Deference to a Revered Record in Japan Is Going, Going ...
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Version 0 of 1. TOKYO — For decades, the Japanese have called Sadaharu Oh the world’s true home run king. With 868 career home runs and many other hitting records to his name, Oh, now 73, is worshiped here as much as Babe Ruth is in America. A few foreign players in Japan’s top league have threatened to surpass Oh’s hallowed mark of home runs in a single season, 55. And each time, opposing pitchers refused to throw pitches anywhere near the strike zone in a blatant effort to protect Oh’s record. But the culture of deference to Oh has seemingly ended. In a development that would have once seemed unthinkable, many Japanese fans are now rooting for Oh’s record to fall, signaling the arrival of a generation that is more comfortable than ever with the notion of knocking off national heroes. And who is the slugger who might soon usurp Oh? Wladimir Balentien, from a tiny island in the Caribbean. “I’m going for the top,” Balentien, a native of Curaçao, in the Netherlands Antilles, told reporters after hitting his 52nd home run of the season last week for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. “I always want to be No. 1.” Balentien, a hulking outfielder who once played for the Seattle Mariners and the Cincinnati Reds, has been unstoppable this season. Though he missed the season’s first 12 games with an injury, he has averaged a home run every two games and is hitting a league-best .340 with 111 runs batted in. He is the lone highlight for Yakult, which languishes in last place in Japan’s Central League. With only three home runs to go to match Oh’s feat and 26 games left in the season, Balentien, 29, has a more than good chance to beat it — and this time, the Japanese appear happier, or at least resigned, to let the record fall. “Pitchers here will often avoid all-out confrontations anyway,” said Suguru Egawa, a former pitcher for Yakult’s crosstown rival, the Yomiuri Giants, who made his name in the 1980s as the only Japanese pitcher with the audacity to challenge foreign sluggers. “That might be a no-go in the major leagues, but it’s legitimate here. Then there’s the fact that this is a very special record.” Oh, though born in Japan, is a Taiwanese national, a fact often lost in the praise still piled on his celebrated career. If Balentien is successful, he will leave his mark in baseball-obsessed Japan with a new home run record. He will also underscore what experts of the game say is a gradual change in the long-cloistered world of Japanese baseball, a realization that the country cannot stay isolated from the rest of the globe. An online survey published late last month by the business daily Nikkei found that 69 percent of its 1,300 respondents said they were enthusiastic about Balentien’s bid to surpass Oh, and 27 percent said they were resigned to a new home run king. Fewer than 1 percent of respondents said that Balentien needed to be stopped at all costs. Fans now boo pitchers who appear to be shying away from throwing Balentien strikes. This week, the Yakult Swallows added a “Coco Meter” — using Balentien’s nickname — to count down to what would be a historic home run No. 56. Giants General Manager Tatsunori Hara said this week that his pitchers were prepared to “play hard and play fair” in the team’s six remaining games against Yakult. “I think the Japanese learned something when they saw that the Americans didn’t prevent Ichiro from breaking any of their records,” Robert Whiting, a journalist and an author of several books on Japanese baseball, said, referring to the Yankees’ Ichiro Suzuki. “There was none of these shenanigans, and the fans cheered him on.” Whiting added: “But I never expected to see this day. I can certainly say times have changed. We’re living in a different world.” Foreign-born players’ efforts to break Oh’s record date back to Randy Bass, a former Minnesota Twins first baseman who joined the Hanshin Tigers in 1983. In 1985, as Bass surged toward his 55th homer, he was repeatedly walked. The season’s final game pitted the Tigers against the Giants, managed by Oh. After two consecutive walks, Bass lunged in frustration at an outside curveball, mustering a fluke single to center, his only hit of the game. “In his final two appearances, even a boat oar would not have helped him hit the ball,” Whiting recounted in his 1989 book, “You Gotta Have Wa.” Oh denied giving any instructions to his pitchers to walk Bass. Still, Bass’s treatment came to highlight Japanese protectionism, especially against the backdrop of the United States-Japan trade wars at the time. Since then, the American Tuffy Rhodes and the Venezuelan Alex Cabrera matched Oh’s record, in 2001 and 2002, respectively, but were stopped short of No. 56. In a cruel repeat of fate, Rhodes went up late in the season against Oh, who by this time was manager of another local team, the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. He got few chances to swing. Daiei’s battery coach, Yoshiharu Wakana, later admitted in the local press that he had not wanted a foreign player to break Oh’s record. Foreign players in Japan are not just up against nationalist sentiment. They have also struggled, experts say, to get used to the Japanese way of baseball: a cautious, uptight affair filled with sacrifice hitting, midgame strategy sessions and, of course, intentional walks. Still, Balentien can expect his share of skepticism over his performance this season. A scandal erupted earlier this season after the national Nippon Professional Baseball league admitted it had quietly juiced up the official ball for greater bounce off the bat. Players in Japan had unknowingly used the juiced ball in nearly 60 games, with home runs increasing by more than 40 percent from the previous year by the time the changes were revealed. Oh’s retirement from managing, in 2008, has started easing the pressure to keep his records intact, said Takamichi Yamada, a baseball commentator and novelist. “He is no longer a visible presence in the stadium,” Yamada said. “That’s a big change.” Oh, who remains an honorary chairman of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, declined to comment. Born in Willemstad, an unlikely baseball powerhouse, Balentien was 16 when he was signed by Seattle in 2000, debuting in its farm system three years later. But apart from a .328 average in 2007 with 20 home runs, he spent much of his time warming the bench, or in the minor leagues. After a short stint with Cincinnati, he signed with Yakult in 2009. Balentien has said it is now all about the game — if he can focus on it. His mounting home runs this season have attracted feverish media attention. Balentien’s final few home runs will be the hardest, said Egawa, the former Giants pitcher. Foreign batter or not, no pitcher wants to be the one to go down in the history books as the one who gave up the historic pitch to Balentien. “He’s going to have maybe one good ball a game to hit,” Egawa said. “He’ll have to be patient, and swing for that.” <NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM> <p>This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: September 5, 2013 <p>An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a former coach for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. He is Yoshiharu Wakana, not Yoshiaki. |