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He also commented, “I’ve never done anything like that before.” However, it was reported by the UPI that “western turf writers recalled that a year ago in the $100,000 Californian race at Hollywood Park, Shoemaker eased up on Swaps in the stretch and allowed Porterhourse to zoom by to win the race. There he didn’t misjudge the finish line, but merely thought he had a safe margin in the stretch and stopped driving.” Shoemaker’s miscalculation of the finish line cost him 10% of the purse (over $10,000). Conspiracy theorists would note that that was not a huge amount of money in 1957.

CONCLUSION:

#18

Why weren’t any Japanese players signed to major league contracts from 1965-1995?

In July of 2007, the Boston Red Sox announced a deal with the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball, in the areas of scouting and baseball development. I wrote to Jim Small, a Vice President for Major League Baseball, to ask him about this latest deal. He emailed that “the Red Sox/Chiba deal is identical to the other agreements that currently exist (Yomiuri Giants/Yankees, Nippon Ham Fighters/Diamondbacks, etc.) They can share baseball information and development ideas.” Let’s just say there is a real spirit of cooperation that exists now.

In the 2007 All-Star Game, Ichiro Suzuki represented the Mariners for a seventh time and stole the spotlight, winning the MVP award. It doesn’t seem possible that not too long ago there was a conspiracy that kept Japanese players from playing in the Major Leagues.

The success Ichiro—as well as others like Hideo Nomo and Hideki Matsui—has had in the Major Leagues has opened the door for many other Japanese ballplayers to come to the United States to play in the world’s top baseball league. Signed as a free agent by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995, Nomo became the Jackie Robinson of Japanese players, breaking a barrier that had existed for decades. Did he shatter the myth that the Japanese players weren’t as good as their peers from the States? You bet he did, starting the All-Star Game in his rookie MLB season (1995), and pitching no-hitters in both the American and National Leagues before his career was through.

Nomo’s success was miniscule compared to that of the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro spent eight years in Japan playing for the Orix BlueWave, his team in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. He won seven Japanese batting titles before his owner let him follow his dream and come to the states. Ichiro has been playing at a Hall of Fame level for the Seattle Mariners ever since. In 2001, his first year in the states, Ichiro led Seattle to 116 wins while batting .350, stealing fifty-six bases, and becoming a worldwide superstar. That year he became only the second player in Major League history to win the Rookie of the Year Award and the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in the same season, following Fred Lynn’s magical 1975 season with Boston.

Matsui has not become the elite superstar that he was in Japan, but instead a valued and trusted star with the New York Yankees. Matsui, a former number one draft pick by the Yomiuri Giants in 1993, spent ten years with the Giants, hitting fifty home runs in 2002, his last year in Japan. Matsui hit only 112 home runs in his first six Major League seasons, but has a batting average of .295 with the Yankees, not far off from his earlier days in Japan. He’s also got a .302 batting average in the postseason.

On opening day of the 2007 season, there were eighteen players on Major League rosters born in Asia, including twelve players born in Japan, one being Boston’s right-handed pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. He’ll make more than $52 million in a six-year deal, and that’s not including what the Red Sox had to spent ($51.1 million in a sealed bid) in the posting system for the exclusive right to negotiate with him.

There have been other hits (and some misses) with the Japanese players that have made the long flight to the United States to play in the