The Asian reporter., April 01, 2019, Page 7, Image 7

SPORTS
April 1, 2019
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
Asians in American sports w Asian Americans in world sports
A legend’s retirement kicks off
a season packed with Asian talent
By Mike Street
Special to The Asian Reporter
ust like the sound of “Play Ball!” and
the smell of fresh-cut outfield grass,
our annual look at the best Asian
players in Major League Baseball (MLB)
signals the start of the baseball season.
While there are one or two position
players, most of the high-impact eastern
imports are pitchers, many among the best
in the game. And the top Asian baseball
player right now, Shohei Ohtani, can pitch
and hit with the best — though this
season, he will be doing just one of those.
Ohtani joined the Los Angeles Angels in
2019, drawing even more notice than other
superstar Japanese pitchers because of his
abilities on both offense and defense.
Ohtani had previously spent five years
playing Nippon Professional Baseball
(NPB), where he logged a 42-15 record
with a 2.52 ERA (Earned Run Average)
and a 1.08 WHIP (Walks & Hits per
Innings Pitched) while clubbing 48 home
runs and 70 doubles in 403 games.
In 2018, Ohtani won the MLB Rookie of
the Year award after hitting .285 with 22
home runs in just 114 games while
notching a 3.31 ERA and striking out 63
batters in 51.2 innings. No player since
Babe Ruth has made 10 pitching
appearances and hit more than 20 home
runs, and Ohtani didn’t even play a full
season.
Last October 1, Ohtani went under the
knife for Tommy John surgery, and the
resulting rehabilitation will limit him to
designated hitter duties this season. His
true value to the Angels won’t be realized
until he returns to the mound in 2020,
when he should be able to build on
whatever advances he makes at the plate
this season.
Hot on the heels of Ohtani, the latest
pitching sensation to make the leap from
the east is coming to a familiar Pacific
Northwest destination for Japanese
players: the Seattle Mariners. The
Mariners have had a Japan-born player on
AP Photo/Michael Wyke
AP Photo/Toru Takahashi
J
their roster every season since 1998, but
they’ve never signed a NPB pitcher with
the talent of Yusei Kikuchi, who inked a
four-year, $56-million contract with
Seattle before this season.
In Kikuchi’s eight seasons with the
TOP TALENT. Ichiro Suzuki, left, and pitcher
Yusei Kikuchi (top photo) of the Seattle Mariners
leave a press conference in Tokyo. The Mariners
played a two-game baseball series against the Oak-
land Athletics to open the Major League Baseball
(MLB) season at the Tokyo Dome. In the bottom
photo, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels
takes a swing during an MLB game on September
22, 2018, in Houston.
Saitama Seibu Lions in NPB, he had a
record of 74-48 with a 2.81 ERA and 1.18
WHIP. In 2017, his best season, he went
16-6 against a 1.97 ERA and a dominating
0.91 WHIP, striking out more than a
batter per inning for the first time in his
career. He joins a Mariners team in
rebuilding mode, but he will make a great
foundation around which to create a
winning team.
Many other Asian MLB players will try
to make their mark this season, each with
his own great storyline. Slugging third
baseman Jung-ho Kang will return to the
Pittsburgh Pirates after almost two years
off due to injury and legal issues in his
native South Korea. Yu Darvish, once the
top Japanese pitcher in baseball, will look
to redeem himself after a lost first season
with the Chicago Cubs, while starting
pitcher Masahiro Tanaka and the New
York Yankees are favorites to win the
World Series.
But any catalog would be incomplete
without celebrating the retirement of
Ichiro Suzuki, the best Asian baseball
player to grace an MLB diamond — and
one of the best ever to play the game.
Without him, it’s likely that few, if any, of
these other Asian players would be on an
MLB team today.
Looking back now, it’s hard to remember
the skepticism that greeted the arrival of
Ichiro. The Seattle Mariners signed him in
2000 to a three-year, $14-million contract
— a bargain, even when you factor in the
$13.1 million fee that Seattle paid for the
right to negotiate with him. Back then,
that was a lot of money to pay a player, and
his price tag and Asian heritage meant
that Ichiro arrived with a target on his
Continued on page 8
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