Changing the Game
Several strong-willed young baseball stars are finally standing up to the sport's conservative management
By HANNAH BEECH Tokyo
Ichiro Suzuki bows to no one. While most Japanese baseball superstars tend to be robotic pitchers, he has earned his reputation swinging a bat. His $4.2 million contract shattered previous salary records. He has his own clothing line, and his genial face beams from countless Tokyo billboards. Defying convention, the 25-year-old's Orix BlueWave jersey is emblazoned with his first name, Ichiro, instead of his last.
With his easygoing style and on-the-field bravado, Ichiro represents the brash new face of one of Japan's most conservative pastimes. Yes, he works hard, and he has led his team to two pennants and a Japan Series title. But he plays hard, too. During a spring training exchange program with America's Seattle Mariners this year, the five-time batting champion picked up not just tips on improving his swing but some colorful English profanity as well. The two-week U.S. stint is a likely prelude to Ichiro's move westward. "With pitchers like Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu in the U.S., Japanese players are realizing they can play in America, too," says Hitoshi Yasuno of sports-marketing firm IMG Tokyo. "Many young players admire the easier style of American play." Certainly, Ichiro makes no secret of his wish to blaze a path as the first Japanese non-pitcher in the U.S. big leagues. "He told me the major leagues is his type of baseball," says Orix teammate Willie Banks, formerly of the Arizona Diamondbacks. "He said everybody in the States is so relaxed and everybody in Japan is so uptight."
Ichiro isn't the only one fed up with Japanese baseball's corporate rigidity, a consequence of the conservative thinking of the elderly cadres who run the sport. For 34 years, Japan's national pastime has been played by the owners' rules, which restrict players' freedom to choose their teams and showcase their talents. "Japanese baseball is an obligation to the company," says Tokyo-based sportswriter Jim Allen. "You have to sacrifice for the good of your team."
There is little reason to believe the system will change from within. When Ichiro Yoshikuni retired as commissioner of the sport last year at age 81, he was replaced by 76-year-old Hiromori Kawashima, hardly a harbinger of revolutionary change. Disheartened by such creakiness, many younger players are breaking with tradition and piping up for themselves. Some are simply more outspoken about their prowess, like 18-year-old pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has spurned conventional modesty by predicting he will be 1999's rookie of the year. Others are rocking the boat in more fundamental ways. Despite a lingering recession and the sport's unspoken rule not to haggle over money, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Japan's top relief pitcher, milked a one-year, $4 million contract out of the Yokohama BayStars. Last year's rookie of the year Kenshin Kawakami turned heads by snagging a raise of $250,000 from the Chunichi Dragons--the largest pay hike ever given to a player with one year's experience. And of course, there's Ichiro's dazzling paycheck.
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Ichiro Suzuki. Kyodo
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