DEL.ICIO.USMLB: ATLANTA BRAVES
Kawakami is settling in with Braves
Japanese pitcher stirs up interest in Atlanta and abroad
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Kenshin Kawakami has tasted Atlanta. And it was good.
The pitcher’s pilgrimage to the Varsity earlier this year was an obligation, but not an unsettling one. “I liked it,” Kawakami said through his interpreter. “When I got my order [chili dog, cheeseburger and fries], I had the real impression of America.”
Rich Addicks / raddicks@ajc.com
Japanese reporters have outnumbered their American counterparts in covering Braves pitcher Kenshin Kawakami this season.
And Atlanta has tested Kawakami. So far, he has passed, especially when grading on a curve with the rest of the Braves.
Thursday afternoon, Atlanta’s new senpatsu — starter to you English-speaking fans — took his first major league loss, to the Florida Marlins. In this country, the sushi fights back.
At 1-1, he is playing to a 5.25 ERA and has shown a fastball topping out at 91, a reality-bending 67-mph curve and plenty of useful junk in between.
So, then, if his coronary arteries can make the transition, this looks like the beginning of an interesting relationship between the pride of Tokushima and the American South. As the first Japanese-born player in Braves history, Kawakami is part middle-of-the-rotation guy, part cultural curiosity, part hopeful Turner Field stimulus.
Making an impact
His mere presence already has created a stir in all corners of the ballpark.
It’s there in the stands, with the obvious increase of Asian fans — some waving signs in Japanese characters — during his first Turner Field start eight days ago. There was a bit of a drop-off on that count during his next outing in Thursday’s workday matinee.
It’s there in the clubhouse where rookie Jordan Schafer enters Japanese words into his iPhone for easy reference. And over near where the coaches dress, there is a locker reserved for Kawakami’s personal interpreter, 22-year-old collegian-on-hiatus Daichi Takasue.
However, there is a little work to do up in the press box dining room. There, to honor Kawakami’s first start, they served egg rolls and fortune cookies as part of a supposed Japanese-themed menu. All that was missing was the Peking duck.
This is going to be a journey of discovery all the way around.
Kawakami’s relationship with his teammates is evolving. Aiding in the process is the fact that they do speak a couple of common languages:
Golf — “He loves it,” said his U.S. agent Dan Evans.
Once he finally moves in, Kawakami will live in the Duluth golf community Sugarloaf. His initial connections with teammates were made on an Orlando golf course this spring. “He beat me pretty good, but I’ll get him,” said catcher Brian McCann, who has at least the length of Kawakami’s three-year, $23 million contract to gain ground.
And, he is fluent in baseball — “He understands curveball, slider, fastball, inside, outside,” McCann said. And, really, what else is there?
East met West Paces Ferry in January, when Kawakami, at his introductory news conference, displayed a small painting he had done of the Japanese character representing soul. He wanted his new audience to know that he invests his very being into every pitch.
But the signing of Kawakami actually was nearly a decade in the making, and it involved not only the Braves but also key members of Atlanta’s Japanese community.
“We started looking years and years and years ago,” Braves team president John Schuerholz said, “because obviously the Asian market in general and specifically the Japanese market was showing signs of producing high-quality players.”
As far back as eight years ago, the Braves met with officials from the Japanese Consulate here to gauge whether there was the support system locally to attract and then maintain a Japanese star. According to those officials, there are now 8,000 Japanese nationals living in Georgia and 350 Japanese companies doing business here, employing 34,000 people.
When the time came, when their needs intersected with the desires of a Japanese player to explore a new hemisphere, the Braves were ready.
With a 112-72 record over 11 seasons, Kawakami had helped take the Chunichi Dragons to four Japan Series, finally winning in 2007. He had been a league MVP and Japan’s equivalent of a Cy Young winner. And he wanted more.
“The chance to play on the biggest stage of all was really intriguing,” Evans said.
“All the risk is on him,” his agent said. “He’s coming over and hoping he can have the same success that he had over there. It would have been real easy for him to stay over there and succeed.”
Braves wooed him
Evans said that his client had a couple of important requisites: playing for a National League team so he could hit — he went 2-for-2 Thursday; and playing somewhere he’d be comfortable.
The Braves, he said, came up with “a very aggressive plan” to assure him of the latter.
“All the way,” he said, “to offering him his uniform number that he had worn from the time he was in college [11]. They weren’t treating him like a rookie, they were treating him like a veteran player who’d had a lot of success.”
Once Kawakami hit town, one of 13 Japanese-born players now in the majors, it was clear that here was a soft-spoken, private man serving two cultures.
Suddenly, wherever the Braves were, the Japanese media outnumbered the U.S. contingent 3-to-1, although the worldwide recession has depleted its once overwhelming numbers.
“I’ve traveled to a lot of places,” the venerable Henry Aaron said. “I don’t know of any place that takes baseball any more seriously than they do in Japan.”
Kawakami’s progress with the Braves will be closely followed across many borders, from the readers of the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper to the children at the Georgia-Japanese Language School in Mableton, where a Kawakami-signed baseball is a treasure. Over at Kennesaw State, 31-year-old student Atsuo Nishikata is in the process of establishing a Kenshin Kawakami fan club and Web site.
“If his performance is great, then all of us are happy,” said Takuji Hanatani, the consul general of Japan serving the Southeast United States.
That would include domestic fans, who know the Braves rotation needs stabilizing, as well as the local business sector looking for any kind of bottom-line boost.
“I’m sure they are hoping to get some tourist traffic from this,” said Day Lancaster, an Atlanta commercial real estate broker and board member of the Japan American Society of Georgia. “At the minimum, they might bring in Japanese expatriates living in the Southeast. Better yet, they could draw fans from Japan who would spend several days here.”
Not just another Japanese import, Kawakami has a world of hopes riding on him.
As if the need to be a winner and a rainmaker for the Braves weren’t challenges enough, there is yet another lingering in Kawakami’s line of sight. One that intrigues him, he says, yet one he has not quite worked up the nerve to tackle.
Grits.
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