SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://www.seattlepi.com/baseball/sasa03.shtml
Sasaki felt confident on mound once he felt comfy in Seattle
Japanese media, teammates, family all helped Tuesday, October 3, 2000
By JEERAWAT NA THALANG
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
It was Wednesday night of the last week of the season, the Mariners still in the middle of the pennant race, and Kazuhiro Sasaki, Seattle's imported Japanese closer, preserved a 6-4 victory over Texas with his 36th save, tying the major league record for saves by a rookie. Thousands of fans wearing headbands reading, "San Shin" ("Three strikes") in Japanese characters, stood and cheered in a loud ovation after the Mariners kept their half-game lead over Oakland atop the American League West.
The message was clear:
Sasaki was their hero.
That sentiment was different in mid-May after the 32-year-old pitcher gave up game-winning walk-off home runs in consecutive appearances against the Rangers and Athletics that lowered Seattle's record perilously close to .500 at 17-16. Manager Lou Piniella had little choice but take away Sasaki's closer role -- at least temporarily.
Sasaki quickly realized why his pitches, which made him the career saves leader in Japan, weren't having the same results on the other side of the Pacific.
"American hitters are more powerful," he said. "And I was tired."
Some Japanese players have taken a full year to adjust to American baseball but, after that mid-May loss of confidence, Sasaki adjusted well to the Western style. Sasaki not only became the Mariners' pitcher of the year but also emerged as the leading contender for AL Rookie of the Year honors. Clearly, he was the reliever missing from Seattle's bullpen since Norm Charlton's season as "Sheriff" in 1995.
"I think he is the most successful pitcher (in Japan) to come to the States," said Shoko Mizutsugi, a freelance writer.
Sasaki managed to do all this by establishing a commanding presence on the mound, as he had with his previous team, the Yokohama BayStars. Signed by Seattle to a two-year contract last December, Sasaki was a six-time all-star in Japan with 229 saves in 10 seasons. At 6-foot-4, Sasaki is called "Daimajin," after a mythical demon-like creature in a popular Japanese TV series. Also like "Daimajin, Mizutsugi said, "In Japan, he is untouchable. He is like a god."
In America, though, Sasaki's pitches are comparably mortal. Here Sasaki faces the power of American batters, who can easily reach the seats if his forkball "out" pitch does not drop.
Hirokazu Higuchi, a writer for Tokyo Shimbun who has covered Sasaki since high school, said, "In Japan, he is strong and powerful pitcher but his power here is as standard as the other pitchers. So, he uses his brain."
When Sasaki glares at a batter before delivering, Higuchi said, "he's trying to read the batter's mind."
Things were not easy for Sasaki at the beginning. His Cactus League debut last spring was regarded as "so-so" by reporters, Japanese and American alike. Things got worse during that mid-May meltdown that caused many Japanese fans to speculate that his U.S. career might be over before it had a chance to begin.
"He was really down at that point," said Higuchi.
"I think the differences (between American and Japanese baseball) for him to confront were probably two things," Mariners pitching coach Bryan Price said. "First, the hitter -- most of them can hurt you with the home run. Second, he had to be a lot more conscious of runners stealing base."
Confirmed Mizutsugi: "He did not feel like knowing American baseball. He found himself not comfortable. He did not know how to do it here at first. He did not even know the players he faced."
At that time, a desperate Sasaki sought advice by phoning Toshiaki Takeda, his high school coach in Sendai.
"He told me not to think about it too much," Sasaki said. "'Just go ahead and pitch.'"
Higuchi relates that Sasaki confided that Takeda also told him, "Don't be a coward."
The advice sounded simple but it was encouraging enough to enable Sasaki to rebound impressively. He reclaimed the closer job in June.
"I don't think we saw the best stuff until we got a couple of months into the season where we saw consistency of velocity and consistency of his forkball," Price said. "And I think that he did really well in June and July and August where he started to rack up the saves."
Contributing to Sasaki's improvement on the mound could be his assimilation into the American lifestyle.
Even though Sasaki does not speak English, intepreter Allen Turner is ever-present. Sasaki also has a personal masseur, Kiyoshi Egawa, with whom he can talk every day.
His wife, Kaori; daughter, Reina, 7; and son, Shogo, 5, smoothed his transition to America by staying with him in Seattle throughout the summer. By the time the family returned to Japan when school reopened, Sasaki had made friends with teammates -- particularly Jose Paniagua and Edgar Martinez, who often bows to Sasaki after the final out of a game Kazu has saved.
Miyakawa, of Sankei Sports, said Sasaki should enjoy his life in Seattle more than he did in Japan, where his celebrity meant he could not go out in public without causing a stir. In Seattle, where he often plays pool in a downtown club or plays golf during his free time, "Sasaki can enjoy the normal life," said Tatsuya Miyakawa, a sportswriter for The Sankei Sports Newspaper who often accompanies Sasaki about town after games.
Higuchi said the foundation to Sasaki's American success was laid with Sasaki's choice of playing with Seattle. First, he said, the northern Japanese city of Sendai, Sasaki's hometown, has similar weather and atmosphere to Seattle. Moreover, Seattle has a big community of Japanese, with whom Sasaki can hang out and speak comfortably in his native language.
"I think he may have problem if he plays with Florida or Kansas City," Higuchi said.
Also, Japanese food was not hard for Sasaki to find, as Japanese cuisine is tremendously popular here. Miyakawa said wherever Sasaki -- a specialist in cooking Japanese curry -- goes, "The first thing he will look for is the Japanese restaurant in the city where he has to play a game."
However, his appetite for food has somehow adjusted to the American flavor. Sasaki, whose favorite Japanese food is tuna sushi, has developed an affection for American spicy tuna roll, which does not exist in Japan.
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