Quotes of the Day
In the classic samurai film Yojimbo, rival factions bid for the services of a mercenary who has wandered into town. To which side will this mysterious swordsman give his allegiance? Kazuo Matsui is baseball's yojimbo, a free agent from Japan with more suitors than a Muromachi-era princess. No fewer than nine major league teams—including rivals the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox—are reportedly in the running for the services of the 1.75-m shortstop. The question brewing on hot stoves on two continents is not just where this bat-and-glove for hire will wind up but also whether he's willing to change positions or play in the shadow of another Japanese star.
In the Land of the Rising Sun, Matsui is considered the best everyday player. The 28-year-old switch-hitter—who is not related to Yankees leftfielder Hideki Matsui (whose 1.88-m, 95-kg frame and status as Japan's premier power hitter led to Kazuo's being dubbed Little Matsui)—has won four Gold Gloves, batted better than .300 for seven straight years, hit at least 20 homers in each of the past four seasons and stolen 30 or more bases five times. In a millennium poll, fans voted him the greatest Japanese shortstop ever. He was 24 at the time.
"Kazuo is the Alex Rodriguez of the Japanese game," says Robert Whiting, author of You Gotta Have Wa, the definitive English-language book on Japanese baseball. Until announcing his plans to jump to the U.S. last week, Matsui was on his way to becoming his country's Cal Ripken Jr. His consecutive-games streak of 1,143 is the fifth longest in Japanese baseball history. "Matsui plays hurt and doesn't know where the trainer's table is," says Ted Heid, director of Pacific Rim operations for the Seattle Mariners. "I think he's going to be very, very successful in the U.S."
Heid, whose reports had prompted the Mariners to sign outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and relief pitcher Kazuhiro Sasaki, has been tracking Matsui for six years. His scouting report: "Extremely strong arm. Outstanding range, comparable to Omar Vizquel's. Fast as a bullet train." Suzuki, the quickest player in the American League, says Matsui is even quicker than he is.
Affable and self-effacing, Matsui certainly has the quickest smile east of Yokohama. On this brisk, autumn afternoon in downtown Tokyo, he wears it with a black velvet blazer, a black silk shirt and the gold peace medallion his wife, Mio, gave him in October for his 28th birthday.
His spiky hair is dyed a reddish orange. Normally it's metallic silver. Unless it's electric mustard. Or sea-urchin blue. "My high school coach didn't like all the different colors," Matsui, who speaks virtually no English, says through an interpreter.
He's happy to talk baseball, though. He was a short, frail pitcher until his freshman year of high school. "I watched American baseball on TV and realized that all the players were strong in the upper body," he says. "So I started lifting weights."
Too many weights. He injured his right elbow and required minor surgery. "My doctor told me to cut down on my weight training," he says.
"Did you?"
He smiles and shakes his head slightly. "No, I kept it up. I was quite stubborn."
At 18 he was drafted by the Seibu Lions and turned into a shortstop. In his second year in the minors he came up for a cup of kohee. He figured he would quickly be farmed back out. Instead he became the protégé of Hiroshi Narahara, the Japanese Ozzie Smith.
Matsui hit from the right side exclusively until the advanced age of 21. "The problem was I couldn't hit right-handed pitchers," he says. "A coach told me if I went 2 for 20 left-handed, I'd have the same batting average. So I practiced."
He now hits equally well from the right or left side. He homered from both sides of the plate in a November 2002 game against a traveling major league All-Star team. He hit .440 for the seven-game series and outshone teammate Hideki Matsui, who—confounded by two-seam, sinking fastballs—batted a mere .138. "While Big Matsui was flailing away," Whiting says, "Little Matsui was ripping major league pitching apart."
Big Matsui, of course, left Japan last fall after clubbing 332 home runs in 10 seasons and finished second in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. Little Matsui could have gone over then too, but passed. The Japanese papers claimed his wife didn't want to move. "That is absolutely untrue," protests Matsui. "Only I can change my mind."
After the season ended in October, he changed it several times. During an Athens Olympics qualifying tournament in Sapporo, he wavered on whether to go to the majors or stay in Japan and play in the 2004 Summer Games. A teammate who had participated in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 nearly sold him on staying. "He said nothing in baseball compared," Matsui says. "It was a tough, tough decision."
In the end Matsui turned down offers from Seibu and the Yomiuri Giants, both rumored to be three-year deals in the $27 million range. "I may have to accept less money in the U.S.," he says, "but it's important for me to see how much I can improve as a player."
To handle his Stateside negotiations he hired Arn Tellem, known in the Japanese press by the oxymoron omoiyari no aru dairinin, "the compassionate agent." It was Tellem who delivered Hideki Matsui to the Yankees for three years and $21 million. "We feel he understands the needs of the Japanese people," says sportswriter Chiho Yamashita.
Tellem also understands the needs of big league G.M.'s. Of the teams currently in the Matsui hunt, seven—the Mariners, Red Sox, Yankees, Anaheim Angels, Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets—have strong working relationships with Tellem. The other two, the Chicago Cubs and the San Francisco Giants, are long shots. Neither is known as a big free-agent spender.
The Dodgers would seem to be the best fit. Los Angeles has a large Japanese population (about 37,000) and an even larger hole at short. On top of that, two Dodgers pitchers are Japanese (Hideo Nomo and Kaz Ishii), and the team's managing partner (Bob Daly) was once the boss of Tellem's wife, Nancy, who is currently the president of CBS Entertainment. The only factor working against L.A. is money: the franchise is up for sale, and the transition to new ownership might clog the team's cash flow.
Swag is not a problem for the woeful Mets, who covet Matsui and are willing to move their top young player, shortstop José Reyes, to second. The Mariners are flush with cash and short at short but seem more intrigued by free-agent pivotman Miguel Tejada, the 2002 American League MVP.
Anaheim is perhaps not as attractive a setting to a young Asian family as L.A., New York City or Seattle. Baltimore is an even harder sell: according to the 2000 Census, of the 4.8 million population in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area, just 6,360 were Japanese. The Orioles would like Matsui to visit Camden Yards, but Matsui isn't big on touring. "I don't plan to travel much," he says.
He has already visited Yankee Stadium. He traveled to New York City in October to watch a play-off game against the Red Sox, buying three-year-old daughter Haruna a miniature Yankees bat and a pinstripes-clad panda. "The Yankees were so big," he says, "that they made the field look small."
Of course, the Yankees already have Derek Jeter and the Red Sox have Nomar Garciaparra—All-Star shortstops who aren't going to change positions. Assuming Boston doesn't trade Garciaparra, who's in the final year of his contract, they would switch Matsui to second; New York would put him either at second (trading Alfonso Soriano or setting him to graze in the outfield) or third (replacing Aaron Boone).
Matsui prefers to stay at his current position. "My feeling is that I am a shortstop," he says. "I could learn a lot by playing beside Jeter, but I would want the chance to someday compete for his spot. It would not be easy to knock him off, but if I became a Yankee, I would like to be given the chance."
The irony is absolutely Steinbrennian: by all accounts Matsui is an all-around better defensive shortstop than Jeter. Moving the Japanese star to another position would be like buying a plush convertible and driving it with the top up. "You'd eliminate most of his talents as a shortstop—his hands, his quickness, his arm," says Mariners director Heid. "I don't suggest having any player make a position change, let alone one while making a country and culture change."
Some scouts wonder if Matsui can adapt to the tricky hops and nuances of the natural grass infields in the U.S. In Japan's Pacific League, where he plays, every ballpark but one has artificial turf. "American grass looks really high," says Matsui.
As high as his ambitions.
- Franz Lidz | Tokyo
- "Little Matsui" wants to make it big in the U.S.