THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605110444
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 320 lines
Bums.
The term doesn't clearly translate from English to Japanese, but there is no better way to describe the Chiba Lotte Marines. For 15 years, the Marines had finished in the bottom half of their six-team Pacific Division of the Japanese League.
This was the picture painted for Bobby Valentine by the Marines' front office.
``They asked me to manage the worst team in Japanese baseball history. That's the way they described it,'' Valentine said. ``They wanted me to take my time and evolve the franchise into a good team, be part and parcel to closing the gap.''
It had been more than two decades since a ``gaijin'' - the Japanese word for foreigner - had been in charge of a Japanese team. The American experiment was tried at length once before - in the 1970s when Don Blasingame, who played second base for the Cincinnati Reds in the '61 World Series, managed the Hanshin Tigers and Nankai Hawks, two years at both stops.
And Blasingame wasn't new to Japanese baseball by then. He'd played in Japan for three years, coached for nine more.
Valentine came in without much Japanese background and is the first to have managed in the major leagues and Japan.
``Truth be known, I don't think there was anybody over there who wanted to manage that team,'' Valentine said. ``For years, it had been a manager's graveyard. They'd tried everything else.''
So they threw a pile of money at Valentine, who was making about $65,000 managing the Norfolk Tides.
Why Valentine? He'd managed in the major leagues, leading the Texas Rangers from 1985-92.
And he'd struck up a relationship with Tatsuro Hirooka, who would be his general manager with the Marines, while on a goodwill baseball mission five years prior.
Hirooka was a legendary shortstop for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, which was the equivalent of being a Hall of Famer for the New York Yankees. Hirooka had been part of the Giants when they won nine straight Japan Series titles from 1965-73.
Hirooka came stateside after the '94 season and lured Valentine with a two-year contract with an option year that would pay him $600,000 a year, plus incentive clauses.
``I wouldn't have gone over for a minor-league salary,'' Valentine said. ``Not to manage the worst team in Japanese baseball. I had to have some monetary justification.''
Who better to offer a sweet deal than the Marines? Lotte, the corporation that owns the team, is the Japanese equivalent of Wrigley's gum and Hershey's chocolate rolled into one, the candy king of Japan.
``It's a double-digit billion dollar industry over there,'' Valentine said. ``I've got gum in 100 different colors and flavors.''
Ask Valentine the differences between American baseball and Japanese baseball and he doesn't stop until he gets to No. 101.
``There are so many that soon after I arrived in Japan I started to compile a list,'' Valentine said.
For Valentine, joining the Marines was a three-pronged learning experience. There was the language, which he tried to pick up through instructional tapes before making the journey. There were the players, 70 in all in the Chiba Lotte organization. And there were the customs.
Like flower girls.
``Before every game, the managers are presented flowers in a home plate ceremony,'' Valentine said. ``Only it isn't always flowers. The teams don't play all of their home games at one stadium. They'll move around to give all localities in the country an opportunity to see a big-league game.
``If we went to a city known for, say, its grapefruit, or better yet a certain fish, that's what we were given. Whatever was indigenous to the region.''
And the national anthem: ``Where everybody stands for the playing of the national anthem here, over there they play it, but nobody is required to stand.''
And the strike zone: ``Japanese fans love the full count. They expect every batter to get to 3-2. So the umpire's strike zone either shrinks or expands to get that count to 3-2.''
These were things Valentine could accept, but there were other differences between baseball on the two continents he couldn't.
In Japan, teams are expected to practice, practice, practice.
Valentine was taken aback by the extremes. For instance, the four-hour batting practice.
``They would hit and hit and hit, thinking the more repetitions the better you'd get,'' Valentine said. ``But they wanted to do this on game days. They didn't believe a player should get tired from too much practice or that a bad habit might seep in from overwork.''
Valentine started shortening the team's workouts and learned a new word in the process: chigaimasu.
``It has three different meanings,'' Valentine said. ``One translation is `change.' It also means `different.' But the third meaning, and the one that would be used most in relation to me, is `incorrect.' Actually, the word often carries all three meanings at once.
``Humans dislike change by nature, whether it involves family, style, work or government. But that fact is magnified in Japan. It's a homogeneous society, about the size of Montana, with 90 percent of the population living on 10 percent of the land. And 90 percent of the population is 100 percent Japanese.
``With so many people living so close together, they are inundated with sameness. It has to be that way. If there's no order, they don't exist.''
So change doesn't go over well.
Neither do questions, of which Valentine had a lot.
If he asked why the Marines did something a certain way, or why a subway system ran in a certain manner, the answer was often the same: ``Japan is a very small country.
``I eventually learned that it's not polite in Japan to ask `Why?' Basically, the attitude is, `If we're doing it, don't question it.' But I was a foreigner. And that thought was very difficult for me to understand.''
Valentine refused to let constricting Japanese protocol deter him. Plus, the Marines got off to a 4-12 start and for the first two months were as bad as advertised. He figured something had to be done to change their losing ways.
``All the obvious things were coming into play,'' Valentine said, who was escorted at all times by an interpreter. ``There was a new guy in charge, a major language barrier had to be overcome. I was making position switches. We were still struggling on June 20. And a lot of people believed I was being given just enough rope to hang myself.''
In one of his bolder moves, Valentine made the Marines' utility player, Koichi Hori, the everyday shortstop. The move was lampooned by some but Hori responded by hitting .309, three points higher than Julio Franco, one of the Marines' other foreign imports.
Valentine did have some English-speaking company on the team: Franco, outfielder Pete Incaviglia, pitcher Eric Hillman and hitting instructor Tom Robson.
The team, in theory, was attempting to cross American and Japanese baseball philosophies.
Near the end of June, it began to work. The Marines - which in Japanese means people ``living near the sea'' - started winning. Just as important, they started winning over the fans, particularly Valentine.
Baseball magazines, of which there are many in Japan, were regularly writing feature stories on the American manager who was turning around the woeful Marines.
``But it's not like I could send any of the magazines home and say, `Hey mom, look at this nice article they wrote about me,' '' Valentine said. ``Usually, Japanese baseball magazines are 70 percent baseball and 30 percent pornography.''
Still, Valentine was getting a kick out of his popularity and the team's success. Attendance rose 23 percent. For the first time in 20 years, the club showed a profit.
Valentine still doesn't know what to make of the Japanese style of journalism.
``This type interview we're conducting right now wouldn't happen in Japan,'' Valentine said. ``I would have been given about five questions in written form ahead of time. It's such a polite society.
``Postgame interviews were often very strange. There'd be a public relations guy, my interpreter. The press would be herded in like cattle and a few questions would be asked, most very easy questions. Then the PR guy would eventually lead them out of my office.
``We could have lost a game in the ninth inning and they wouldn't ask more than five questions. And there was no such thing as a player interview.''
Instead, the Japanese conduct what's best described as a hero's interview after the game. According to Valentine, the game's star player stands on a podium at home plate and what follows approaches sheer cheerleading. The player is egged on by a public address announcer, talks about the great game just played, then the fans erupt in applause.
Valentine at first thought the concept was innovative and gave the fans something they couldn't get from the media outlets, who never interviewed players after games. But the more Japanese he understood, the campier the hero's interview became.
``Puff questions,'' Valentine said. ``Sometimes, it was downright corny.''
While the mainstream media was ``extremely conservative,'' Valentine found a seedier side to Japanese journalism. There are seven daily newspapers that cover Japanese baseball in the traditional sense - Yomiuri, which owns the Giants, is also a major media corporation, much like the Chicago Tribune - but there are also two dozen papers Valentine likened to scandal sheets.
``They reported about players in bars, told stories about what was happening behind the scenes,'' Valentine said, grinning widely. ``If you really wanted to get the story, they gave it to you.''
What Valentine really wanted all along was a better understanding of Japanese baseball, even of its roots. Although ESPN is pushing an advertising campaign titled, ``It's baseball and you're an American,'' Valentine sees the game on the verge of an international boom.
And that boom received a boost last season with the appearance of Hideo Nomo in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform.
``I see inter-league play between the Japanese and us as inevitable,'' Valentine said. ``I see it as a line that has to be crossed for baseball to survive.''
Valentine tried to educate himself on Japanese baseball history, going beyond the simple items such as the great home run hitter Sadaharu Oh or the player considered the best ever in Japan, third baseman Shigeo Nagashima. Both played for the Giants.
There were lessons to be learned even in the simplest facts. For instance, Oh isn't considered the greatest Japanese player.
``He didn't qualify,'' Valentine said, smiling. ``He was part Chinese.''
Nagashima, on the other hand, was a Japanese hero, the first player to receive an audience with the Emperor after leading a team of Japanese all-stars to an 11-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in an exhibition game in 1966.
Early on, Valentine began to hear about a rite of passage called ``the thousand ground balls.'' As Valentine was told, it was a Japanese ritual for an aspiring pro to field 1,000 ground balls without a break.
Valentine figured it wouldn't hurt his standing with his own players, or the fans for that matter, to tackle the task.
It took 3 1/2 hours for Valentine, who will turn 46 on Monday, to field 1,000 ground balls. Valentine figures it took two people hitting about 1,200 balls his way for him to field the 1,000 grounders. By the time he was done, there were blisters for everyone involved.
``The first guy wore out,'' said Valentine, who played in the major leagues for 10 years. ``The bat's a little heavier than the glove.
``I felt I had to do it. And you know what? Although I'd seen clips of 16-year-old kids fielding their 1,000 ground balls on TV reports, I later learned that not everyone does it. It's an illusion, the belief being that the great ones could stand out there in the blaring sun and field 1,000 ground balls if they had to.''
Valentine isn't sure how the Japanese perceived his fielding feat, ``but I know I felt better about myself.''
And when it was all over, he had the title for the book he'd later write.
Through July and August, the Marines were on a tear.
The worst team in Japanese baseball finished 69-58-3. Their second-place finish - the best in team history - was worth a $250,000 bonus for Valentine.
And Valentine knew he was a goner.
If there's such a thing as being too popular, Valentine was it. His success became a direct challenge to Hirooka, a semi-legendary figure in Japanese baseball who had coached, managed and been a television commentator.
Hirooka and Valentine had come in as a package deal; both were in their first year with the Marines. The power struggle had its ups and downs throughout the season.
Hirooka had been criticized for not hiring Oh to manage the Marines. Instead, Oh had been hired by the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, who beat the Marines the first two times the teams played.
Hirooka was also passing notes to the dugout during games questioning or suggesting strategy. And Hirooka's assistant GM, Masuichi Takagi, was driving Valentine nuts.
``I could accept it when Hirooka would show up for a workout and give instruction on the field,'' Valentine said. ``He'd been a great player and manager himself. But Takagi never played the game. And he'd be out there anyway yelling instructions to players. Beyond that, he gave Hirooka misinformation about things I was doing and really overstepped his boundaries as far as I was concerned.''
To a degree, the same went on with third base coach Shozo Eto.
``Eto was my go-between in the locker room with players,'' Valentine said. ``But I discovered him freelancing on the information he was supposed to relay to players, too much for the welfare of the team. He wasn't always telling the team what I wanted to tell them. Instead, he told them what they wanted to hear.''
In October, Hirooka called a news conference to announce that the team was returning to its Japanese managerial roots, naming Akira Ejiri, who'd played and coached for the Taiyo Whales, as Valentine's replacement.
``I had explained Japanese-style baseball to manager Valentine, but there were many points of disagreement,'' Hirooka said.
Valentine said that as news of his possible ouster surfaced late in the season, fans collected 20,000 signatures on a petition asking for him to be retained and Hirooka fired.
``It was a grass-roots movement that's unheard of in Japan,'' Valentine said. ``That isn't the Japanese style. It was really amazing.''
It was also ironic since Valentine had stipulated in contract negotiations that he wouldn't manage unless Hirooka was his GM.
Valentine still can't believe they fired him when they did. It was so ... so Japanese.
``In the U.S., if there was a manager-general manager conflict that had to be rectified but the team was coming off a great year, the organization would wait and let the success of the previous season carry over to the following spring,'' Valentine said. ``That way season-ticket sales get a boost and the fans have something to rejoice in.''
Valentine was called in for a five-hour meeting with Hirooka and team owner Takeo Shigemitsu, a Harvard graduate.
``He told me there was some discrepancy over whether we should have won more games,'' Valentine said. ``I said that was true, but that we also won some that we should have lost. It was just part of the equation.''
When the job had been offered, Valentine was given three goals: improve individual talent, get the Marines into the upper half of the division and increase attendance. All were met.
But the five-hour discussion had little to do with the record and even less with the real problem: the gaijin vs. hometown hero.
``The differences in opinion between the two would hurt the growth of the team,'' Shigemitsu would later say.
So if the team was winning under Valentine, why not fire Hirooka? Valentine points to the Japanese philosophy of saving face.
``Shigemitsu hired the general manager and the general manager hired me,'' Valentine said. ``He couldn't turn around and fire the general manager. He had to stick with the man he had chosen to run the club.''
The only form of Valentine that returned to Japan in time for the start of the 1996 season was a book.
When Valentine was offered a chance to write about his experience, he jumped at the chance. He'll admit he wanted to expound on Japanese philosophy and the differences between American approaches - thus the list of 101 differences between Japanese and American baseball which he compiled on his home computer.
But the publishers wanted a quick-hit about the ups and downs of the season. Valentine was still hot and they were sure it would sell.
A ghost writer spent six days with Valentine in January. When the book - selling for 1,395 yen ($13.95) - hit the stands, it sold 35,000 copies the first week. It sold 10,000 more copies its second week.
The book jacket shows a beaming Valentine. The title reads ``Beyond the Thousand Ground Balls.''
So what's ahead for Valentine, now that he's fielded his thousand ground balls? He wants to one day return to Japan to manage. He doesn't discount the idea of returning to the Marines.
``I jumped on the Internet the other day and you know what I found out? (Ejiri) is having the same problems I had and being criticized for not practicing the team enough,'' Valentine said. ``Funny, isn't it?''
And if Japan or the major leagues don't eventually beckon for his return, Valentine has his eyes on the Dominican Republic.
``That way I could be fired in three different countries, three different languages,'' Valentine said. ``I'm already proof you can be fired in two.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color book cover
Bobby Valentine's book of his Japanese experience, "Beyond the
Thousand Ground Balls," with a price tag of 1,395 yen ($13.95), sold
35,000 copies the first week and 10,000 more copies the second
week.
Graphic
A Somewhat Different Ball Game
How Japanese baseball differs from American baseball, according to
Bobby Valentine.
The Fans
The Game
Umpires
Miscellaneous
For complete text, see microfilm
KEYWORDS: PROFILE INTERVIEW by CNB