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Week 29 - The End: August 12th - October 12th
Entries completed: August 14th, 15th, 15th (#2) & 16th, September 3rd, 12th, 20th & 30th, October 11th
10 DAY VACATION
August 14th, 2007 - FUKUOKA, Japan I apologize for doing such a bad job of updating the blog lately. The night before my family left for the States I got the news I was going back to minor leagues. I could not have been more frustrated with the decision.
Since my last trip to the minor leagues I had been really focused on doing what I needed to do to help the Hawks. As a lefty handed relief pitcher my job is to get left handed hitters out, especially in important situations.
I was happy with the results I had been getting. Since my return from the minors on June 1st I had not allowed a hit to a left handed batter. I was grateful for those results but also a little surprised. That .000 batting average versus lefties during that time is above and beyond what I was aiming for. I had also kept my walks down during that time. I had just 2 after walking way too many batters in April.
The night before I was sent to “ni-gun” I walked a hitter and hit a left handed batter with a fastball. Despite all that I had done the past 2 months that game earned me a demotion. These kinds of reactions are very unusual to foreign pitchers. We are not used to the constant shuffling of the roster and changing of bullpen roles on such a daily basis. I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t having a hard time with it. I am much more used to a bullpen where roles are set early in the season and stay relatively the same throughout the year barring any major failures or injuries. As a Hawk you have to be ready to adjust almost game to game and be ready for anything. It makes it very difficult to get into a groove that way, but if I want to play here, and I do very badly, then you have to find a way to make it work. It’s been a challenge.
You have heard me talk about consistent work for relief pitchers. We are creatures of habit and the worse thing we can do is sit around and not pitch in games. I am somewhat envious of the Hanshin Tigers relievers. They have 3 pitchers with 43 or more appearances and they are all doing very well. Our highest is Mahara with 37 and he is having an incredible year. There is no doubt in my mind I would be successful here if I pitched in 60-70 games.
My vacation is over and Mr. Oh says he would like to see me pitch with more passion and I am certainly trying to make that adjustment. We are 2 games back with about 42 games to play. I hope that we keep this roster together and make a run at the league title. For me team chemistry is important. It won’t be easy but we have enough talent to make it happen.
August 15th, 2007 - FUKUOKA, Japan I am not going to spend a lot of time on this as we would all like to see this situation go away.
The facts of the case are this: Rick tested positive for a banned substance called Finasteride. Rick informed the team in spring camp that he was taking Finasteride. The team was supposed to tell the league office that Rick was taking Finasteride. They never did. Finasteride is used in hair restoration products which is why Rick was taking it. Rick was unaware that Finasteride was illegal and that it is also used as a masking agent for a particular steroid.
Rick did absolutely nothing wrong. The team acknowledged it’s mistake. Rick received a 20 day suspension. It is important to note that Rick did not take steroids or a masking agent for steroids. He was only taking hair medication that had a banned substance in it. He was completely unaware that Finasteride was illegal. He followed all the rules by telling the team everything he was taking.
He is not happy that he will miss approximately 3 starts and either is the team. He understands though it was just a mistake and it is time to move on.
August 15th, 2007 - FUKUOKA, Japan Growing up a white kid in suburban New York City racial profiling was never an issue for me. As an American living in Japan I got my first taste of it.
I was in Tenjin recently enjoying an evening of darts with some friends. It was pretty late, sometime after 2AM when we were making our way back our car. Suddenly a police car driving towards us pulled over and an officer jumps out. He stands in front of us and puts his hands up as to say “don’t move, you stay right here.”
Luckily for me one of the translators was with me. Had he not been I am not sure how this would have ended. We were detained for approximately 15-20 minutes. Apparently there had been a fight in a bar somewhere between a Japanese guy and a gaijin. The American guy must have fled because the police were looking for him.
Luckily for me I matched the gaijin's description; tall, white, wearing a white shirt with horizontal stripes. Great! My translator explained to the police officer where we were coming from and that we had not been in the establishment that the incident had taken place.
The officer asked for my phone number and the translator refused to give it to him. He had told him my phone number was useless to them because I do not speak Japanese. Instead the translator gave the officer his number.
The police officer also wanted to take my picture and my translator refused that request as well. He was not going to allow them to take my picture and then show it to the Japanese guy so he could try and make an identification. That is just too risky.
After much discussion and debate we were finally let go. My translator believes the Japanese guy making the complaint was in the area and the police drove him by me in one of their cars so he could tell them if I was the guy that started the fight or not.
I was glad to get out of there and not run into any trouble. I couldn’t imagine what that experience would have been like without my translator there. Something tells me I would have been able to add a mug shot to my collection of pictures in Japan on my MySpace page.
August 16th, 2007 - FUKUOKA, Japan My family has been gone for 2 weeks now and I am happy to report the time is going by quickly. The one thing that helps is that my kids are starting school and that will keep them busy. Whenever they are busy that helps the time go by faster for all of us.
September 3rd, 2007 - FUKUOKA, Japan My apologies for disappearing for over 2 weeks. I have been answering e-mails but I have not updated the blog, MySpace or YouTube. I go through these phases during the season sometimes and for those of you have been eagerly awaiting I apologize.
My job on this team is to get left handed hitters out. I humbly tell you that I am content with the job I have done this year. I have allowed just one extra base hit to a lefty this season and the last hit I gave up to a lefty was in early May. But for some reason or another that has not been enough. I have never had an average against left-handed hitters like I do this season and if I was back in the States I would be pitching very often but here not that much.
You start to realize that as a foreign player you are judged differently here. For me any mistake I have made throughout the season has been treated as if the world as come to an end. Part of being a baseball player, especially a relief pitcher, is learning from mistakes, moving on and getting ready for your next game. I have gotten good at that late in my career but it has been difficult to do that this season because you are constantly reminded of your mistakes, whether it be directly or indirectly.
It starts to make me wonder what my purpose is here. I feel like I have handcuffs on and I am unable to contribute to this team in the way I am capable of. Being held back is very frustrating. In the end I can only sit and wait for my next opportunity. To be honest though that is not very fun, especially with my family so far away. Today my daughter asked me on the phone why I am never home for her birthday (late August) but always home for my son's birthday (November). When I stop to see what I am doing I have to ask myself is this really worth it? If I am pitching, if I am doing what I do best and contributing to this team making a run at a championship then yes it probably is. When I am sitting here doing nothing I can't help but think it is probably not.
September 12th, 2007 - TACHIKAWA, Japan After all my concerns about not pitching for the Hawks much lately things have suddenly took a turn for the better. I have gotten a chance to pitch quite a bit lately for our team and I have been fortunate to get positive results. I threw in 4 of the 6 games on the last home stand, a frequency of pitching that I really like and also believe gives me the best opportunity to suceed. I have always enjoyed the role of pitching often.
My career has been an odd one of sorts and although I have never done anything that altered the history books in significant way I do have my little tidbits that will make good conversation to bore my grandchildren with. I can't confirm this through Elias Sports Bureau or any other credible baseball statistics company but I am pretty sure I am the only player in the history of baseball to be credited with a win by only throwing one pitch in both the MLB & NPB. It's not Cy Young kind of stuff but it is pretty interesting, at least to me.
September 20th, 2007 - CHIBA, Japan With less than 2 weeks to go the race for the Pacific League Championship is getting good. As of today we are 2 games back of the Nippon Ham Fighters. First place is big in Japan as it allows you a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Second place is important too because the second place team gets home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, a best of 3 series where all games are played in one city. Right now we are 3 up on the Marines for 2nd place.
September 30th, 2007 - FUKUOKA, Japan We were getting really close to first place and then suddenly things changed. We were 6 outs away from being just ½ game out of first place. That game, against the Fighters, ended in a tie and since then we have lost 4 of 5. The Fighters won the Pacific League and although we are guaranteed a playoff spot we are still in a fight.
We now trail the Chiba Marines by 1 ½ games. 2nd place is important because the 2nd place team gets home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. We have three games remaining, the Marines have 4. One of those games will be versus them which we will almost assuredly have to win.
This kind of annoyed me…..
Tonight Adam played first base for us. Adam is an outfielder and has played first base probably less than 5 times all season. At one point in the game an Eagles’ player hit a ground ball in the hole at shortstop. Kawasaki fielded the ball and then made the long throw to first base. His throw was in the dirt and was a difficult play for Adam. The ball got passed him and the Eagles scored a run on the play. Kawasaki was charged with an error.
My Japanese is pretty bad but with some help from a teammate I realized that one of the Hawks TV announcers put the blame on Adam for the miscue. That was completely unfair but typical of what foreign players experience in Japan. It was a tough play for Adam and it was totally unreasonable to expect him to make that play. I found it very annoying that one of our own announcers would criticize him. I have noticed in my eight months here that sometimes foreign players take more blame than that of the Japanese players. You almost get the sense that sometimes those not playing the game (announcers, etc.) like to see foreign players make mistakes, even though in this case, no mistake was made.
October 11th, 2007 - 34,000 FEET, Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean The season certainly didn’t end like I had imagined. The team struggled down the stretch but we still went into the playoffs confident we could knock off Chiba in the first stage of the Climax Series. It wasn’t meant to be. We dropped the best of 3 series 2-1.
We lost the first game 8-4 and won the second 8-3. It was very un-playoff like. You expect the games in playoffs to be a lot closer than that. In the rubber match, Game 3, we needed a win. Both starters threw outstanding through 5 innings. Chiba broke through in the 6th with 4 runs and we lost 4-0. Just like that our season was over. I was pretty surprised. Currently I am on my 11 hour flight from Tokyo to Chicago.
The season was a disappointment for me. I had set two goals prior to the season and I did not achieve either. My first was to earn the trust of my manager, so that he would be confident using me at any time, in any game, all season long. My season was so-so and I was unable to earn that trust. My second goal was to win the Japan Series. A loss in the first round of the playoffs ended that.
Overall I really enjoyed my season in Japan. Living here was tremendous, my family and I had a wonderful time. I met some great people throughout Japan and especially in Fukuoka. Hawks’ fans were so welcoming to the foreign players and it was a lot of fun to play for them.
It is my desire to comeback and play here again. There are a lot of adjustments a foreign player has to make in Japan and after you have one season under your belt you should be able to improve in a second season. They’ll be a lot less surprises and you come into spring training with a better understanding of how things work. Hopefully I get that chance in 2008 with the Hawks.
For now I will take a break, enjoy my family, some American food and lots of rest. I’ll also be trying to get used to driving on the right side of the road again. Getting ready for the 2008 season begins soon. Once I become aware of where (or if) I’ll be playing next season I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime I will continue to answer e-mails, just at a little less rapid pace.
Thank you to everyone in Japan who made 2007 an exciting experience that I will never forget.
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