and posting a .980 OPS. To many, that would have been very good, especially at that age, but Oh found it unacceptable. “I had a very disappointing year,” he said. “I hurt my side and missed several weeks. I had 33 home runs … but drove in only 81 runs. Five years ago, I had ‘only’ 33 home runs but drove in 118. And besides, the [Yomiuri] Giants finished 10½ games out this year. Very sad.”

    Other Japanese players were nearly as transcendent as Oh, though not well known to most Americans. An 11-time all-star, Tsutomu Wakamatsu posted a .319/.375/.481 career slash line, won two batting titles, and as of 2023 still held the second-highest career batting average in Nippon Professional Baseball history for players with 4,000 or more at-bats. He was the Central League Most Valuable Player and MVP of the Japan Series in 1978. In 1979 he batted .306 with an .871 OPS. Koji Yamamoto was a 13-time all-star for the Hiroshima Carp, a 10-time winner of the Diamond Glove Award, and seven consecutive seasons the leader in assists among outfielders. At the time of the 1979 series, he was coming off a .293 season with a 1.002 OPS.

    Yutaka Fukumoto played 20 seasons with the Hankyu Braves, a predecessor of today’s Orix Buffaloes, and posted a .291 batting average and .819 OPS, along with an otherworldly total of 1,065 stolen bases.

    American Leon Lee, who played 10 seasons in Japan, observed that Fukumoto “was a great base runner, too, adding, “I remember many times he would lead off a game by getting on base, stealing second, getting sacrificed to third, and scoring on a sacrifice fly.”

    On the pitching side, Choji Murata won 215 games over 23 seasons, 22 of them with the Lotte Orions. He was a three-time Pacific League ERA champion and threw five one-hitters. He had finished the 1979 season with 17 victories, a 2.96 earned-run average, and a 1.09 WHIP.

    Leon Lee’s brother Leron, who played in Japan for 11 seasons, remembered, “Choji Murata was … fabulous. He was the best pitcher I’ve seen except for Bob Gibson. In 1979, he pitched against the American All-Stars, and Ted Simmons … told me that Choji Murata was the best pitcher he ever faced in his life, bar none. That’s how good Murata was. He could throw 90 to 96 miles an hour consistently, had a great forkball, and he had this really funky windup with a high kick. I saw him throw an inside pitch that hit the bat below the label, broke it in half, and the ball had so much power that it went through the bat, hit the batter on his back leg, and rolled out into fair territory along with the head of the bat. Everybody in the stadium stopped for two or three seconds and looked. It was unbelievable for a ball to go through a bat and still have enough momentum to hit the batter in the leg and roll forward.”

    Though 1979 was a down year for Keishi Suzuki (10-8, 4.41 ERA), he spent 20 years with the Kintetsu Buffaloes and won 317 games with a 3.11 ERA and low 1.12 WHIP. He had eight 20-victory seasons and led the Pacific League in strikeouts eight times. Leron Lee learned about Suzuki very early on, the night before his first game in Japan, in fact. The team had a meeting to go over the opponents, and a scout went on and on about how good Suzuki was.

    “I said to [teammate] Jim Lefebvre that if this guy pitches like the scout says, we’re not going to get any hits tomorrow,” Lee said. “And, sure enough, Suzuki pitched a one-hitter! That guy was the best left-handed pitcher I ever faced. I faced Steve Carlton and several pretty good pitchers in the big leagues, but this guy was unbelievable. He was an absolutely fabulous pitcher who could have pitched in the major leagues very easily.”

    An interesting aside is that when he was the Kintetsu manager, Suzuki’s disputes with pitcher Hideo Nomo indirectly played a role in Nomo’s eventual signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995.

    In 19 seasons with Hiroshima, Manabu Kitabeppu was 213-141 and ranks 17th all-time in pitching victories in NPB. He was an all-star seven times. In 1986 he won the ERA title, took the MVP and Gold Glove awards and was named to the “Best Nine,” which includes the best player at each position in both the Central and Pacific Leagues, as determined by a pool of journalists. During the 1979 season, just his fourth in the NPB, he had won 17 games and allowed an average of just 1.6 walks per nine innings.

    Hisashi Yamada, Japan’s greatest submarine pitcher, was 284-166 in 20 seasons with the Hankyu Braves. His lifetime ERA was 3.18 and his WHIP a low 1.13. In the mid-1970s Yamada was the most dominant pitcher in Japanese baseball, winning three consecutive Pacific League MVP Awards (1976-1978). He was named to five Best Nine teams and 13 all-star squads, and won five Gold Glove Awards. In 1979 he had finished with a 21-5 record and a 2.73 ERA. Leon Lee said Yamada was the “toughest pitcher I ever faced in my 17-year professional career. He had great control and was never afraid to pitch inside. The biggest thing was that he completely controlled the tempo of the game and never gave the hitters time to get comfortable at the plate.” Leron Lee named players like Oh, Yamada, Murata, Suzuki, Yamamoto, and the Hanshin Tigers’ Masayuki Kakefu (also on the 1979 Japan All-Stars) among several he said could have been major leaguers.

    The schedule began on November 7 with the American League battling the National League at Yokohoma Stadium. The teams played each other again on November 8 (Kusanagi Stadium in Shizuoka), November 11 (Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo), November 12 (Seibu Stadium in Tokorozawa), November 13 (Nagoya Stadium), November 17 (Seibu Stadium in Tokorozawa), and November 18 (Yokohama Stadium).

    The NL stars won the first game 11-2 behind a 16-hit attack. The Chicago Cubs’ Dave Kingman hit a two-run homer, and Niekro picked up the win. In Game 2 the Nationals rallied from a 4-1 deficit to tie the game 5-5 on an eighth-inning sacrifice fly by Kingman. The contest was called after 10 innings because of a time limit in Japanese games.

    Game 3 went to the American League, 6-3, and the AL followed that with a 6-5 victory in Game 4 before 21,000 fans at Seibu Stadium, as Kansas City’s Willie Wilson singled home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The National League had scored three runs in the first inning and another in the second to lead 4-0 before the AL rallied.

    After that, though, the NL had its way, winning the last three games of the series by scores of 12-9 (after trailing by 7-0), 3-2, and 7-1 in the finale on a two-hitter by Niekro.

    For the Japanese fans, though, the most anticipated games of the series were the two between the United States and Japan. A wire-service story just prior the tour noted that the US players would be “scrutinized, idolized and analyzed for what makes their game different from the Japanese national pastime of ‘besuboru.’” And there were differences. The Japanese relied more on small ball and fundamentals, and they utilized off-speed pitches more often. The Americans, on the other hand, focused more on the big inning, especially with a manager like Weaver. In addition, both the baseball itself and the ballparks in Japan were slightly smaller.

    The first game took place November 14 before 31,000 fans in Nishinomiya, a city between Kobe and Osaka. Yamamoto, of the 1979 Japan Series champion Hiroshima Carp, hit a solo home run off US starter Niekro in the bottom of the second inning to give Japan a 1-0 lead. The Americans scored twice off Yamada in the top of the third inning, but the Japanese answered quickly with three runs in the bottom of the third to take a 4-2 lead.

    The US team came back with a run in the fourth when Cooper tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Madlock, and the Americans got a two-run home run by Simmons off Suzuki in the sixth to lead 5-4. Bowa then hit a solo homer off Japan’s Shigeru Kobayashi in the seventh, and that proved to be the difference as Japan got an RBI single from Kakefu of the Hanshin Tigers in the bottom of the inning to account for the final 6-5 score.

    Knuckleballer Niekro pitched three innings and allowed four hits, two walks, and two earned runs before being relieved by Oakland’s Rick Langford. Nonetheless, he baffled Oh, whom he struck out twice, once with the bases loaded and no one out. Oh said, “It felt like the ball was swaying left and right. I wasn’t able to hit it at all. It was a mysterious ball.” For the Japan side, Murata held the major leaguers hitless in the eighth and ninth innings, primarily with his forkball.

    After the game, US manager Weaver said, “It was a close game. I was worried and felt relieved that we won. There was little difference today with the pitchers of either team. [The Japanese] certainly could play major league baseball.” That, of course, was 16 years before Nomo proved the point by signing with the Dodgers and earning All-Star and Rookie-of-the-Year honors in his first season.

    Yukio Nishimoto, who had managed the Kintetsu Buffaloes to the 1979 Pacific League title and was leading the Japan All-Stars, said, “The Americans are speedier than the Japanese. … I’m afraid the difference is decidedly in their favor. We’d be lucky to win two games out of 10.”

    They got one six days later.

    A crowd of 42,000 at Tokyo’s Korakuen Stadium watched the Americans score single runs in the third inning (a home run by Parrish off the left-field foul pole against Japan starter Naoki Takahashi) and in the seventh (a sacrifice fly by the California Angels’ Carney Lansford) to lead 2-0. Six US pitchers held the Japanese scoreless until the bottom of the eighth inning, when Kinji Shimatani of the Hankyu Braves electrified the fans by ripping a 2-and-0 pitch from Cleveland’s Sid Monge for a three-run homer to give the Japanese a 3-2 lead. And that was enough, as Kitabeppu pitched the eighth inning and Tatsuo Komatsu of the Chunichi Dragons the ninth to get the save.

    Since the US and Japanese teams played just two games against each other, the final statistics do not represent a large sample size. For the Americans, Cecil Cooper was 2-for-3 in the one game he played, and Ted Simmons was 2-for-7 in two games with a home run and two RBIs. They were the only Americans to get more than one hit in the two games, as the team batted a minuscule .172. The US pitchers posted a 3.18 earned-run average over 17 innings and held the Japan stars to a .210 batting average.

    Virtually all the Japanese position players participated in both games, with Yasunori Oshima (Chunichi) batting .500 (1-for-2), Kakefu and Fukumoto each .429, and Hideji Kato (Hankyu) .333. On the pitching side, Murata did not allow a run in four innings while striking out five batters. Takahashi gave up just one run in four innings, while Yamada allowed two runs in three innings of work. The Japan ERA in the two games was 3.50.

    Overall, the tour was considered a success, though there was some complaining by players about the travel. One day, for example, eight buses and trains were necessary to get the group from a hotel in Tokyo to a ballpark and then to Nagoya.

    There was also some controversy when first Carew and then Rose went home early and Kingman had to be talked out of going home the same day Carew left. Japan’s Kyodo News Service quoted Rose as saying he had suffered a leg injury while going after a pop fly “and it’s been getting worse.” Rose had also arrived in Japan ahead of the others and had announced beforehand that he would not be staying until the end.

    As for Carew, American League spokesman Bob Fishel said he had injured a tendon in his right heel before the trip. Carew, however, said that the injury was just part of the reason for his leaving after playing in two games. He also felt league officials had not come through on prior commitments for endorsement and appearance income. He said he had been hesitant to make the trip but did so because of promises that he could make $40,000 to $50,000 in endorsements and appearances, in addition to the base pay of $11,000 to players on the winning team and $8,500 to those on the losing club.

    “Now I can’t help but feel that we were told these things simply so that we would say ‘yes’ to making the trip,” Carew said. “I definitely doubt that I’d ever make another. I had wanted to stay home, but they made it sound as if it was something I couldn’t pass up.”

    The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bill Madlock said, “We’d been led to believe there would be ways to pick up extra money for endorsements. It just didn’t happen.” Cecil Cooper added, “I really was disappointed. I thought we would be involved in a lot more endorsements and things like that. Only a few players got them. I don’t think I would come back.”

    The expectation of ancillary income was due in part because Rose had been to Japan the previous year with the Cincinnati Reds and had been in demand for endorsements, television appearances, and autograph sessions. Joe Reichler, who at the time helped run the Major League Baseball Promotion Corporation, was quoted as saying, “I think a lot of the players saw how well [Rose] did and figured the same thing would happen to them. [But] there really were no firm commitments along these lines.”

    Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Lary Sorensen felt that that it was “not a big issue teamwide. Maybe it was for a few of the main guys. But I was young and just happy to be there.” And Singleton said in a 2021 conversation that “it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. Some guys may have been concerned about it, and it would have been OK if it had happened to me, but it was no big deal that it didn’t.”

    In the past there had been incidents of Americans going to Japan and behaving in a rude, arrogant, boorish manner. This time, they were generally considered to be well-behaved, though interpreter Toyo Kunimitsu sometimes saw them differently, as described in Robert Whiting’s seminal book about Japanese baseball, You Gotta Have Wa.

    The [US] All-Stars were rather tacky and rude,” said Kunimitsu, who worked as translator for foreign players with the Yakult Swallows and, later, the Chunichi Dragons. “Once we were on a long bus ride [and] John Candelaria, the pitcher for the [Pittsburgh] Pirates, had been drinking a lot of beer and had to urinate. So he urinated into a bucket and threw it out the window. I was shocked. The driver was really angry. He wanted me to throw Candelaria off the bus, but finally agreed to let him stay when Candelaria said he would stop drinking beer. I saw a lot of bad examples of spoiled Americans on that tour.”

    Nonetheless, the Americans took the games seriously, and many had positive memories.

    Parker had not wanted to come on the tour because of a bad knee, but he finally agreed and played in most of the games, even playing some in center field and sliding on his bad knee. The New York Yankees’ Bobby Murcer was said to have been upset that he did not get more playing time. Kingman, usually not accommodating to the media, stood on the sidelines after the first US-Japan game and answered question after question from reporters through an interpreter. Simmons could have returned home after the last AL-NL contest, but he volunteered to stay for the second game against Japan and played the entire game.

    “To me, this was the trip of a lifetime,” Simmons said. “I really have no complaints. I enjoyed it, and so did my wife. Japan is a country I [had] always wanted to visit, and to be able to do it this way is terrific.”

    Singleton said, “It was a great trip. We were treated well and enjoyed it tremendously.” Pitcher Rick Langford of Oakland said, “It’s an honor and a pleasure to be here [in Japan].” And Sorensen and Angels pitcher Mark Clear, both newlyweds, considered the trip to be their honeymoons.

    “I was just 23, had never been to Japan and had just gotten married, so I thought ‘Wow, what a great opportunity to travel and see some of the world,’” Sorensen said. “They treated us with great respect, and the games were great because the fans were so enthusiastic. It was like going to a football game in the U.S.

    “The whole trip was an autograph session,” he added with a laugh. “Whenever we’d go out, people would point at us and then ask for autographs. For the majority of us, it was a fabulous tour, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun.”

    Sorensen remembered a couple of amusing occurrences, one on the team plane. The Pirates had recently upset Weaver’s Baltimore Orioles to win the 1979 Word Series and, in the process, had adopted the Sister Sledge hit song “We Are Family” as their unofficial anthem. During a flight, Sorensen noticed Candelaria, Parker, and Madlock sneaking toward the front of the plane where Weaver was sitting.

    “They had a big boom box and blasted out ‘We Are Family,’” Sorensen said. “It didn’t bother Earl, but we all thought it was funny.”

    Sorensen recalled another time when a Japanese TV reporter was in the US dugout and providing live commentary during a game. As he was wont to do, Weaver got into a profanity-laced argument with a couple of the American umpires, and the reporter translated what was being said for his Japanese audience. However, when Weaver said something like “You’re a bleeping, bleep, bleep,” the reporter was stumped for a translation and simply repeated Weaver’s exact words over the air.

    Lou Brock, who had retired after the just-completed 1979 season, was honored after the final game for his fine career, and Lasorda gave big thanks to the Japanese, in particular chief sponsor Junichi Wada. “It was a great gift Mr. Wada gave the Japanese people,” Lasorda said. After the final game, both teams paraded around the perimeter of the stadium, and the fans came as close as possible to the field to give them a standing ovation.

    “Overall, it was a good experience,” Larry Bowa said. “There were problems with travel, and we all got tired. Going to Japan, however, was quite an experience.”

    Had the Japanese game made up some ground in its quest of equaling or surpassing the Americans? Weaver said after the first game that Japanese baseball had made tremendous improvement since his previous visit in 1971. All the players, he added, looked like potential home-run sluggers.

    Sorensen felt somewhat differently, though he could see that there was quality in the Japanese roster.

    At the time, I think the Japanese game was at the Triple-A level. The biggest thing was the size difference; we had size and skill sets that, at the time, were noticeably different. They didn’t have any (Shohei) Ohtanis then, although that’s changed over time. But there’s no question that they had some really good players, were fundamentally sound, and were very well prepared. They took the game very seriously, probably more so than we did, and they were more aggressive with small ball than we were. Skillwise, they had some infielders that could probably have been major leaguers. And while most of their pitchers didn’t throw hard, they were tough because they could throw a bunch of different pitches with different deliveries and from several arm angles.

    Singleton said he “wasn’t too impressed with the Japanese pitchers then, though they did a good job of mixing their offerings and using off-speed pitches.” He commented, “I was more impressed with them when I went back to Japan with the Orioles after the 1984 season. Since then, of course, they’ve had quite a few pitchers come over to the major leagues and do well. The two games were really competitive, though. We were more about power – the Japanese players would watch us in batting practice and were impressed. On the other hand, the Japanese played small ball really well.”

    As the Japan Times noted, “the gap that existed between American and Japanese baseball has been narrowed by the two U.S.-Japanese games.”

    Read the full version of this article on the SABR website

    The 1979 Major League All-Star Series in Japan
  • The Big Red Machine’s Last Hurrah: Cincinnati Reds Tour of Japan, 1978

    The Big Red Machine’s Last Hurrah: Cincinnati Reds Tour of Japan, 1978

    by Robert Kiyoshi Shadlow

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week Robert Kiyoshi Shadlow tells us about the Big red Machine’s 1978 visit to Japan.

    Pete Rose basked in the attention he was receiving from the Japanese press on Opening Day, April 6, 1978. His Cincinnati Reds were facing the visiting Houston Astros in a game that was being broadcast live to Japan. Rose interrupted the Japanese interpreter by boisterously proclaiming, “Let me answer that. I speak Japanese well. No, I won’t do it today, but I’ll do it tomorrow.” Then the interpreter explained to Pete, that the question was, “How do you feel?”

    The 11-man Japanese press corps was on a 10-day visit to Cincinnati, Dallas, New York, and San Francisco. Yasushi Matsui of Fuji Telecasting Company said, “[T]he demand and interest in American baseball is there (in Japan).” Two major-league baseball games per week were being broadcast to Japan for the first time in 1978. The Japanese reporters and photographers were also excited about the Big Red Machine’s coming 1978 postseason tour of Japan. Rose addressed Japanese fans, “Tell ’em we’re going to beat the hell out of their teams. … We want to win the World Series this year so we can go to Japan and win the world, world series.”

    From 1970 through 1976, the Big Red Machine averaged 98 wins a season as they won five division titles and made four World Series appearances, winning two of them. The Reds featured Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez along with Pete Rose, Dave Concepción, George Foster, César Gerónimo, and Ken Griffey Sr. The Reds declined a tour of Japan after winning the 1976 World Series. A few months later, Perez was traded from the Reds to the Montreal Expos and another future Hall of Famer, Tom Seaver, was sent to Cincinnati from the New York Mets in 1977.

    In early December 1977, two or three major-league teams were being considered for a tour of Japan after the 1978 season. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn acknowledged, “There are a few teams who would like to go.” In October 1977, for example, Philadelphia Phillies traveling secretary Eddie Forenz was in Japan investigating accommodations for the Phillies. But on January 2, 1978, the Reds announced that the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun would sponsor the team’s four-week tour of Japan beginning in late October 1978. They would face the Yomiuri Giants as well as combined teams throughout Japan.

    On May 26, 1978, Kuhn left for Japan for discussions about the Saturday and Monday Game of the Week broadcasts as well as This Week in Baseball. All three shows were being broadcast for the first time in Japan in 1978. The All-Star Game, league championships, and World Series were also scheduled to be shown in Japan that year. Kuhn was also preparing the way for the Reds’ postseason tour of Japan. Seventeen games were to be played in 13 cities: Tokyo, Sapporo, Sendai, Yokohama, Nagoya, Toyama, Nishinomiya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Kita-Kyushu, and Shizuoka.

    In 1978 Cincinnati had a strong 28-18 start by Memorial Day and was 49-37 at the All-Star break. A hard-fought season left them 2½ games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West Division despite a 92-69 record before they embarked on the excursion to Japan. Cincinnati finished second in runs scored in the National League. The Big Red Machine’s offense was led by George Foster’s 40 home runs and 120 RBIs. There was hopeful speculation of a home-run-hitting contest between Foster and Japanese home-run king Sadaharu Oh. Johnny Bench hit 23 home runs while 37-year-old Pete Rose tied the 44-game National League single-season hitting streak record and recorded his 3,000th career hit. Tom Seaver won 16 games in 36 starts with a 2.88 ERA while Doug Bair had 28 saves with an ERA of 1.97.

    The Reds’ roster for the trip to Japan consisted of a 10-man pitching corps of Doug Bair, Bill Bonham, Pedro Borbón, Dan Dumoulin, Tom Hume, Mike LaCoss, Fred Norman, Mario Soto, Dave Tomlin, and Tom Seaver. Catchers were Johnny Bench and Vic Correll. Their six infielders were Dan Driessen, Mike Grace, Junior Kennedy, Ray Knight, Ron Oester, and Pete Rose. Outfielders Mickey Duval, George Foster, Ken Griffey, Mike Lum, and Champ Summers made the trip. Reds manager Sparky Anderson brought six coaches: Alex Grammas, Ted Kluszewski, Russ Nixon, Ron Plaza, George Scherger, and Larry Shepard.

    Technically, Mike Lum and Pete Rose, who had filed for free agency, were not members of the Reds. The Japan tour was significant for Lum, the first American-born player of Japanese ancestry in the majors. His mother was Japanese. Mike acquired the Lum surname when he was adopted by a Chinese couple.

    Paul Moskau was enraged when he found out that he was left off the Reds’ roster for the Japan tour. Moskau, already disenchanted after being sent to the minors at the end of spring training, exclaimed, “You feel like you are part of the team and twice they do this. Is Bonham going? Last time I talked to him, he was, with his arm in a cast.”

    Four other Reds players not making the trip were Davey Concepción, César Gerónimo, Ken Henderson, and Joe Morgan. Concepción wanted to stay in Venezuela to play winter baseball, while the other three were healing from injuries.

    Cincinnati farmhand Mickey Duval was one lucky guy. “[T]he Nashville Sounds (Double A) brought me to extended fall baseball in Tampa … and I did get to play with the big club for a month, but it was in Japan. When I was in Tampa, I was crushing it. I had a good year in Double A, and then [the Reds] said, ‘Do you feel like going to Japan? Gerónimo can’t make it.’ I got $9,000 for that month; I was only making $850 a month!”

    Accompanying the Reds was a delegation led by Kuhn, National League President Charles Feeney, and Reds President Dick Wagner along with six members of the Cincinnati front-office staff. National League umpire Lee Weyer also went along.

    As they left, comedian Bob Hope said, “The only advice I have for them is have their kimonos made here. They’ll fit better. I can’t wait to see Johnny Bench in a kimono with rice in his hair.”

    On October 25, 1978, the Reds flew off to Japan and landed with Pete Rose sliding headfirst into commercial endorsements from Japanese companies like Mizuno. Pete acknowledged that he was accompanying the team despite being a free agent because he had business commitments in Japan. He even observed, “[The Japanese] might want me to play there next year too.” The Associated Press reported that at least one member of the Reds was in discussions about playing in Japan in 1979.

    The Reds contingent was greeted by cheering fans at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. At the welcoming press conference, Rose said, “I’m very happy to be here. I’m very curious to see and watch the reaction of Japanese fans and baseball players.” Sparky Anderson declared, “The Japanese are going to see some super baseball. I’m sure we will show some real fine baseball. … Japanese ballplayers and fans will agree that we were one of the finest major league teams to ever visit here.” Bench added, “Fans here will be in for some fine baseball, and it will be hard for (the Japanese) to believe the way Foster hits balls over the wall.” For his part, Foster promised, “I’ll give it my best shots.”

    The Big Red Machine started working out in smoggy Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo less than 24 hours after landing in Japan. “Ohayo Gozai Masu (Good Morning),” Johnny Bench greeted Japanese photographers. Anderson warned the players who were still suffering from jet lag, “Nobody will get crazy.” Infielder Dan Driessen remarked about the jet lag, “It’s manageable right now. It’s totally a new experience (to play in Japan).” Reds coach Alex Grammas promised, “[The Japanese fans] are expecting us to win, and we are going to win.” Meanwhile, Pete Rose boasted that he had turned down an offer to play for the Seibu Lions for “more than a million dollars.” He added, “Yes, I’ll play in Japan … 17 games (for the tour).”

    Read the rest of the article on SABR.org

    The Big Red Machine’s Last Hurrah: Cincinnati Reds Tour of Japan, 1978
  • The 1974 New York Mets Goodwill Tour of Japan

    The 1974 New York Mets Goodwill Tour of Japan

    by Henry Tran

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week HENRY TRAN focus on the Mets 1974 trip to Japan.

    For certain kids growing up in Tokyo in the 1970s, three of the most popular sports to watch on television were baseball, pro wrestling, and roller derby. For Hanshin fans, there was not much to cheer during the 1974 season, except for Koichi Tabuchi, the best offensive catcher in the league at that time, the Japanese equivalent of Johnny Bench. Some of the favorite wrestling moments were seeing Tiger Jeet Singh and Antonio Inoki going at each other or the Destroyer teaming with Giant Baba to face off against Fritz von Erich or Abdullah the Butcher. Then there was the Thursday night Roller Derby of the Tokyo Bombers against the New York Bombers or the LA T-Birds. Baseball, however, always took priority over the others. The one annoying thing was that the baseball TV broadcasts began at from 7 P.M., and at 9 P.M., whether the game was in the middle of excitement or a blowout, suddenly a woman’s voice offered this message: “Kono ban gumi wa goran no su pon sa no tei kyo de okuri shimasu” (“This program is brought to you by the following sponsors”) and the broadcast was over. That was when anyone wanting to know how the game ended had to listen to it on the radio.

    The summer of 1974 had a treat for baseball fans: a US collegiate team visiting Japan for a series. Managed by the legendary Rod Dedeaux, the team was loaded with hitters. One of the highlights of the series was the game played at Meiji Jingu Stadium when pitcher Takashi Yamaguchi from Kansai University struck out 13 American batters in a 6-3 victory for Japan. Then an exciting Central League race between the Yomiuri Giants and the Chunichi Dragons made it a busy baseball summer. And Japanese fans were buzzing all summer long in anticipation of a visit by the New York Mets in November.

    Hank Aaron ended the 1973 season with 713 career home runs, and second-year skipper Yogi Berra engineered the New York Mets to the NL pennant. Across the Pacific Ocean, Japan’s most popular team, the Giants, captured their 15th Japan Series, winning in five games over the Nankai Hawks. The baseball landscape in 1974 was heading into an exciting era. The Mets were invited to Japan for a goodwill tour at the conclusion of the season. With Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s home-run record on April 8, 1974, Japan invited him over for a home-run contest with Sadaharu Oh. November could not come soon enough for Japanese fans. Despite the Mets’ disappointing season in 1974, which ended with a 71-91 record and a fifth-place finish in the National League East Division, Japanese fans were eager to see Berra, the Yankees’ former star catcher, and his All-Star pitcher, Tom Seaver.

    On October 24 the Mets delegation arrived at Haneda International Airport in a chartered DC-8. As expected, the delegation was welcomed by hundreds of media members and fans. A lot of the fans remembered that Berra had come to Japan almost two decades earlier, in 1955, as a member of the Yankees. They were looking forward to seeing the Mets play 18 games in 12 cities. For different reasons, nine Mets players decided not to make the trip including Jerry Grote, Cleon Jones, George Stone, and Tug McGraw. Berra brought up Roy Staiger and Ike Hampton from Triple-A Tidewater. (Hampton later played a season for the Kintetsu Buffaloes.) The Mets also included on their roster Joe Torre, whom they had just acquired from St. Louis in exchange for Ray Sadecki and Tom Moore.

    During the tour the Mets faced the Yomiuri Giants 10 times; the other eight games were split between an All-Japan team and squads of the Giants and another Nippon Professional Baseball Organization team.

    Game 1: Mets vs. Giants

    Korakuen Stadium, home of the Yomiuri Giants for almost 30 years, was located next to Korakuen Amusement Park. With a capacity of 50,000, it was the second largest ballpark in the JPL behind Koshien, home of the rival Hanshin Tigers, which could hold 60,0000. In a race decided by percentage points a few weeks before, the Giants lost the Central League pennant to the Dragons by a record of 71-50-9 (.5867) to 70-49-11 (.5882) – the closest winning margin ever. The postseason was an emotional time for Yomiuri, because the country’s favorite player, Shigeo “Mr. Giant” Nagashima, retired.

    On October 26, a capacity crowd filled the stadium to see the 1973 Cy Young Award winner, Tom Seaver, on the mound. Seaver pitched three innings, giving up three runs. The Mets jumped to a quick 3-0 lead off starter Mitsuhiro Sekimoto (10-5, 2.28 ERA during the season). With New York leading, 7-6, going into the bottom of the eighth inning, Oh parked a grand slam off reliever Jerry Cram and the Giants won, 10-7. John Milner, Wayne Garrett, and Dave Schneck all hit homers for the Mets. The Giants’ offense was impressive, recording 16 hits.

    Game 2: Mets vs. Giants

    A crowd of 40,000 showed up for a Monday afternoon game at Korakuen. Jon Matlack was on the hill against Kazumi Takahashi. Matlack pitched four solid innings and the Mets led 4-2 on Don Hahn’s home run in the top of the fifth. However, as in Game 1, the Mets were not able to hang on to a lead, when reliever Jack Aker walked six runners to allow the Giants to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth. Shigeru Kobayashi and Osamu Shimano kept the Mets scoreless in the last five innings. Neither team scored in the 10th and the game was called a 4-4-tie. This was done mainly so the teams could catch a flight to Sapporo for Game 3 the next day. Mets manager Berra noticed that the Japanese style of play was more aggressive since his first visit in the 1950s. “They’ve improved a lot, they’re more aggressive now, they go for the hit-and-run play, and they bunt more,” he commented.

    Game 3: Mets vs. Giants

    After an opening loss and a tie, the Mets were looking for a win in Sapporo. The teams arrived at Maruyama Stadium on October 29, a ballpark built in 1934 that seated 25,000. Occasionally the Giants and other teams played regular-season games at Maruyama. Jerry Koosman got the start. Before the game, Tom Seaver gathered seven Yomiuri pitchers in center field and gave advice about his four pitches and mechanics. New York Times writer Joseph Durso wrote: “They stood in a quiet semicircle on the center field grass in Maruyama Stadium beneath majestic mountains colored in the yellow and red of autumn. Expensive chalet homes snuggled into the slopes leading to the ski jump built for the 1972 Winter Olympics. In parkas and coats, the early arrivals began to crowd the gentle hill beyond the outfield fence at the foot of the mountain, spreading blankets on the cold ground to watch for the next four hours while the Giants and New York Mets brought their traveling goodwill tour north. Wood-burning heaters warmed the players in the dugouts and Sapporo beer warmed the customers who had paid $10 for box seats.”

    The Giants got to Koosman early, scoring two runs in the bottom of the second inning, but the Mets responded with two in the top of the third off starter Mitsuhiro Sekimoto. The Mets took the lead, 4-2, on a two-run single by Felix Millan in the fourth before Yomiuri recaptured the lead with three in the bottom of the fifth. The Mets got a run off reliever Takaaki Taniyama to tie the game at 5-5 in the sixth, but in the bottom of that inning, the Giants went ahead on a home run by Kazumasa Kono off reliever Bob Miller to win the game, 6-5. For the third straight game, the Mets did not hold on to their lead.

    Game 4: Mets vs. Giants

    After the game the teams flew to Sendai, the capital city of Miyagi prefecture. As in Sapporo, there were no professional baseball teams in Sendai. The multipurpose Miyagi Athletic Stadium opened in 1952 with a capacity of 30,000: a mere 7,000 seats but standing room for 23,000. Tom Seaver faced off against Nobuhiro Tamai, pitched six innings and drove in a run in the top of the fifth. Ed Kranepool homered off Shigeru Kobayashi to tie the game at 2-2 in the top of the seventh, but reliever Hank Webb gave up the winning run in the bottom of the inning, making the final score 3-2. Yoshimasa Takahashi came in to save the game for the Giants in the top of the ninth. The Mets were winless in four tries.

    Game 5: Mets vs. Giants

    The Mets arrived in Fukushima prefecture after a 90-minute ride on a bullet train. Kaiseizan Stadium had just opened in 1974 and was owned by Koriyama City. On this October 31 afternoon, with the temperature in the 40s, 18,000 fans flooded into the park to see Bob Apodaca start against Tadao Yokoyama. After seven innings, the Mets had a familiar 2-0 lead, with runs in the second inning on a fielder’s choice and an unearned run in the sixth. Once again the Mets were not able to hold on to their lead, as the Giants scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, two of them on a double by Toshimitsu Suetsugu to put them in the lead, 3-2. The Mets came back in the top of the ninth with a solo home run by John Milner, his second in the series, and the two teams settled for another 3-3 tie. After five games against the Giants, the Mets were still winless.

    Game 6: Mets vs. All-Japan

    The Mets were back to the familiar territory of Tokyo and Korakuen. A two-game series with the All-Stars was set for the weekend, in conjunction with Culture Day and the home-run contest between Hammerin’ Hank and Oh.

    Aaron arrived at Haneda Airport on November 1 after a 17-hour flight from Atlanta and was thrust into a press conference at the Hotel Okura in Minato-ku with his rival, Japanese home-run king Oh. Aaron had completed the 1974 season with 733 home runs and Oh had 634. The two home-run heavyweights would take several rounds of swings to see who would wear the crown. Aaron had not swung at a ball since Atlanta’s last game of the season, against Cincinnati on October 2. In that game, he parked a homer off the Reds’ reliever Rawly Eastwick in the seventh inning, his 20th of the season.

    Aaron and Oh were at the park taking batting practice at 10:30 A.M. The Mets and the All-Japan team were also there to prepare for their game after the home-run contest. Joe Pignatano, a coach for the Mets and a former catcher for the Dodgers, pitched to Aaron while batting practice pitcher Kuniyasu Mine threw to Oh. The 40-year-old Aaron was supposedly the underdog to the 34-year-old Oh, who had the home crowd of 50,000 behind him and was hitting against his familiar batting-practice pitcher.

    Aaron suggested the rules for the contest: Each batter would swing at 20 balls and whoever put the most into the stands would win. Aaron was being paid $50,000 and Oh $20,000. Oh won the coin toss and elected to go first. There were four rounds of five pitches in each. In the first round, Oh put three balls (measuring 330 feet, 396 feet, and 412 feet) into the right-field stands. Aaron followed with 396-foot and 380-foot homers. After one round, Oh led 3-2. In the second round, Oh put three more into the stands, one of them almost 400 feet. Aaron put four over the wall to tie the score at 6-6 after two rounds. In the third round Oh managed only one rocket, and Aaron hit three to take the lead, 9-7. In the final round, Oh put two over, including a 400-footer, to tie it at 9-9. Aaron parked a 429-foot blast with his third swing to win the contest, 10 homers to 9.

    After the two kings met in person, Aaron expressed his humble feeling about the contest: “Oh is only 34, he has a chance to hit over 800. Winning today’s contest proves nothing. If there is any meaning, it is that we made the fans happy.” The fans were happy indeed: they were treated to a one-time event.

    The game followed the contest and the Mets were still looking for their first win. Southpaw Jon Matlack was assigned to go against the best hitters of NPB. Yakult Swallows’ ace pitcher Hiromu Matsuoka, who was 17-15 with a 2.80 ERA during the season, started for the All-Japan team. Matlack pitched beautifully, giving up just two hits in eight innings, while Matsuoka struggled with the Mets hitters, surrendering six runs in 2⅔ innings. The Mets’ Joe Torre, Ron Hodges, and Ted Martinez homered in an 8-0 victory over the All-Stars. The All-Stars included future Hall of Famers Isao Harimoto, Tsutomu Wakamatsu, Yutaka Fukumoto, Koichi Tabuchi, Oh, and Nagashima, but the Japanese media speculated that the All-Stars were not as good as the Giants, who had won their ninth straight championship in 1973.

    Game 7: Mets vs. All-Japan

    The next day, November 3, the Mets and the All-Stars squared off again with Jerry Koosman on the mound against Keishi Asano, who went 12-15 with a 2.49 ERA during the season with the Yakult Swallows. The Mets trailed 2-1 going into the top of the ninth, but Felix Millan and Ed Kranepool homered to put New York ahead 4-2 (the eventual the final score) and give Harry Parker the win. The Mets’ pitching had held the best of NPB to two runs in 18 innings. Berra summarized in his own way: “It took us a week to catch up – the pitchers, at least. Hitters can usually hit – Aaron showed that Saturday in his home‐run contest against Oh. But pitchers can go stale, the way ours did.”

    Game 8: Mets vs. Giants

    The Mets were playing their fourth straight game at Korakuen with another sellout crowd of 50,000 and looked for their first win against the Giants behind Tom Seaver. Yomiuri, wanting to continue its unbeaten streak, put Tsuneo Horiuchi on the mound. Seaver doubled in two runs to put the Mets up 3-1 in the top of the second but in the bottom of the inning, Shigeru Takada hit a three-run homer to put the Giants back on top, 4-3. John Milner hit a tying home run in the third; it would be the Mets’ last run of the game. Kazumasa Kono hit a solo homer in the bottom of the third to regain the lead and Oh added a solo homer in the sixth to make it a 6-4 game. Yomiuri then scored three runs on five hits, a walk, and two errors in the seventh and another in the eighth to win 10-4. In all, the Giants pounded out 17 hits, including three home runs.

    That evening, the Mets and Giants attended a reception at the US Embassy. Hank Aaron was also in attendance and the players from both teams exchanged game feedback as Shigeo Nagashima’s wife, Akiko, translated. Akiko had gone to Kokomo High School in Indiana and the College of St. Teresa in Winona, Minnesota.

    Read the rest of the article on SABR.org

    The 1974 New York Mets Goodwill Tour of Japan
  • ‘We Are Trying to Close the Gap, but It Is Very Wide Yet’: The Baltimore Orioles’ 1971 Tour of Japan

    ‘We Are Trying to Close the Gap, but It Is Very Wide Yet’: The Baltimore Orioles’ 1971 Tour of Japan

    by Dennis Snelling

    Every Monday morning we will post an article from SABR’s award-winning books Nichibei Yakyu: Volumes I and II. Each will present a different chapter in the long history of US-Japan baseball relations. This week DENNIS SNELLING tells us about what was supposed to be a true World Series: the 1971 Baltimore Orioles visit to Japan

    Matsutaro Shoriki spent four decades dreaming of an international World Series matching the champion team of American baseball and that of the Japanese. He created Japan’s greatest team, sponsored by his newspaper and known over the years as either the Tokyo or Yomiuri Giants, as a means to fulfilling that dream.

    Beginning in the 1950s, serious attempts were made to bring a World Series champion to Japan, but it never quite worked out. Because of the lead time necessary for planning such an event, guesses as to a potential World Series champion had to be made. These proved wrong every time, almost as if a curse. The New York Giants seemed a good possibility in 1953, but Brooklyn instead captured the National League pennant. Two years later, the New York Yankees – a sure bet during the 1950s – accepted an invitation. That turned out to be the year they finally lost to the Dodgers in the fall classic. So Brooklyn was chosen the next year and, of course, lost the 1956 World Series to the Yankees.

    The Los Angeles Dodgers, champions twice in three years, were invited after the 1966 season – and lost the World Series, once again dashing the hopes of those wanting to see two champions play in Japan. Two years later the St. Louis Cardinals, winners of the 1967 World Series, were invited to tour in October 1968, and they too lost the subsequent fall classic, to the Detroit Tigers.

    Shoriki died in October 1969, and his son took up the cause. Six months after Shoriki’s death, the San Francisco Giants visited Japan for spring training and lost six of nine games against Japanese competition. Despite not facing a World Series champion, the Japanese were gaining confidence that they measured up – 3½ years earlier they had won eight of 18 games against the Dodgers.

    The Yomiuri Giants were invited to Florida in the spring of 1971 to play six exhibition games against major-league competition. They were the best Japan had to offer – the 1970 season marked the sixth consecutive championship the Giants had captured, with three more still to come.

    The roster was impressive, featuring three of the biggest names in Japanese baseball. Foremost was Sadaharu Oh, the legendary left-handed slugger and by far the most famous Japanese player among American fans. He was widely known for his distinctive batting style, highlighted by balancing on his back leg while swinging, a style that drew comparisons to Mel Ott. It reminded others of a flamingo. Oh had hit 40 or more home runs eight straight years through 1970, including 55 in 1964, despite seasons 20 games shorter than in the United States. Through the 1971 season, the 31-year-old Oh had hit 486 career home runs and would play nine more years, ultimately slugging at least 30 home runs for an incredible 19 consecutive years, and 868 home runs for his career.

    The most famous and popular player among Japanese fans was charismatic 34-year-old third baseman Shigeo Nagashima. A hero thanks to his dramatic game-winning walk-off, or “Sayonara,” home run in the first game Emperor Hirohito ever attended, Nagashima was exceptional both at bat and in the field, hitting 444 career home runs with a .305 batting average.

    The manager of the Giants, Tetsuharu Kawakami, was known as the “God of Batting.” The winner of five batting titles and the first Japanese player to reach 2,000 hits, he took over as manager in 1961, three years after his retirement as a player, and never suffered a losing season at the helm. After winning pennants in 1961 and 1963 but losing the Japan Series both times, Kawakami had captured Japan Series wins in six straight seasons. It was time to measure Japanese baseball against the best – the mighty Baltimore Orioles, American League standard-bearers two years running and defending World Series champions. They were favorites to repeat in 1971 and finally bring the late Matsutaro Shoriki’s dream one step closer to reality.

    The Orioles, fresh off a fall classic victory over the Cincinnati Reds, accepted an invitation in January 1971 for a monthlong tour after the next World Series. The schedule included 18 games, 11 of them against the Yomiuri Giants.

    A couple of weeks after the invitation was accepted, the Japanese sports newspaper Hochi Shimbun commissioned a computer simulation of a theoretical seven-game series between the Orioles and the Giants. The computer results had the Orioles winning four of the seven games, with the Giants winning two and one game ending in a 12-inning tie.

    The Giants and Orioles previewed their postseason matchup during spring training in Miami on March 11, one of the half-dozen exhibition games Yomiuri played in Florida. Players mingled before the game, seven Giants surrounding Brooks Robinson behind the batting cage, including 5-foot-7, 140-pound pitcher Akira Tanaka, who could not resist measuring his hand against that of the Orioles third baseman in comparison.

    The Japanese were particularly impressed by the sight of 6-foot-4 Boog Powell, who was introduced to Sadaharu Oh. During their conversation, Powell leaned his massive frame against Oh and whispered, “Fella, you make more money than I do.” Oh replied, “47 home runs,” his total for the 1970 season.

    Brooks Robinson told reporters that Lee Walls, a former All-Star outfielder who played in Japan in 1965, thought Oh to be one of the five best hitters he had ever seen. Scout Gordon Windhorn, recently retired as a player after six seasons with the Hankyu Braves, recalled his advice to American pitchers facing Oh after they saw his stance and curious one-legged pause during his swing. “You think you can change speeds on him, but you can’t. He’ll just stand there and wait and keep that right leg balanced.”

    For his part, Oh said he enjoyed playing against Americans. “Friendships are very important to me,” he declared. “I also benefit from the spirit of the American players – the way they slide, the way they make double plays. The Japanese are much more conservative.”

    The game played that day was competitive. Both teams scored in the first inning, with the Orioles adding runs in the fourth and sixth to take a 3-1 lead. After some back-and-forth, Baltimore was ahead, 6-3, going into the last frame.

    Sadaharu Oh slapped a run-scoring single in the ninth, his second of the day. Then, with two out and one on, Shigeo Nagashima hit a long fly ball down the line that appeared to have tied the game. “I thought it was a home run,” said Nagashima “But the wind helped it go foul.” He was then retired and Baltimore won, 6-4.

    The Giants took heart that they had held their own, although several of Baltimore’s stars, including Frank and Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell, played only portions of the game. Tetsuharu Kawakami said of the Orioles, “Their physical superiority seemed indeed overwhelming before the game, but I found later they were not as powerful as I thought.” The Giants came away confident that they belonged on the same field, and looked forward to October.

    Relations between Japan and the United States grew tense in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Japan’s sensitivity always surfaced when the United States courted the attention of a rival. In July 1971, President Richard Nixon announced that his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, had completed a secret trip to the People’s Republic of China that resulted in Nixon being invited to meet with Mao Zedong. The invitation was accepted, with the meeting to take place within a year. This sent shock waves through Japan, which feared being abandoned by the United States. A month earlier, it was thought that all differences had been resolved through a negotiation aimed at returning Japanese territories seized during World War II, with Okinawa reverting to Japanese control in 1972.

    But the Japanese government was embarrassed by Nixon’s actions, the lack of forewarning about an earthshaking shift in American foreign policy considered a lack of respect, especially with Japan openly entrenched in a policy – thought to be shared by the United States – banning relations with China.

    Then, a month after announcing he was going to Beijing, Nixon announced a 10 percent import surcharge as part of an economic recovery package, further straining relations with Japan. Japanese students, unhappy with a continued military presence of the United States on Okinawa beyond 1972, began rallying against the US and the agreement, which delayed Japanese ratification of the deal until late November, after the Orioles had left the country.

    That fall, Emperor Hirohito, in his 45th year on the throne, became the first reigning emperor to travel abroad, returning from Europe a week prior to the arrival of the Orioles. He visited briefly with President Nixon during his first stop, in Anchorage, Alaska, as the Northern Lights danced overhead, punctuating Nixon’s attempt to mend fences.

    1971 Baltimore Orioles Goodwill Tour ticket (Robert Fitts Collection)

    While the 1966 Dodgers visited without Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, the Orioles brought everyone. Frank and Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell were the offensive stars and Baltimore boasted a pitching staff featuring 20-game winners Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson. Of course, the curse continued, with the Orioles dropping the 1971 World Series to Pittsburgh in seven games. So once again, the Japanese were frustrated in their attempt to stage an informal world championship series. The 72-person traveling party also included Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, American League President Joe Cronin, and umpire Jim Honochick. Pitching coach George Bamberger remained home, having suffered a recent heart attack.

    The Orioles arrived in Japan on October 21, greeted by several hundred fans and dozens of newspaper photographers. The next day they headed out to Korakuen Stadium for their first workout and were surprised by 5,000 rabid Japanese fans, digesting their every move. They seemed most in awe of the 260-pound Powell.

    Each Orioles player received $4,000 plus another $1,000 in spending money; meal tabs at the hotel were picked up by their Japanese hosts. Earl Weaver, legendary for his intensity, relaxed many of the rules for the trip. Players were allowed to grow mustaches, banned during the regular season, and to drink at the hotel bar, a domain traditionally restricted to the manager and coaching staff. Brooks Robinson grew a mustache. So did Mark Belanger, Mike Cuellar, Curt Motton, and Andy Etchebarren. By the end of the tour, reliever Eddie Watt sported a full beard. Frank Robinson opted for a Fu Manchu.

    Weaver also relaxed his strictly enforced dress code of coats and ties, and surprised many by drinking and playing cards with his men. “I told the players I would relax the rules … as long as they did not abuse the privileges. I also told them once we put the uniforms on, I expect the same performance and effort as in the regular season.”

    Two days after the team arrived in Japan, 15 of the Orioles wives held a shopping party where outfielder Curt Motton and his wife were staying, Room 1208 at the New Otani Hotel, which became an impromptu store thanks to George Speccks, who billed himself as George the Silk Man. He had been passing out his business card in the lobby, and Motton’s wife, Jackie, took him up on his offer, inviting the other wives to sift through a collection of silks, kimonos, watches, and cameras.

    “You can imagine the bedlam in my room with all these girls crowded in,” said Jackie Motton, shaking her head. “We went through thirty bottles of (Coca-Cola) and by the time it was over, I felt like I had thrown some kind of wild party.” She spent more than $250, buying 19 kimonos and happi coats. The nonstop hard-sell of George the Silk Man ultimately broke down just about everyone at some point during the tour. If you wanted it, George and his associates would sell it to you.

    Korakuen Stadium was the second largest in Japan and home of the Yomiuri Giants, who had played before more than 2.3 million paying customers in 1971, their ninth straight year topping two million, and more than twice the number drawn in Baltimore. The facility had its challenges. The outfield distances were short (295 feet down the lines, 380 to center) and the clubhouse was tiny, with no toilets or showers, so players dressed at the hotel. Catered meals were provided before games, served by tuxedo-clad waiters.

    Before the first game, Bowie Kuhn met with Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, while Earl Weaver told reporters he hoped to win six to seven of the 11 games against the Giants. Kuhn threw out the first ball and read a message from President Nixon, and the Orioles appeared wearing uniforms bearing their names in both English and Japanese.

    Baltimore easily won the first two games, knocking Japanese baseball experts back on their heels a bit. Jim Palmer won the opener, 8-4, despite allowing home runs to Yukinobu Kuroe and Koji Ano in the sixth inning. The Giants seemed shaky, committing five errors leading to four unearned runs. Brooks Robinson homered to spark a five-run second inning for Baltimore. Neither Oh nor Nagashima managed to get a hit, while Boog Powell slugged one over the fence for the Orioles.

    The second game matched Orioles veteran southpaw Mike Cuellar against Giants ace Tsuneo Horiuchi. Don Buford robbed Sadaharu Oh of a home run, keeping the Japanese star hitless in the first two contests. Frank Robinson, battling a strained Achilles tendon, homered on a Horiuchi changeup, one of three Baltimore round-trippers during an easy 8-2 win. Robinson praised the umpiring while noting that the strike zone was a bit high. He also suggested that Horiuchi, who allowed six runs in six innings, should rely more on his fastball.

    The Orioles were amused, but at the same time honored by the ceremonial atmosphere surrounding the contests. Before every game, a group of young women in kimonos presented Earl Weaver with a bouquet. During games, tuxedo-clad waiters served coffee and tea in the dugout. Even writers were treated well, provided with hot towels after the fourth inning.

    Read the rest of the article on SABR.org

    ‘We Are Trying to Close the Gap, but It Is Very Wide Yet’: The Baltimore Orioles’ 1971 Tour of Japan