Japanese Departure


Last week, Soriano strode into the home clubhouse at RFK Stadium, designer
shades over his eyes, designer bag over his shoulder, designer loafers on his
feet. His smile was broad, as usual, and he bumped fists with a clubhouse
attendant. He called out to Nick Johnson, his friend from his minor league
days with the Yankees. "Hey, Papi!"

"What's up, Papi?" Johnson said back, lowly. Their lockers are next to each
other along the right wall in the clubhouse, and Johnson was the one player
who knew what to expect when Soriano came to the Nationals.

"He's always been the same," Johnson said. "Always smiling, always laughing."

"The energy," said veteran reserve Matthew LeCroy, "you could always see
that. But I didn't know he was this kind of leader. I mean, the guy's a
superstar. You never know what you get from those guys. But this guy, he's
accessible to everybody."

The transition into the Nationals' clubhouse appears seamless now, halfway
through a season in which he has hit 27 homers, stolen 20 bases and, on a
game-to-game basis, been the barometer for whether the Nationals' offense
will produce or not.

But eight years ago, it took a contract squabble with the Hiroshima club to
put all this into motion, to bring him to the majors. Soriano wanted more
money, and the matter ended up in arbitration in early 1998. Soriano's agent
wanted almost four times what the club offered. A week after arbitrators
ruled in favor of the team, Soriano refused to report and was released.

And that led him to the Yankees. One of New York's scouts saw him in Japan.
And who better to win a bidding war for his services than the Yankees? He
signed for a bonus worth roughly $2.5 million, and that September, he was
working out at the club's spring training facility in Tampa.

"But I didn't speak English," he said. "I speak Japanese, Spanish. I got to
go back again, start all over. The people, I don't know. I see those guys in
instructional league, and I'm so shy that I just don't talk."

Yet he found a slice of home at a Tampa Latin restaurant, Las Delicias.
Comfort food, and more. He would go every day. It was there that he met a
young woman, a waitress named Angelica. She came from Panama.

"She was my friend first," he said. "Now, she is my wife."

But when they were just friends, Angelica would take Soriano to the movies.
He would listen, and he would whisper to her: "What is the Spanish word for .
. ."

"I would take the word," he said, "and I would put that in my mind."

His baseball, though, improved more quickly than his English. He began the
1999 season at Class AA, where he hit .305 and earned a brief September
call-up to a major league club that would go on to win the World Series. The
shortstop on that team, of course, was Jeter. If both Jeter and Soriano were
going to remain with the Yankees, one would have to move. And in a precursor
of things to come, Soriano didn't exactly volunteer.

"I'm a shortstop," he told the New York Daily News that summer. "But if I
have to, I'll play another position."

By the spring of 2001, Soriano was a full-time second baseman, though not a
very good one. In his five years at the position -- three with the Yankees,
two with Texas -- he committed 105 errors, 46 more than anyone else during
that time period.

"He made mistakes," said Jeter, his double-play partner. "But most of the
mistakes he made were understandable. People say he made this many errors and
whatever, but what if he gets to a ball someone else doesn't get to? Does
that make him a worse second baseman? I don't think so. I think he played
well."

The errors, too, were secondary to Soriano.

"I got comfortable at the second base," he said. "That's what's important to
me."