As the Baseball World Turns

A very good chance exists that a Japanese pitcher will be in the starting rotation of the Dodgers, Angels and Padres this baseball season. With luck, Hideo Nomo could oppose Shigetoshi Hasegawa when the Angels make their history-making June 17-18 visit to Dodger Stadium, and then perhaps Nomo could face Hideki Irabu a week later, when San Diego is in town.

Irabu isn’t signed yet. He is 6 feet 4, can throw a ball 100 mph and is nicknamed “The Irabu Express,” a la Nolan Ryan. The Padres own exclusive North American rights to Irabu, of whom Padre General Manager Kevin Towers says, “He has just plain dominated some of the teams he’s faced.”

How many Pacific Rim media people would be there for a Nomo-Nasegawa match-up, or Nomo vs. Irabu?

“Oh, at least 10,000,” says Ta Honda, the Japan-based director of international operations for the Angels, with a laugh.

Needless to say, a whole new world is opening up to major league baseball, which is precisely what Walter and Peter O’Malley envisioned during their decades-long ownership of the Dodgers. The game has gone global. The World Series could someday truly be a World Series.

Last season, the Padres broke new ground by playing a series in Mexico that counted in the standings. This summer, the team is exploring the possibility of holding a series in Honolulu.

“John and Larry are visionaries,” explains Towers, referring to Padre principal owners John Moores and Larry Lucchino.

So were the O’Malleys, obviously.

At his announcement that he was selling the team, Peter O’Malley spoke of the “broader base” baseball needs to reach, and of the particular pride he took in his Far East interests. The Dodgers have a Japanese pitcher who became a sensation near and far, and have a Korean pitcher [Chan Ho Park] who could crack this season’s rotation as well.

Anaheim checked in on Jan. 9 by signing Hasegawa, 28, a right-hander, from the Orix Blue Wave, to a one-year contract with an option for 1998.

Hasegawa’s personality was an instant hit. Saying he chose the Angels because of his familiarity with the Walt Disney Co., the pitcher added: “The pitcher is Mickey Mouse and the catcher is Minnie Mouse.”

He is a finesse pitcher without much velocity, Hasegawa’s fastball is estimated at 86 mph, tops. According to Honda, who has seen him pitch in person, “It’s his control that should impress people. As they say, he can paint.”

Quite the opposite is Irabu. He is a husky, half-American, hard-throwing hurler who typically throws in the 95-96 mph range, although the number “100” has been seen on a speed gun clocking him, more than once.

The Padres are eager for a closer look.

“He’s never seen San Diego,” says Towers, who expects the pitcher to visit very soon. “Once he sees it, I’m hopeful he will be excited to sign with us. You never know with these things. Looking at what Hideo’s done for the Dodgers, I can see how there would be a lot of comparisons, if Irabu’s pitching for us.”

Baseball is becoming an import-export business, but there is no formal arrangement--merely a gentlemen’s agreement, at present--for teams to provide compensation, rather than buying a player without permission. This issue must be addressed if the American and Asian leagues are to keep this budding relationship civil and avoid a hostile bidding war, or even a potentially fatal loss of honor.

Give a few minutes to Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ general manager, and he can recount a couple of horror stories that serve as reminders how distinct these two cultures are.

“You never know what the fallout will be,” Bavasi says. “There can be a loss of face, with very serious repercussions.”

For example, among the players Ta Honda helped recruit from, or return to, American teams were Cecil Fielder, Matt Keough and Randy Bass. The latter had become a great hero in Japan, winning batting championships and thousands of admirers. But when a son of his was diagnosed with a brain tumor--he’s fine today--a problem developed with Bass’s insurance coverage.

As Bavasi remembers, “The GM feels responsible, and he jumps off the 13th floor of the New Otani Hotel.”

Extremely conscious of this, when Nomo made it known that he intended to try American baseball, the Angels stepped lightly. At that time, there was no formal agreement necessitating that Nomo’s club in Japan receive compensation for his services. But this did not mean American teams could remain oblivious to what reaction there might be in Japan.

The Angels could have gone after Nomo. The reasons Bavasi elected not to were twofold, one being that Gene and Jackie Autry, the principal owners, were not at that point looking to invest too many millions of dollars on a player, particularly one they had never seen.

Secondly, the Angels had a certain anxiety about not straining relations with Japan.

After Nomo became a Dodger, says Bavasi, “Sure enough, the general manager over there quits, for loss of face.”

In his opinion, the Dodgers, being a better-known team internationally, were in a better position to gamble on not doing permanent harm to an Asian connection by signing Nomo, without providing anything in return. Rather than demote or release a player, the Angels might see if he has interest in trying Japan, as they once did with Willie Fraser, a pitcher. Reports have the Padres doing something similar with infielder Jason Thompson, should they sign Irabu.

Bavasi believes quid pro quo to be essential.

“There was a protocol agreement overseas, with our commissioner’s office, more or less ‘You don’t touch ours, we don’t touch yours,’ ” Bavasi says. “Now you’ve got Nomo, and that knocks the whole agreement off the gyro.

“We had a shot at signing Nomo. We called to investigate, and it sends the commissioner’s office in a tizzy. ‘Hey, he’s not a free agent. You can’t just sign him, out of the blue.’ The Dodgers took a calculated gamble, and to their credit, they won. We felt the California Angels couldn’t open up something like that and have our relationship in Japan survive it. The Angels do not have the L.A. Dodgers’ name over there. That’s just a fact of life.”

The world is evolving, though. The Seattle Mariners have part-Japanese ownership. The New York Yankees also recently signed a Japanese pitcher.

Honda says, “This day was coming. We all saw that.

“The problem that I see is that the ownerships of Japan, they fear all of the top-notch players will run away from them. And how can they stop it? We need to find a neutral way for everybody to win.

“Of course, there are only 12 people concerned about this--the Japan owners. The rest of the people over there are very excited.”