The Meaning of Ichiro (62 page)

Authors: Robert Whiting

BOOK: The Meaning of Ichiro

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During that weekend, union leaders, for their part, made the rounds on the TV news shows, stating their case, asking for the
public understanding and apologizing over and over again for their behavior. Union chief Atsuya Furuta, bespectacled 39-year-old
catcher for the Yakult Swallows, attended a rally in the Ginza where he said, “I apologize again for not being able to let
you see games this week, but I promise to do everything I can to maintain the 12-team system.” “Stop apologizing so much,”
came a voice from the audience. The public had turned against the owners midseason, in the wake of Watanabe’s derisive attitude
toward the players’ union and his very public rejection of a bid to buy the Buffaloes by scruffy 31-year-old Internet millionaire,
Takafumi Horie (he liked to wear T-shirts and jeans to press conferences and had a fondness for race horses). “We can’t deal
with people we don’t know,” said Watanabe. Horie retorted that NPB was a sorely out-of-date “old man’s club.” Much to the
glee of many fans, Watanabe had seen fit to later resign from his position as owner in an unrelated scandal involving bribe
money paid to a college star Yomiuri coveted, although he remained in control as the head of the Yomiuri Holdings and continued
to exert his influence behind the scenes—something that became increasingly difficult as ratings of Giants began to sink into
single digits.

Play resumed (to half-filled stands) and labor-management negotiations resumed in midweek. By this time, political leaders
were weighing in. Chief cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda urged NPB to reconsider accepting new teams and fresh blood. “What
management is saying cannot be comprehended.” Said PM Junichiro Koizumi, “NPB should be expanding, not contracting. What we
need are more locally-rooted teams.”

By week’s end, agreement was in sight, as management allowed that it would make room for a new team for the 2005 season—even
one backed by wealthy young Internet entrepreneurs—and reduce the expensive entry fee. Owners and players also instituted
inter-league play and agreed to establish a panel to discuss additional baseball reforms—including, ideally, integrated TV
rights, shared merchandise revenue, a more equitable draft, an expanded farm system, and development of more regionally-affiliated
teams. Furuta, for his part, was visibly relieved, the strain on his face from recent weeks replaced by a beaming smile: for
once, the union was not a marginal, out-of-place presence in Japanese baseball, although his NPBPA did suggest taking salary
cuts if necessary to alleviate financial difficulties on the other side. The Asahi Shimbun declared in an editorial that “baseball
had won a great victory,” but skeptics remained unconvinced that the hoped-for utopia was truly on the way. However the winning
candidate to emerge for admission into the NPB was Rakuten Japan’s top internet retailer, run by a polished 39-year-old Harvard
MBA named Hiroshi Mikitani, who signaled it would not be business as usual when, in an unprecedented move, hired 58-year old
American Marty Kuehnert, a man with long experience in the Japanese game and stints as a front office executive in the U.S.
minor leagues, to be the team’s general manager. The new club was named the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles and was based in
Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in Northern Honshu.

The creation of the new franchise was followed by the sale of the financially strapped Daiei Hawks to the Internet service
provider Softbank and the placing on the block of the 2004 Japan Champion Seibu Lions, a team that had fallen deeply into
the red. The owner of the club,Yoshiaki Tsusumi, a man once adjudged by
Forbes
magazine to be the richest man in the world, was forced to divorce himself from the team after its parent firm, Seibu Railways,
was found to have falsified financial statements to deceive investors. All in all, the fall of 2004 marked an auspicious start
to what appeared to be a serious reorganization of professional baseball in Japan. Time would tell.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, Roger I.
Legal Bases.
Philadelphia. Temple University. 1998.

Allen, Jim.
Ichiro Magic.
New York. Kodansha International. 2001.

——.
Guide to Japanese Baseball.
Tokyo. Slug Books. (Versions published in 1994, 1995, 1996 ,1997 ,1998.)

Baseball Magazine.
Nihon Puro Yaky
Kiroku Nenkan.
1990-2004.