Sports and politics don’t mix

GEORGE JONAS EXPLAINS why it’s best not to mix sports and politics, using China as an example.

Requiem for a yokozuna

ARE YOU READY for this?

Japanese professional wrestling promoters Zero 1 Max held wrestling matches at the Yasukuni Shrine (yes, that Yasukuni Shrine) last weekend in an oblational service for the divinities.

The event, dubbed the Yamato Kamisu Strength Festival, was held for a fourth straight year to help bring back the good old days of professional wrestling in Japan. The shrine’s dohyo, or sumo ring, was rearranged to enable the installation of a special wrestling ring for 2,000 spectators. The sumo ring is located near an excellent spot for cherry blossom viewing, so at past events fans have been able to enjoy the refined delights of an o-hanami while cheering the choke holds. This year’s Strength Festival was held before the blooms opened, however. Children of junior high school age and younger were admitted free of charge.

The event was started in 2005 by Hashimoto Shinya, a professional wrestler who died later that year at the age of 40. This year’s card featured seven matches.

Ready for another one?

There is a long tradition of professional wrestlers fighting at Yasukuni Shrine. The most recent occasion before this series was April 23, 1961, when Japanese wrestling legend Rikidozan presided over a card that featured youngsters Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki, who would become stars in their own right. (Inoki also would later form his own political party and win election to a seat in the upper house.) The event attracted 15,000 people.

But the maiden event occurred in March 1921, when American wrestling legend Ad Sentel took on several Japanese judo practitioners from the Kodokan dojo, including Nagata Reijiro, and won all his matches. This story has an interesting background. Sentel took on judo fighter Ito Tokugoro in 1914 and beat him. Ito had publicized himself as a “Japanese judo champion”, so Sentel claimed after his victory that he was the “World Judo Champion” (proving that professional wrestlers haven’t changed much in the past century.) This prompted the embarrassed head of the Kodokan dojo to arrange the matches with Sentel at Yasukuni. The American’s victories popularized what some call “submission wrestling” in Japan.

Holding wrestling matches for the divinities at a Shinto shrine is not as outlandish as it may seem. There is a very long tradition in Japan of festivals with competitive events at Shinto shrines. In addition to sumo, which is closely linked to Shinto, competitions at shrines include archery, tug-of-war, and, according to my reference, even cock-fighting. The idea is that the divinities will favor the more deserving competitor, and the victors in these events will have good fortune in the year ahead.

Ready for one more?

The primary draw this year was the appearance in the ring of the former sumo yokozuna Akebono fighting as one member of a six-man tag team match.

The term yokozuna is usually translated as grand champion, but it is best understood by describing it as the top classification in the sumo ranking system (which is somewhat similar to martial arts). Only the best of the best are elevated to yokozuna status. (Akebono was just the 64th rikishi to earn that rank.) Those chosen are not just the most successful athletes in the Japanese national sport, they are also expected to exemplify its living spiritual traditions, which are 2,000 years old.

For Akebono to become a professional wrestler, it is as if Michael Jordan decided to take up roller derby.

A decade ago, Akebono, who was born Chad Ha’aheo Rowan in Hawaii, was one of the foremost figures in international sport, in his or any era. Because sumo is followed by few people outside of Japan, and because rikishi compete under specially chosen names, his identity and accomplishments are unfamiliar to many.

Rowan was not merely very good—he absolutely dominated sumo during a career that lasted from 1988 to 2001 and set records in the process. And to scale the sumo summit, he had to leave his home in Hawaii to live in Japan and master a foreign language, the techniques of an unfamiliar sport, and the customs and traditions participation in that sport demands.

Rowan appeared in his first tournament in March 1988. There are six tournaments a year, and just 30 tournaments later, in January 1993, he became sumo’s first non-Japanese yokozuna. It was the fastest rise to this rank in the sport’s history. Further, Akebono was the only rikishi to hold the highest rank for nearly two years. Some have likened this feat to a Japanese who has never seen or played football going to an American university and winning the Heisman Trophy four years later.

Akebono’s career match record was 654 wins and 232 losses. He won 11 tournament championships, ranking him 7th in the modern era at the time. (After Akebono retired, another foreign rikishi, Musashimaru, racked up 12. Today’s fallen superstar, the Mongolian Asashoryu, later broke Akebono’s records for speed of promotion, and won 22 championships to place fourth on the all-time list. But that’s another story.)

His stunning competitive record was not the only reason for Akebono’s popularity among the Japanese. Participation in sumo demands an attitude and approach that is almost aesthetic. Unlike his fellow Hawaiian Konishiki, who whined that racism prevented his promotion to yokozuna, Akebono pleased even the most demanding purists with his demeanor. More than a few Japanese wondered if a non-Japanese would ever be honored with elevation to the top rank, as sumo is a conservative, traditional sport in a country that prizes conservatism in its traditions. But Akebono made history in January 1993.

Forced to retire due to a series of knee injuries, there were a wealth of opportunities to pursue. He could have opened his own training organization, as do many former famous rikishi. He could have parleyed his name and fame into television commercials, as did Konishiki. He could have married a trophy wife, as did Takanohana. Indeed, he could have done all three. He was well paid during his days in the ring, earning US$15,000 a month at his peak, not counting bonuses for tournament victories, and could have made a lot more in any number of ways.

So what did Akebono choose to do after retirement? He became a K-1 fighter.

I’m not sure how well known K-1 is outside of Japan, but in Japan it is an extremely popular fighting sport. Venues with a capacity of 45,000 have been known to sell out for matches in an hour. Conducted in a boxing ring, the sport’s promoters claim it combines the martial arts of karate, Thai kickboxing, tae kwon do, and kung fu. The matches seem to be above board, but all the commentators have a background in professional wrestling. Here is their official website.

But it was not just a case of Akebono deciding to become a K-1 fighter. He was a really bad K-1 fighter. Starting with his debut on New Year’s Eve 2003 against Bob Sapp, a fighter so well known in Japan that the bout was dubbed a dream match, the former rikishi was handed his lunch every time he stepped into the ring. His matches seldom lasted more than a couple of minutes against opponents that were often lightly regarded in K-1 circles.

Then the SmackDown! Xprofessional wrestling show made its way to Japan two years ago. Akebono attended and was invited into the ring by one of the wrestlers, The Big Show. The two shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before Akebono left. But Akebono didn’t leave it there. In a story familiar to anyone who has ever been a 10-year-old boy, there was a report that SmackDown’s announcer “tracked Big Show down backstage and told him word out of Japan was that Akebono wanted to face Show at WrestleMania 21 later that year in Los Angeles.”

Big Show accepted the challenge and the match was arranged. It was a sumo style match, which naturally gave Akebono an advantage. Perhaps the organizers did not want Akebono to flop as badly in professional wrestling as he did in K-1. Another possibility was suggested by wrestling commentator NormanB: “What’s going to happen: Akebono wins, because celebrity pseudo-wrestlers NEVER lose to sports entertainers. Examples: Lawrence Taylor, Jay Leno, David Arquette, Mr. T, Kevin Greene…”

During a weigh-in that must have used cattle scales, Akebono showed up at 504 pounds while the seven-foot-tall Big Show tipped the scales at a mere 493. The Big Show has a sense of humor about his size. He told an interviewer, “We have to take these small commuter planes, and I feel like I’m wearing the plane, not sitting in it.”

The interviewer asked him if professional wrestling was fake, recalling that another wrestler once told him the moves were choreographed but the pain was real. Here’s Big Show’s answer:

I’ve had Undertaker kick me in the nuts so hard in The Garden, I just about passed out on Triple H. The chairs are metal, and your ears will ring for about two days after a good chair shot. That’s the thing that people don’t understand. We put our bodies on the line to tell that emotional story.…I just hope that one day they have a Mac Truck wheel chair so I’ll be able to get around.

Once upon a time, Akebono was the most respected member of a 2,000-year-old tradition, a record holder, and a true pioneer after rising to the top as a foreigner in a world that is one of the most traditional of Japanese endeavors. Yet a little more than a decade later, he was challenging Big Show to a match in WrestleMania 21. The result? Big Show briefly picked up Akebono up off his feet, but after one minute and two seconds, Akebono shoved his opponent out of the ring. He was a victor again, though this time it was probably scripted. And I’m sure the pain was real.

Eight years ago, Akebono appeared in a sumo ritual at Yasukuni at the pinnacle of his professional fame. Last weekend, few even in Japan noticed as he threw his weight around once again to take down his opponents. He said he was nervous at first, but happy to be back.

He seems to have found his niche. He said he wants to continue his career as a professional wrestler as a single instead of being part of a tag team.

If the dramatist and author Rod Serling were still alive, he might call this Requiem for A Yokozuna.

Ave atque vale: Kazuhisa “Iron Arm” Inao (1937-2007)

THE NICKNAME “IRON MAN” in American baseball was bestowed on Cal Ripken for the qualities of physical durability and mental toughness that enabled him to appear in a record 2632 consecutive games—the equivalent of every game for more than 16 seasons–and on Lou Gehrig, the man who held the record before him. Their counterpart in Japanese baseball was infielder Sachio Kinugasa, who played in 2215 consecutive games.

But these three men were what is known as “position players”. It was physically possible for them to play every game in a season, barring injury, because they were defenders in the field reacting to batted balls and were not involved in every pitch or every play.

That’s not the case at all for pitchers, however. The demands of throwing a baseball 100 or more times a game at speeds of 85 to 100 mph and twisting the arm to cause the ball to spin in different directions mean that starting pitchers now play only once every five days. Lasting as many as seven innings of a nine-inning game is considered an excellent performance. Winning 20 games in the 162-game American baseball season places them among the elite of their profession. Today’s benchmark for a strong, durable starting pitcher is to work 200 innings in a season.

Relief pitchers, who are brought into the game when the starting pitcher tires or is ineffective, play more frequently. An excellent relief pitcher with stamina will appear in a third or more of his team’s games during the season, but he will only pitch an inning or two at most.

What standards of performance would earn a pitcher the Iron Man moniker? In Japan, every baseball fan knows that the man who epitomized the physical durability and mental toughness deserving of that term is Kazuhisa Inao, the player they called Tetsuwan (Iron Arm). Inao died on 13 November, and his memorial service was held on Thursday.

Here’s the story behind that nickname, but be prepared. Those of you outside Japan who follow baseball will be astounded by what you are about to read.

Unheralded Rookie Steps Up

Inao made his debut as a professional baseball player in 1956 for the Nishitetsu Lions of Fukuoka City and played for that team his entire career. His skills did not attract the attention of manager Osamu Mihara or the coaching staff at first, but he was signed to pitch batting practice in accordance with the universal baseball axiom that a team cannot have too many pitchers. Inao established himself over the course of the exhibition season, however, and won a spot on the roster as a relief pitcher. His initial appearances were in mop-up roles out of the bullpen at the end of games already decided.

The rookie was so effective that he was shifted to the starting rotation in mid-May. The right-hander went on to compile a 21-6 won-lost record for the year, with an eye-popping earned run average of 1.06, still the single-season record for the Pacific League. To no one’s surprise, he was named Rookie of the Year.

Most pitchers would sell their souls to the devil for a season such as that, but Inao was just getting warmed up. The next year, 1957, he won 35 games, a number inconceivable in the sport today, and 20 of those were in a row—another Japanese record. (You’ll be seeing that phrase a lot.) He went on to win at least 30 games in three consecutive years, which no other Japanese pitcher has ever done.

Career Highlights

If that victory total is inconceivable, no words exist to describe his 1961 season, when he won 42 games to tie the Japanese single-season record. (He shares the mark with Russian-born Victor Starfin, who racked up that total when the standards for awarding wins to pitchers were more ill-defined than they are now.)

We should note that when Inao played, the staff’s ace pitcher was also expected to pitch in relief. Still, Inao threw 25 complete games in 1961–seven of which were shutouts–started another five that he didn’t finish, and appeared in 78 games in all. He finished a total of 43 games, suggesting he was used in the role of closer for as many as 18. He pitched 404 innings that year, one of five in which he pitched more than 370 innings.

Could anyone top that performance? Inao already had.

Inao’s Lions squared off against the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, the perennial powers of Japanese baseball, in the 1958 Japan Series, a seven-game tournament to determine the championship. The Lions lost the first three games, meaning they were one more loss away from elimination.

Explaining his thought processes some years later, Lions manager Mihara said he was resigned to losing the series at that point. He based his strategy for the remaining games on what he thought the other players and fans would want him to do, so he decided to go again with his ace, Inao.

Inao had already started games one and three, pitching a complete game in the latter, which he lost 1-0. But Mihara brought him back to start game four…and to pitch seven innings of one-hit relief in game five…and to start game six—all of which he won. To be sure, the games were not played on consecutive days. There was a rainout between games three and four, and a two-day layoff between games five and six.

The man with the arm of iron still wasn’t finished. He pitched in relief in game seven, and was the winning pitcher in that game, too, as the Lions stunned Japanese baseball with an unprecedented come-from-behind surge to win the championship four games to three. Inao was credited with the win in all four of the Lions’ victories in that series (and suffered two of their three losses), pitching 47 innings—a record–and striking out 32 batters—another record. His ERA over the six games in which he appeared was 1.57, with a WHIP (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched) of 0.72.

But this was a series of the kind dreams and movies are made of, so before you pick your jaw up off the floor, here’s something else—as a batter, he hit a walk-off home run in the 10th inning of game five to win that contest. (In Japan those are called sayonara home runs, by far the better term.) It was the first sayonara home run in Japan Series history. (The second photo shows him approaching home plate after the home run.)

Celebrating the victory, the local paper covering his team ran a headline that was to become famous: “Kami-sama, Hotoke-sama, Inao-sama”. The first is the Shinto deity, the second is the Buddhist deity, and the third, Inao, was now the God of Baseball.

Years later, when Inao visited his manager Mihara in the hospital, the latter apologized for overusing him to suit his own circumstances. Inao shrugged it off: “In those days, I was happy just to be able to pitch.”

Overuse Takes its Toll

Inao notched his 200th victory in 1962, not surprising when you consider that he won at least 20 games in his first eight seasons. But even iron is subject to metal fatigue, and Inao suffered a shoulder injury in 1964 that caused him to sit out most of the season.

His rehabilitation program was just as incredible as his performance on the field. The concept of sports medicine didn’t exist in those days, and someone came up with an idea that would render the modern baseball observer speechless. Inao had an iron baseball made and practiced pitching with that. The idea was that he would became used to the weight of the iron ball, so throwing a regular baseball would no longer seem painful.

At this point, do I need to tell you that it worked? His shoulder pain disappeared after a few months.

He returned as a relief specialist, though he was not as effective as before. He still had enough gas in the tank to win the ERA title once again in 1966, but he finally retired in 1969 at the age of 32. His early exit as an active player spurred Japanese baseball to rethink the role of the starting pitcher and increase the size of the starting rotation.

Post-Retirement Career

The following season, the Lions hired him as manager, the youngest man to hold that position in the Japan League. But the franchise was beset with other problems, and he was not as successful in the role of skipper as he was a pitcher. The team finished in last place three years in a row, and he stepped down in 1974.

Inao returned to baseball in 1978 as the pitching coach for the Chunichi Dragons (the team Tom Selleck played for in the movie Mr. Baseball), a role he performed for three seasons. He later came back to manage the Lotte Orions from 1984 to 1986.

After hanging up his spikes, Inao worked as a baseball analyst in both the print and broadcast media. For his career, he compiled a won-lost record of 276-137 (10th most wins in Japan), 2,574 strikeouts (8th all-time), with a lifetime ERA of 1.98 (3rd all-time). His career WHIP was 0.99. He also holds the Japanese record for most wins in a month, with 11. Yet another record he holds is the number of complete games pitched in a career in the Japan Series, with nine. He was named Most Valuable Player in 1957 and 1958. It goes without saying that he was inducted into Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993 (third photo).

Upbringing a Factor

Inao was born in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, to parents who were fishermen. He was known for being unflappable in the tightest of circumstances, which he attributed to a childhood spent working on a flimsy fishing boat:

“There was just a thin board and underneath that was the sea. Every day I got on that boat without knowing whether I would live or die. That’s the reason I never got flustered on the mound.”

In addition to coolness under fire, he was also known for his courtesy as a player. At the end of each inning, he made sure to leave the resin bag in exactly the same spot and to fill in and smooth over the holes he had dug at the front of the pitching mound by striding with his front foot.

Inao’s pitching technique also set him apart from his peers–he pitched without his back heel on the ground, spinning on his toes. Inao said he developed this technique from rowing the family fishing boat. His two best pitches were a slider and screwball, and he is said to have been able to change the grip on the ball from one to the other in the middle of his pitching motion. He also mastered the forkball, but—in yet another astonishing aspect of an astonishing career—only did so because of the difficulty he had facing Kihachi Enomoto, the batter who had the most success against him. Inao said he never threw a forkball in a game to anyone else.

Extraordinary pitching control was one more reason for his success. Recalled longtime batterymate, catcher Hiromi Wada, “He was like a machine with his control. He could place his pitches within a third of a baseball where he wanted to at any time.” (Wada is on the right in the fourth photo, with Inao on the left.)

Admitted to the hospital in October complaining of a loss of feeling in his shoulder and leg, Kazuhisa Inao died of a malignant tumor less than a month later. He was 70 years old.

Japan: The gold standard for behavior in NE Asia

EXTEND YOUR SYMPATHIES to those people who innocently believe that, having read articles or seen television reports about Japan, they thereby have any real knowledge of the country or its people.

It’s not unusual for journalists to get it wrong—we’ve come to expect it–but it’s unfathomable how they can be so wrong about Japan so often. Even when they manage to get the facts right, there are exaggerations that would make a vaudeville comic wince and an eagerness to accentuate the negative that makes informed media consumers wonder about their real agenda.

But enough of words: pictures are worth thousands of them, and here is one worth several thousand. It is the perfect expression of what Japan and its people are really like:

The women are holding a banner with a message that reads “Thank you China” in three languages: Romanized Japanese (arigato), Chinese (xie xie), and English. These are members of the Japanese women’s soccer team, and the photo shows their behavior just after they were eliminated from the Women’s World Cup held in China last month.

A gracious act to be sure, you might be thinking, but nothing extraordinary in the world of sports.

Well, gracious acts in this age are not so commonplace that we should overlook them, but this was a rare form of grace under pressure. The women are standing on a soccer pitch in front of a crowd of 40,000 Chinese in a Hangzhou stadium who had just spent the entire match booing every move the Japanese team made, cheering wildly for their opponents, and waving a large national flag when the other team scored a goal.

No, the opposing team wasn’t China—it was Germany, who won the match 2-0.

The Chinese behavior should come as no surprise. During soccer’s Asian Cup in China in 2004, a 60,000-strong crowd attending the final between China and Japan started booing with the Japanese national anthem. The players and Japanese fans were pelted with trash, and the fans were seated in a special section with extra security. After Japan won, angry Chinese crowds demonstrated outside the stadium. Keeping order required a police and military presence of 5,000.

This year, FIFA moved up the Japan-Germany match to 17 September from the originally scheduled 18th because the latter was the 76th anniversary of the Mukden Incident (also known as the Manchuria Incident), which led to war between the countries six years later. The Chinese government asked FIFA for the change because they were concerned about their ability to provide security for the Japanese team.

The incident during the Women’s World Cup ignited a fiery debate in China, as well it might with the 2008 Beijing Olympics less than a year away. Some Chinese were impressed by the Japanese women’s courage and thought their countrymen would do well to follow their example, as described in this Japanese-language report from Supootsu Hochi, published by Yomiuri. Others disagreed, claiming that it would be disgraceful for Chinese to be swayed by what they claimed was PR from Japan, a country that won’t recognize its wartime misdeeds.

The report says the controversy intensified on the 18th when the online edition of the Chengdu Business Newspaper based in Szechwan Province published an account of the incident and included a photograph. In an editorial, the paper asserted that the match’s biggest losers were not the Japanese team, but the spectators. Others countered that it was perfectly natural to boo the Japanese, who deserved no consideration whatsoever. This touched off the usual e-mail and Internet free-for-all.

The debate continued when a Chinese weekly hit the newsstands on the 20th, which declared that even while recognizing the importance of the Sino-Japanese historical problems, “China needs a forward-looking attitude and the sound awareness (of itself) as a great power.”

Little of this information has appeared in English. A quick sweep of the Internet turned up only one mention in a sports blog, which got the information from the EastSouthWestNorth website. The latter were in the camp of those unhappy with the crowd’s behavior.

One might find this lack of coverage curious, but perhaps we should consider the context. The IOC has to be legitimately concerned about the potential for violence against Japanese athletes and fans during next year’s Games, and might have wished to downplay the incident in the media. They’re stuck with their choice of the Chinese as hosts.

As it is, China is having enough trouble trying to keep the anti-pollution promises it made when it bid for the Games. They probably will not succeed, and this recent report indicates the extent of the problem. (Note the photo.) The article does not mention Chinese excuses that the pollution is caused mostly by sand and dust storms.

It does, however, quote a UN official saying that people should remember it is the first time a developing nation has hosted the Olympics. Perhaps that’s what the Chinese need to keep in mind rather than an awareness of itself as a great power. Indeed, the Women’s World Cup was originally scheduled to be held in China in 2003, but had to be moved to the U.S. because of the SARS epidemic, caused and spread by Third World levels of sanitation and public health. Also, the International Ice Hockey Federation cancelled the 2003 IIHF Women’s World Championship that was to be held in Beijing that year.

And of course the Chinese have to be alarmed about the behavior of the soccer spectators last month because they realize how damaging a similar or more serious incident would be to the nation’s image worldwide. If people were injured—or worse—during the Olympics, it would be no consolation for anyone if the Chinese were to realize they had brought it on themselves.

The country’s rulers have chosen to deflect domestic dissatisfaction by creating a sense of national unity that incorporates outrageous anti-Japanese propaganda. This policy has created a citizenry so boorish the army is required to guarantee security at an international athletic event. How else to control crowds that boo a national anthem, dump trash on innocent athletes, think courtesy and politeness is PR (damned if they do and damned if they don’t), and suffer from the delusion that Japanese deny invading China 76 years ago, before anyone in that stadium was born?

Of course their reputation would be harmed. People still remember the incident that occurred during a boxing match in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. When a South Korean boxer was declared the loser in one fight, two Korean coaches jumped into the ring and pummeled one of the judges. A volunteer security staffer removed his identifying jacket and started punching the judge as well. Ringside officials threw trash and two folding chairs into the ring. Other Korean officials then turned out lights in the hall.

Here’s the New York Times account of the incident. Note the excuses they make for Korean behavior in the first paragraph and last sentence. Given that paper’s attitude toward Japan, try to imagine how they would have covered the story had the venue been Tokyo instead of Seoul.

Meanwhile, Japan has hosted the Olympics in exemplary fashion three times. It is beyond the realm of imagination that the incidents in Seoul and Hangzou could have happened anywhere in Japan. It is inconceivable that a Japanese crowd would boo another country’s national anthem, boo a national team throughout a sporting event, throw garbage on players and fans, and behave so badly the army is required to keep them in line. International sporting events in Japan have never been cancelled due to public health concerns. And no Japanese officials have ever thrashed a judge from another country because they were unhappy with the decision.

How do the Japanese behave?

We already have the example of the Olympics.

Another example is the Japanese soccer diplomacy as described in this article. Twenty-three members of the Japanese Diet traveled to Dalian, China, earlier this month to play a friendly soccer match with members of the National People’s Congress. The match was organized by the Japanese, and according to the People’s Daily, the Chinese participants loved it. The Japanese hope to do it again and include South Korea the next time.

And then there’s the photo above.

It’s time to recognize that Japanese behavior is still the gold standard in Northeast Asia—and not only for the Olympics. Of all the countries in this part of the world, they are without question the least nationalistic and the one most actively promoting harmonious regional relations.

It’s also time for the media to say it.

An F to the prof for his understanding of East Asia

JOURNALISTS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES that have difficulty comprehending Japan and the rest of Northeast Asia. Academics can be even worse.

Quebec native Daniel A. Bell is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy of Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has been studying China and Confucianism in East Asia for at least 10 years. In this article in Dissent magazine, he discusses the Chinese craze for soccer and the reasons for their passionate support of powerhouse international teams.

Not only does he present more goofy ideas per column inch than I’ve seen in years, but despite crawling over, under, and all around the topic, he fails to spot the reason for this phenomenon. Yet the reason is so obvious it might as well be painted in day-glo colors, and should be immediately apparent to any scholar of East Asia.

He also doesn’t seem to know very much about sports.

Is Matsuzaka a rookie? Or is Japanese baseball minor league?

WAYNE GRACZYK has been writing a column in the Japan Times on Japanese baseball and the players who play the game, both native and foreign, for more than 30 years. In his column on Sunday, Graczyk makes the point that it’s farcical to regard such people as Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, and Daisuke Matsuzaka as rookies, but that’s exactly how they are classified in the American major leagues. In fact, Ichiro, Kazuhiro Sasaki, and Hideo Nomo all won the Rookie of the Year award after their first year of baseball in the U.S.

Last week an Associated Press photo appeared in these pages with a caption that began, “Boston Red Sox rookie hurler Daisuke Matsuzaka . . . ” An AP story in the sports briefs mentioned New York Yankees “rookie pitcher Kei Igawa” and his progress in working his way back to top form. Previously, Boston reliever Hideki Okajima was named the American League “rookie” Pitcher of the Month for April. Then a Kyodo News item reported, “Red Sox rookie right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka” was named the American League Player of the Week for the period of May 14-20.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. These guys are not rookies, and it really rubs me the wrong way whenever I see this description.

Graczyk took the issue up with Omar Minaya when the latter was an assistant GM with the Mets. (He is now the general manager.) Minaya agreed with his point, but said there’s nothing much that can be done because the rules state any first-year player in the U.S. is a rookie, regardless of his experience elsewhere.

The clinching argument:

The Red Sox did not pay more than $100 million in posting, salary and bonuses for Matsuzaka the inexperienced novice, but for Matsuzaka the proven veteran star.

Why does it matter? Graczyk notes that it’s unfair to players who are real rookies by making it less likely that they’ll win the ROY award, which could have financial benefits.

Though the columnist doesn’t say it, there might be another reason. He recalls that 10 years ago, there was a proposal to have a four-way postseason tournament between the champions of the (then) three AAA leagues in the U.S. and the winner of the Japan Series. The idea was scotched by the Japanese when they pointed out they couldn’t participate because they were not a minor league like the other three.

Japanese baseball doesn’t consider to be rookies those veterans of the American major leagues who come to play in Japan. Why shouldn’t the American major leagues implement a similar rule–and extend Japanese baseball the respect it deserves as a major league?

Especially now that the Japanese are the reigning champions of international baseball.

Japanese major leaguers: Now as American as apple pie

A sure sign that the pioneering phase of any endeavor has been successfully completed is not when the innovator or trailblazer has settled in after enjoying his turn in the limelight—it’s when people take for granted the presence of the pedestrian workman. Bob Marley was the man who put reggae on the musical map outside of Jamaica, but the sign that the music was accepted on an everyday level was the use of Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys” as the theme for the TV show Cops in the US.

A similar sign of the ultimate success of African-Americans in American baseball was not when Jackie Robinson and other Negro League stars became sought after by team owners and general managers, but when unremarkable players, such as Dave Pope (12 career home runs and .265 lifetime average in four seasons), became an accepted part of the game less than a decade later.

Major League Baseball’s 2007 season got underway last week, and while the media focused on Boston’s 50 million dollar man, Daisuke Matsuzaka, the real story is that there are now 14 Japanese players on major league rosters in such places as Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay instead of the geographically convenient Seattle or LA, or deep pocket teams like the Yankees or Mets.

While Ichiro Suzuki is headed for the Hall of Fame after batting titles, hitting records, and gold gloves, Hideki Matsui is the toast of New York, and modern Japanese pioneer Hideo Nomo is the part-owner of an American minor league team, relatively anonymous players such as So Taguchi of St. Louis and Tadahito Iguchi of the White Sox are the guys with the World Series rings, relief pitcher Shigetoshi Hasegawa has retired after a respectable but unheralded nine-year career in the States, and burnt out former Yomiuri Giants’ star Masumi Kuwata wants to hear one last hurrah, this time for the Pirates.

The sheer volume of dollars thrown at Matsuzaka (attributable in large part to his nutcracker agent, Scott Boras) has focused American media attention on the latest phase of Japanese participation in the American pastime. An indication of that attention is the length (five screens) of this Boston Globe overview of Japanese players in America. It starts and ends with Masanori Murakami, who became the first Japanese ballplayer to appear in the majors with San Francisco in 1964.

It’s an informative article that’s worth reading, but as with all media reports about Japan, there are the usual problems.

Dice-K: The major league hitters’ perspective

There’s been an enormous amount of hype about Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka on both sides of the Pacific (and from Cuba too after the World Baseball Classic), but the man with the $US 50 million contract is now starting to face major league hitters, and he’ll need his gyroball and not the hype to get those guys out.

Dice-K and the Red Sox hosted the Baltimore Orioles for an exhibition game on Sunday in Fort Myers, Florida. Proving once again that baseball is a funny game, Matsuzaka stymied most of the regulars, but was torched for home runs by two minor leaguers, giving up three runs.

Wrote Baltimore Sun reporter Roch Kubatko: “He looked unhittable at times, ordinary on other occasions.”

On the gyroball, minor league outfielder Adam Stern, who singled, said: “It’s like this mythological thing that’s taken on its own life.” Oriole broadcaster Buck Martinez, a former major league catcher and manager, reports: “It turns over like a screwball. It’s a pretty good pitch.” (Screwballs break in the opposite direction of curveballs, i.e., toward the right instead of the left if a pitcher is righthanded.)

But the consensus of the players was that he’s very good. Here’s Kubatko’s report in the Baltimore Sun.

Commenting on the throng of reporters covering the game, Kubatko wrote in his blog, “I went to a baseball game and a circus broke out.” But if you’re a Tokyo night owl, maybe you already know. The game was televised live by TBS at 2:00 a.m.

Kemari: Was soccer an East Asian invention?

Most soccer fans worldwide are probably unaware that the Japanese (and the Chinese) have been playing different forms of football for more than a millennium. That’s entirely understandable, however—most Japanese are probably unaware of it too.

The game the Japanese play is called kemari, and it dates from the Heian Period (794-1192). It was once wildly popular among all classes of society, including everyone from the Emperor and the samurai to the commoners, and this popularity continued for several centuries, until the Muromachi Period (1333 – 1573), when interest shifted to sumo. In fact, a list of people reputedly skilled at the sport reads like a Who’s Who of Japanese history–it includes several emperors, Oda Nobunaga, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The idea is similar to hacky sack—a ball is kicked among several people, with the idea being to keep it from hitting the ground. The brief explanation given here on the Imperial Household Agency’s website says that there are no winners and losers; the idea is just to kick back and have a good time, so to speak.

That’s not what the Japanese-language version of Wikipedia says, however. They claim that there is (or was) competition, both in the team version and the individual version. The objective in the team version, which has eight kickers, or keashi, to a side, is to see how many times the mari, or ball, can be kicked consecutively without letting it hit the ground. In the individual version, the person who lets the mari hit the ground loses.

That’s not the only issue at dispute. Even the Japanese think it came from China (along with most everything else), but others seem to think that the Chinese game and the Japanese game developed separately. Indeed, the Chinese game, called tsu chu, involved kicking the ball into a container suspended from a rod, which is significantly different from the Japanese game. Nevertheless, the Football Network site claims the Chinese and Japanese squared off in the year 50, making it the first recorded international football match. I wonder about that date, however. That would make it one of the first, if not the first, recorded contacts between the Chinese and the Japanese, but they don’t provide further information on the document.

People who want to see a vintage performance of the sport can visit the Konpira Shrine in Kagawa Prefecture. The photo accompanying this post is a shot of the action on the shrine grounds. Performances are given three times a year, in May, July and December. In addition to the colorful period costumes, you’ll get to hear the keashi shouting Ariya, ariya, ariya! as they control the mari, and Ari! as they pass it on to the next player.

Hey, don’t laugh. I’d rather watch kemari than paint my face, get drunk, and scream Oreh, oreh! at a soccer match. It’s probably a lot cheaper than a soccer ticket, and the spectators are closer to the action besides!

Postscript: This is a video of a kemari demonstration. Keep in mind these are old guys who probably got the costumes out of the dry cleaners that morning. Here’s the website for the Kemari Preservation Society, and the Shinshu Kemari Association, for those of you who read Japanese.