Elaine Chao Visits the Valley (in National News) Beware Rogue Immigration Consultants! (in Bay Area News) Aftermath of the Spy Plane Standoff (in Business) San Francisco International Film Fest (in A&E) Emil Amok: The Puckheads Think They're Funny (in Opinion)

Japanese Ball Wonder Shrugs Off Abuse

Seattle Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki signs autographs prior to a game against the Chicago Cubs in Mesa, Ariz., Saturday, March 24.

By Ethen Lieser

The national pastime used to have a sign — “Whites Only” — until Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier 54 years ago.

That was before Martin Luther King. Before Malcolm X. Before the civil rights movement.

Robinson was handpicked by Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey because of his armor-tough ability to turn the other cheek. An enormously talented baseball player, Robinson, with a career .311 batting average, gained respect from his peers over time. In 1962, he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

But he traveled a long and sometimes dangerous road to get there. While making history, Robinson received countless death threats. He saw rabid fans release black cats at ballparks. Chin music was expected when he stepped into the batter’s box. Base runners tried to dig their cleats into his shins, and one teammate demanded a trade because he didn’t want to play with a black man.

But Robinson didn’t fight back. He couldn’t fight back. He was an appointed martyr.

Now, enter Ichiro Suzuki, the amalgam of the Commander in Chief, Babe Ruth and Zeus in Japanese baseball. He has won seven consecutive batting titles (hit .387 last year) and Gold Glove awards in his nine years with the Orix Blue Wave.

The 5-foot-9, 160-pound right fielder possesses a bullwhip arm that can buckle the knees of daring base runners. The three-time Pacific League MVP radiates with accolades and unteachable skills: foot speed and arm strength.

The only question left is how Suzuki will fare against the likes of Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens, major league pitchers who can maim hitters who “step in the bucket,” which Suzuki does with the regularity of Mark McGwire smashing home runs.

Plus he has the added burden of carrying the “Asian American torch” for the once-invincible Red Sox pitcher, Hideo Nomo. His joyride stint with the Dodgers in the 1990s is long gone — just like his mid-’90s fire-cookin’ fastball. Adjustment by hitters to his cliff-diving splitter and the wear and tear of his elbow have sidetracked him as being one of the best throwers in the game.

But the catatonic “Nomomania” may soon be resuscitated. Thank “Ichiromania” for that.

Suzuki’s first week as the Seattle Mariners’ leadoff hitter could not have been more auspiciously scripted. The 27-year-old speed demon has launched his Mariners, like a calibrated bullet train, to the top of the A.L. West, flaunts a batting average well above .300, and has frenzied Asian American fans in ballparks all across North America.

“Players like Suzuki aren’t just important for baseball fans, but for all Asian Americans,” said Chris Hirano of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco. “The success of these players makes people rethink what it means to be Asian; it dispels stereotypes of Asian men.

“It also gives young Asian American kids someone to look up to. It shows that they can also excel.”

Last week, however, Suzuki and the Mariners visited the Oakland A’s and their green-and-white adorned fans who are known for being brash, poke-you-in-the-side hecklers.

On Tuesday night, April 10, the fertile, green grass of summer in Oakland Coliseum faded. Faded to black and white. Faded back 54 years.

It wasn’t poke-you-in-the-side heckles. It was slap-you-on-the-head violence.

Like any other game, Suzuki took his usual athletic posture in right field, waiting to chase down would-be doubles with cat-like swiftness. But an A’s fan decided that one flying object in the ballpark wasn’t enough.

Ice and quarters pelted Suzuki.

One coin thwacked his head, but did not injure him. The security guards arrested the fan after being pointed out by two Mariners’ relievers. After the game, A’s general manager Billy Beane called Mariners manager Lou Piniella to apologize for the fan’s ill behavior.

“First of all, I hope he will get more security out in right field,” said Gordon Wong, a Red Cross supervisor in Los Angeles.

Much like the bubble-gum coverage of Sacramento guard Jason Williams’ intolerance toward Asian American fans at a recent NBA basketball game, again the media barely budged. It was water down the back.

“I’m wondering why it’s not being mentioned on ESPN and other sources,” Wong said. “Maybe they tolerate more abuse toward Asian Americans. I think, because he’s Japanese, there is more of a passive attitude.”

Suzuki, meanwhile, shrugged off the incident like a lazy pop-up.

“Any time you go to a visiting city, things fall out of the sky,” he told reporters after the game. “One time the gods threw an aluminum can at me.”

Suzuki has taken his stance, an absorbing stance, just like Jackie Robinson. Fifty-four years ago.