Seattle players lead Japanese interest boom in U.S. baseball
By Eric Talmadge/AP
On just about every other block in Tokyo, there’s a Starbucks. Microsoft keeps most of the computers there humming. And when tourists head off on vacation, they’re probably taking a Boeing jetliner.
But Japanese baseball stars Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhiro Sasaki are doing what Seattle-area successes Microsoft and Starbucks couldn’t: They are putting Seattle on this baseball-crazy country’s map.
And on its beer commercials.
And maybe even on some airline tickets.
“I’ve never been to Seattle, and I never thought of it as more than a transit stop, like Anchorage,” said Mitsutoshi Chiba, the 40-year-old president of an asset management company in Tokyo. “But after seeing the games on TV, I think I’d like to go to a ballpark there.”
Seattle’s fame is part of an unprecedented boom in interest in the U.S. major leagues.
Thanks mainly to Ichiro and Sasaki — dubbed the Seattle Samurai — the majors are all over Japanese media these days. Coverage has been intense enough to cause concern that Japan’s own baseball leagues, which just opened their season, are being upstaged. Ratings for the Tokyo Giants’ night games have fallen almost 10 points from their peak in the early 1980s.
U.S. updates, meanwhile, often take up the front pages of Japan’s popular sports tabloids, and readers have to go to the inside pages to find out how the domestic games went. Japan’s government-run television network, NHK, plans to air 150 Mariners games this season.
So far, there has been much good news to report.
Ichiro — Suzuki goes by his first name in Japan — hit in his first 12 consecutive games, making him the first Japanese batter to hit successfully in the majors. He was 4-for-4 in a Seattle victory on April 17.
Sasaki, who plugs Kirin Beer here, was a leader in saves, and Boston’s Hideo Nomo, the pioneer Japanese major leaguer, threw a no-hitter in his Red Sox debut April 4. Outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo is also having a successful debut with the New York Mets.
“It appears that ‘So, did Ichiro get a hit today?’ might become a new way for the Japanese to greet each other this year,” said a recent cover story in Aera, a popular weekly news magazine.
The attention given to Japan’s exports to the majors is no surprise.
Baseball is easily Japan’s most popular sport, and fans often devote themselves to it with an almost religious fervor. As the United States is the home of the game, the success of the Japanese players — especially batters Ichiro and Shinjo, as many thought Japanese batters weren’t strong enough — is a matter of national pride.
But the spotlight on Sasaki and Ichiro is somewhat different than earlier attention given to pitching stars Nomo and Hideki Irabu, because Nomo and Irabu started off in cities the Japanese already knew well — Los Angeles for Nomo, and New York for Irabu.
Seattle remains more of a mystery.
“It’s in the countryside somewhere, isn’t it?” said Reki Nagara, a 22-year-old boutique clerk in Tokyo.
To most people here, the American West Coast is synonymous with California. The Pacific Northwest also lies in the shadow of Hawaii, which is still the place to go for Japanese newlyweds.
In fact, Hiroshi Ueno, a spokesman for the Japan Travel Bureau, said his company — Japan’s largest travel agent — has no package tours featuring Seattle as a solo destination. Ueno said that is because Seattle lacks any places of interest that would appeal to the Japanese.
Being home to Japan’s favorite baseball team might change that.
Several major travel agencies offered tours to the Mariners’ season opener and are setting up more packages to upcoming Mariners games, one with a Las Vegas side trip tagged on for good measure.
“There is no mistaking that the number of people going to Seattle is increasing to watch the games,” said Kinki Nippon Tourist spokeswoman Eiko Sato, though the increase is still fairly small — probably in the hundreds.
“If someone likes baseball these days, they might want to travel to the United States and to Seattle,” she said. “But if they aren’t interested in baseball, I’m not so sure.” |
