http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501031208-552174,00.
html
In the classic samurai film Yojimbo, rival factions bid for the services of
a mercenary who has wandered into town. To which side will this mysterious
swordsman give his allegiance? Kazuo Matsui is baseball's yojimbo, a free
agent from Japan with more suitors than a Muromachi-era princess. No fewer
than nine major league teams—including rivals the New York Yankees and the
Boston Red Sox—are reportedly in the running for the services of the 1.75-m
shortstop. The question brewing on hot stoves on two continents is not just
where this bat-and-glove for hire will wind up but also whether he's willing
to change positions or play in the shadow of another Japanese star.
In the Land of the Rising Sun, Matsui is considered the best everyday player.
The 28-year-old switch-hitter—who is not related to Yankees leftfielder
Hideki Matsui (whose 1.88-m, 95-kg frame and status as Japan's premier power
hitter led to Kazuo's being dubbed Little Matsui)—has won four Gold Gloves,
batted better than .300 for seven straight years, hit at least 20 homers in
each of the past four seasons and stolen 30 or more bases five times. In a
millennium poll, fans voted him the greatest Japanese shortstop ever. He was
24 at the time.
"Kazuo is the Alex Rodriguez of the Japanese game," says Robert Whiting,
author of You Gotta Have Wa, the definitive English-language book on Japanese
baseball. Until announcing his plans to jump to the U.S. last week, Matsui
was on his way to becoming his country's Cal Ripken Jr. His consecutive-game
streak of 1,143 is the fifth longest in Japanese baseball history. "Matsui
plays hurt and doesn't know where the trainer's table is," says Ted Heid,
director of Pacific Rim operations for the Seattle Mariners. "I think he's
going to be very, very successful in the U.S."
Heid, whose reports had prompted the Mariners to sign outfielder Ichiro
Suzuki and relief pitcher Kazuhiro Sasaki, has been tracking Matsui for six
years. His scouting report: "Extremely strong arm. Outstanding range,
comparable to Omar Vizquel's. Fast as a bullet train." Suzuki, the quickest
player in the American League, says Matsui is even quicker than he is.
Affable and self-effacing, Matsui certainly has the quickest smile east of
Yokohama. On this brisk, autumn afternoon in downtown Tokyo, he wears it
with a black velvet blazer, a black silk shirt and the gold peace medallion
his wife, Mio, gave him in October for his 28th birthday.
His spiky hair is dyed a reddish orange. Normally it's metallic silver.
Unless it's electric mustard. Or sea-urchin blue. "My high school coach
didn't like all the different colors," Matsui, who speaks virtually no
English, says through an interpreter.
Matsui's hair—a symbol of his longstanding desire to set himself apart as
a flashy, hip celebrity—is the subject of endless discussion in the Japanese
press. As is his relationship (or lack of one) with his estranged father, a
topic that Matsui won't discuss.
He's happy to talk baseball, though. He was a short, frail pitcher until his
freshman year of high school. "I watched American baseball on TV and
realized that all the players were strong in the upper body," he says.
"So I started lifting weights."
Too many weights. He injured his right elbow and required minor surgery.
"My doctor told me to cut down on my weight training," he says.
"Did you?"
He smiles and shakes his head slightly. "No, I kept it up. I was quite
stubborn."
At 18 he was drafted by the Seibu Lions and turned into a shortstop. In his
second year in the minors he came up for a cup of kohee. He figured he would
quickly be farmed back out. Instead he became the protege of Hiroshi
Narahara, the Japanese Ozzie Smith.
Matsui hit from the right side exclusively until the advanced age of 21.
"The problem was I couldn't hit right-handed pitchers," he says. "A coach
told me if I went 2 for 20 left-handed, I'd have the same batting average.
So I practiced."
He now hits equally well from the right or left side. He homered from both
sides of the plate in a November 2002 game against a traveling major league
All-Star team. He hit .440 for the seven-game series and outshone teammate
Hideki Matsui, who—confounded by two-seam, sinking fastballs—batted a mere
.138. "While Big Matsui was flailing away," Whiting says, "Little Matsui was
ripping major league pitching apart."
Big Matsui, of course, left Japan last fall after clubbing 332 home runs in
10 seasons and finished second in the American League Rookie of the Year
voting. Little Matsui could have gone over then too, but passed. The Japanese
papers claimed his wife didn't want to move. "That is absolutely untrue,"
protests Matsui. "Only I can change my mind."
After the season ended in October, he changed it several times. During an
Athens Olympics qualifying tournament in Sapporo, he wavered on whether to
go to the majors or stay in Japan and play in the 2004 Summer Games. A
teammate who had participated in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 nearly sold him
on staying. "He said nothing in baseball compared," Matsui says. "It was a
tough, tough decision."
In the end Matsui turned down offers from Seibu and the Yomiuri Giants, both
rumored to be three-year deals in the $27 million range. "I may have to
accept less money in the U.S.," he says, "but it's important for me to see
how much I can improve as a player."
To handle his Stateside negotiations he hired Arn Tellem, known in the
Japanese press by the oxymoron omoiyari no aru dairinin, "the compassionate
agent." It was Tellem who delivered Hideki Matsui to the Yankees for three
years and $21 million. "We feel he understands the needs of the Japanese
people," says sportswriter Chiho Yamashita.
Tellem also understands the needs of big league G.M.'s. Of the teams currently
in the Matsui hunt, seven—the Mariners, Red Sox, Yankees, Anaheim Angels,
Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets—have strong working
relationships with Tellem. The other two, the Chicago Cubs and the San
Francisco Giants, are long shots. Neither is known as a big free-agent
spender.
The Dodgers would seem to be the best fit. Los Angeles has a large Japanese
population (about 37,000) and an even larger hole at short. On top of that,
two Dodgers pitchers are Japanese (Hideo Nomo and Kaz Ishii), and the team's
managing partner (Bob Daly) was once the boss of Tellem's wife, Nancy, who is
currently the president of CBS Entertainment. The only factor working against
L.A. is money: the franchise is up for sale, and the transition to new
ownership might clog the team's cash flow.
Swag is not a problem for the woeful Mets, who covet Matsui and are willing
to move their top young player, shortstop Jose Reyes, to second. The Mariners
are flush with cash and short at short but seem more intrigued by free-agent
pivotman Miguel Tejada, the 2002 American League MVP.
Anaheim is perhaps not as attractive a setting to a young Asian family as
L.A., New York City or Seattle. Baltimore is an even harder sell: according
to the 2000 Census, of the 4.8 million population in the Baltimore-
Washington, D.C., area, just 6,360 were Japanese. The Orioles would like
Matsui to visit Camden Yards, but Matsui isn't big on touring. "I don't plan
to travel much," he says.
He has already visited Yankee Stadium. He traveled to New York City in
October to watch a play-off game against the Red Sox, buying three-year-old
daughter Haruna a miniature Yankees bat and a pinstripes-clad panda. "The
Yankees were so big," he says, "that they made the field look small."
Of course, the Yankees already have Derek Jeter and the Red Sox have Nomar
Garciaparra—All-Star shortstops who aren't going to change positions.
Assuming Boston doesn't trade Garciaparra, who's in the final year of his
contract, they would switch Matsui to second; New York would put him either
at second (trading Alfonso Soriano or setting him to graze in the outfield)
or third (replacing Aaron Boone).
Matsui prefers to stay at his current position. "My feeling is that I am a
shortstop," he says. "I could learn a lot by playing beside Jeter, but I
would want the chance to someday compete for his spot. It would not be easy
to knock him off, but if I became a Yankee, I would like to be given the
chance."
The irony is absolutely Steinbrennian: by all accounts Matsui is an all-
around better defensive shortstop than Jeter. Moving the Japanese star to
another position would be like buying a plush convertible and driving it
with the top up. "You'd eliminate most of his talents as a shortstop—his
hands, his quickness, his arm," says Mariners director Heid. "I don't
suggest having any player make a position change, let alone one while making
a country and culture change."
Some scouts wonder if Matsui can adapt to the tricky hops and nuances of the
natural grass infields in the U.S. In Japan's Pacific League, where he plays,
every ballpark but one has artificial turf. "American grass looks really high,
" says Matsui.
As high as his ambitions.
—From SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
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