The Road to the Majors — The Lineage from Nomo

Last time, we looked at the problems of violence and harsh hazing that have lingered in the world of coaching, and at the recent efforts to overcome them. It was a period when Japanese baseball began to face its internal challenges. Around that very time, another major change was taking shape. Talent raised in Japan began, in earnest, to cross the ocean — to America’s Major Leagues.

For the baseball world it was a source of pride, and at the same time a new source of worry. Players born in Japan, nurtured by Japanese fans, were leaving in pursuit of the greatest stage. In this chapter, beginning with the one pitcher who first opened that road, we trace as faithfully to the facts as we can how the flow of crossing the sea came about, and what it brought to Japanese baseball.

The Door the Tornado Opened

In 1995, Hideo Nomo, the ace of the Kintetsu Buffaloes, joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in America. He was a pitcher whose distinctive, body-twisting delivery earned him the nickname ‘the Tornado.’

At the time, the path for a Japanese professional to play in the Major Leagues was almost entirely closed. Owing to circumstances surrounding his contract with his team, Nomo is said to have chosen a form of ‘voluntary retirement,’ stepping away from his playing career in Japan, and then taken the leap to challenge the Major Leagues. Because Kintetsu would retain his rights should he return to NPB, it was a decision close to burning his bridges behind him. There was no small amount of criticism, it is said, of his leaving Japan.

Nomo’s success was a special experience for Japanese fans as well. They watched games on the far side of the ocean in the early morning or late at night, hearts pounding at the sight of a Japanese pitcher subduing the world’s finest hitters. It was the moment when the stage of baseball expanded, all at once, beyond the Japanese archipelago.

Ichiro and Matsui — Those Who Followed

The door Nomo opened was pushed open even wider by the next generation.

In 2001, Ichiro, who transferred from Orix to the Seattle Mariners, put on a brilliant performance from his very first year in the Majors. He produced hits in volume and, that year, won Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player (MVP) at the same time. It was a remarkable feat for a position player, and from his first year at that. He proved, in a way plain to everyone’s eyes, that the technique he had established in Japan could hold up at the summit of the world.

In 2003, Hideki Matsui, the slugger of the Yomiuri Giants, exercised his free agency (FA) right and transferred to the New York Yankees. A long-ball hitter nicknamed ‘Godzilla,’ he delivered clutch batting as a member of that storied team and demonstrated the ability of a hitter who represented Japan.

Following them, many pitchers and position players began to aim for the stage of the Major Leagues. Crossing the sea was no longer an exception; it took root as one option for top-class players.

The Mechanism Called Posting, and Money

As the flow of players crossing the sea grew thicker, a mechanism to carry it out in an orderly way was put in place. One of these was the system called the ‘posting system.’

This is a mechanism that, when a player who has not yet earned FA rights wishes to move to the Major Leagues, allows the transfer to be completed with the consent of the NPB team to which he belongs. The Major League team pays the NPB team a ‘transfer fee’ as the price for negotiating with that player. For the Japanese team releasing the player, that price becomes revenue in management terms — and there, naturally, the logic of money becomes entangled.

Under the early posting system, there was no cap on the amount Major League teams bid to win negotiating rights, and in the case of prominent players the transfer fee could soar. After that, at the end of 2013, the system was reviewed, and it is said to have been changed to a method that set a cap on the transfer fee (twenty million dollars at the time) and allowed multiple teams that accepted that amount to negotiate with the player. The interests of the teams and leagues on both sides of the Pacific crossed over a player’s transfer — the system was also a product of that adjustment.

As long as money is involved, the assessment is not simple. The transfer fee becomes revenue for the Japanese team, but it also means ‘releasing a player you raised in exchange for a price.’ On the rightness of the system and the appropriateness of the amounts, views have differed depending on one’s standpoint.

The Drain of Talent as Light and Shadow

That more players crossed the sea was, for Japanese baseball, light and at the same time shadow.

The light side is clear. The sight of Japanese players excelling at the world’s summit gave the nation great pride and dreams. Children admired the idea of ‘someday in the Major Leagues,’ and that goal also broadened the base of the sport and spurred improvements in technique. That the standing of Japanese baseball rose internationally was a sure achievement as well.

On the other hand, the shadow side cannot be ignored either. That top-class players who were each team’s marquee names crossed the sea one after another meant that the finest talent was draining out of the Japanese league. The absence of star players could affect attendance and attention — voices voicing that concern ran deep, both inside and outside the baseball world. It was the anxiety that Japanese professional baseball might become something like a ‘way station’ to the Major Leagues.

The road Nomo opened alone became, over nearly thirty years, a great flow in which many players come and go as a matter of course. That flow shows the strength of Japanese baseball to the world and, at the same time, keeps posing a question to the very state of the league.

The pride the players who crossed the sea left behind, and the homework of how to support the league after they are gone. Holding light and shadow at once, Japanese baseball advances toward the next era. In the final chapter, carrying all the light and darkness we have seen so far, we consider where Japanese baseball is now trying to head.