Word: ichiro
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...idea that Ichiro's success could spark interest in baseball and blunt soccer's growing popularity seems logical. But it's scant consolation to those who love the proud history of the Japan League. More Japanese kids will want to play, certainly?just not in Japan...
...success of Ichiro and the 10 other Japanese players now at work in the U.S. not only blunts any popular concern about the health of the Japanese game but also contradicts it. Never have so many Japanese players done so well at so high a level; fans can justifiably say that Japanese baseball has never been better. Last year Robert Whiting, a Tokyo resident and expert on Japanese baseball, appeared on Japanese TV and asked the host, "Doesn't this bother you? You had this great tradition of baseball, and now you've lost it. All your stars are leaving...
...Inow sold Ichiro's rights to Seattle for $13 million. The second player to be posted, Kazuhisa Ishii, was signed by the Dodgers in February and was tied for third in wins (11) in the National League through June; but it's the daily success of Ichiro?the first Japanese-born position player to make it in America?that has erased the inferiority complex of his ballplaying countrymen. "Now we feel if you're a good player in Japan, you can be a good player anywhere," says Kazuo Matsui, who's still mulling over whether he wants to be posted...
...says. The 1.9 m, 95.3 kg Hideki bears the fortunate burden of playing for Japan's oldest, most successful team, an institution combining the prestige of the Yankees and the fan reverence accorded Notre Dame. The Giants always lead the league in attendance and give their stars a profile Ichiro could only have dreamed of when he played in Japan. Giants owner Tsuneo Watanabe has never lost a player to America and speaks often these days about "sports patriotism." But Hideki turned down a long-term contract last year and has spent this season making adjustments in his swing, some...
...Ikushima, a Tokyo reporter and co-author with Seattle Mariners reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa of the book My Way to Study English, which became a best seller in Japan. "Hideki's the best player in Japan now, and the Giants are the symbol of Japanese baseball. It's bigger than Ichiro leaving. We depend on Hideki for so much?his popularity, his dynamism?that if he goes, I can't imagine what will happen. I will feel emptiness. It will be the beginning of the destruction of Japanese baseball...