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Chapter 7: Debut

Wally Yonamine sat at the end of the Giants' bench. June 19 was a pleasant evening--in the upper 70s--but his new white flannel uniform made it feel hot. The Giants had given him number 7, his lucky number, without him asking for it. A good sign, he thought.

Not wanting to be late on this first day, he had decided to take a cab to Korakuen Stadium even though he lived nearby. The traffic was terrible, so Wally promised the driver a one-thousand-yen tip above the usual sixty yen fare if they got there quickly. With a half-week's wages at stake, the cabbie made sure that they did. The Giants' home park was the most modern ballpark in Japan--the only one, people said, that resembled a Major League ballpark. It was a double tiered stadium with porthole windows, seating a reported forty-eight thousand fans. The upper deck stands and stairways were so steep that they often induced vertigo. The higher rows, however, offered a stunning vista of the city, especially at night, when Tokyo's ubiquitous neon signs were turned on.

After some introductions, Yonamine went to the locker room to change. The room was small and bare, lacking even hangers for the players' clothes. As the team came in to change, there was no room for the players to sit down. They all dressed standing up. Once he was in uniform, there were photographs--a lot of them. All the sports papers were there to cover Yonamine's debut. Afterward, the team held their daily team meeting to go over the opposition, and Wally was handed a bento (traditional Japanese boxed lunch). The food looked unappetizing, but he hadn't really eaten yet and wanted to make a good first impression, so he ate and waited for his turn at batting practice.

In the early 1950s, batting practice lasted just forty minutes. The stars hit first, with Tetsuharu Kawakami, Japan's most feared hitter, taking center stage. In his heyday, Americans called Kawakami "the Lou Gehrig of Japan," but "the Ted Williams of Japan" would have been more accurate. Like Williams, Kawakami made hitting into a science. Tadashi Iwamoto, who roomed with Kawakami in the mid-1950s, remembers being awakened in the middle of the night by a swooshing sound, only to see Kawakami practicing his swing over his head in the small room. But also like Williams, Kawakami focused solely on hitting, never perfecting his defense or base-running skills. Contemporaries recall that he had a range of only one or two steps at first base. Kawakami also had a prickly personality. He usually kept to himself and jealously guarded his position as Japan's most popular player.

After Kawakami came the 5 1/2-foot tall, 140-pound Shigeru Chiba. Chiba joined the Giants in 1938 and quickly became the league's best second baseman. Rock solid but unspectacular on defense, Chiba made his reputation with the bat. He was a superb contact hitter who rarely pulled the ball but instead purposely hit into right field. In general, he was reserved and a bit gruff, but all who knew him swear that he was among the most kind-hearted men in baseball.

The power-hitting Noburo Aota usually hit next. The star center fielder, known for his verbosity, was one of the league's top hitters, usually posting a .300 average with thirty home runs. After the stars, the other starters took a few hacks. By that time, thirty of the forty minutes had passed. The rookies, like Wally, and the guys on the bench only had time for a couple of swings each.

Before the game started, the Giants honored Wally and Takeo Higasa, whom the Giants had just acquired from the Hiroshima Carp, with a brief ceremony. The stadium lights were on and the writer for Hochi Sports noted that the stands glowed white. The announcer introduced Yonamine to the forty thousand fans while Miss Hawaii, Lillian Tanaka, presented him with a bouquet. The starting nines then took the field and Wally went to the bench with the other reserves.

Wally sat back and watched the game. The opposing Nagoya Dragons were in second place, just four and a half games behind the Giants. Hiroshi Nakao, a lefty, started for the Giants. The future Hall of Famer had pitched two no-hitters--the first as a rookie in 1939, the second against the Dragons in 1941--but although only thirty-two years old, he was now past his prime. Three years in the Japanese Imperial Army had taken their toll. Nakao calmly dispatched the visitors in the first, and the Dragons took the field behind Nobuaki Miyashita, whom the Giants had traded to Chunichi in 1948. Yomiuri greeted their former teammate with a quick run, but the lead did not last long as the Dragons responded with one in the top of the second.

Wally knew little about Japanese baseball, and as the game progressed, he realized that he had much to learn. The game was different here. Americans often assumed that the smaller Japanese would play a fast game emphasizing speed and quickness, much like the Japanese American Asahi. Wally soon saw that this was not the case. The game was painfully slow. Players strolled to and from their positions. Pitchers did not challenge hitters, but instead nibbled at the corners, making full counts common. Even when the ball was in play, players rarely hustled, and much to Wally's surprise, they seldom ran out ground balls. Instead, they slowly jogged to first, putting no pressure on the defense. When sacrificing, batters did not run toward first base since logic dictated that they would most likely be out. On the base paths, they were not aggressive and hardly ever tried to take an extra base. Instead of breaking up double plays, runners would politely turn into the outfield, allowing the pivot man to throw unmolested. Outfielders also took few chances. They let balls fall in front of them, playing them on the hop, rather than risking a diving catch. Hirofumi Naito, the Giant's reserve infielder, summed it up: "In those days, we played in a uniquely Japanese way. It was rather easygoing. There wasn't much fighting spirit."

In the fourth inning, Aota slugged one over the outfield wall to give the Giants a 2-1 lead, but two innings later, the Dragons scored three off Nakao. The manager, Shigeru Mizuhara, barked something toward the dugout. Jiro Miyamoto leaned over and translated. Miyamoto was also a Nisei. Born in California but also a Japanese national, he had been with the Giants minor league club for three years. He had been called up this week solely to interpret for Wally. Hideo Fujimoto, one of the Giants' usual starters, left the bench and began warming up. Soon he replaced Nakao. The Giants struck back in the bottom of the sixth as Chiba singled and Aota hit his second home run to tie the game.

Wally looked up into the packed stands, surprised at the noise the fans created. Unlike in America, where fans usually cheer as individuals, Japanese appoint fans (usually men) to lead group cheers. In the 1950s, the cheerleaders stood right on top of the dugouts. Throughout the game the players could hear the thumps and creaks as they jumped overhead. The cheers were often accompanied by brass instruments, drums, and noisemakers.

Mizuhara brought in another of the Giants' ace starters, Takumi Otomo, in the top of the seventh. The Dragons hit him hard, scoring twice, and Mizuhara went to the bullpen again. This time Takehiko Bessho, the number-one starter with large, bushy black eyebrows, emerged. Bessho had pitched a complete game in a frustrating 4-2 loss against the Hanshin Tigers just two days before and was itching to make amends. The intense Bessho stopped the Dragons' rally.

Wally was still learning his teammates' names and was unaware that Mizuhara had used four of his five starters in the game. By American standards, it would have been an unusual, even reckless, managerial decision. In Japan, however, it was the norm. During the 1950s, Japanese managers had no set rotations. They chose their starters based on performance in pregame practices or on hunches. Pitchers prided themselves on always being available. Not until Yonamine became a coach would Japanese pitchers be separated into starters and relievers. As a result, ace pitchers in the 1950s could appear in three or four consecutive games.

Nagoya now led 6-4. In the bottom of the seventh, the first two Giants reached base. The Dragons responded by bringing in their lanky ace, Shigeru Sugishita. Although most Americans thought of Japanese as short, Sugishita stood just over six feet tall. Weighing just 155 pounds, the bespectacled hurler looked a bit comical in his baggy flannel uniform. But could Sugishita pitch! He had obviously benefited by training with the Seals. He would lead the Central League in wins in 1951 while lowering his ERA nearly a full run from the preceding season. In fact, after training at Modesto, Sugishita's ERA never rose above 2.84 for nine consecutive seasons. Tadashi Iwamoto, who joined the Giants in 1953, remembered, "Sugishita would throw these slow curves. I would think, "Oh, I can hit a home run!" I'd swing and it would go close to the wall, and then go foul. I'd get two strikes like that. He was just baiting me. Then he'd throw a high fastball or his forkball that weaved as it came over and then finally dropped. Even Kawakami-san couldn't hit that one!"

The weak-hitting catcher, Toshiaki Takemiya, was due up. Down by two, Mizuhara wanted to move his runners into scoring position. He looked at his bench and asked, "Does anybody have enough guts to lay down a bunt?"

Other than the two or three swings at batting practice, Yonamine hadn't faced live pitching since coming to Japan, but he believed that he could do the job. Hirofumi Naito, one of the team's youngest players, recalls, "All the players were looking down at the ground, avoiding Mizuhara's eyes. It was a really important game." Naito looked at the end of the bench and "there was Wally, in his first game after coming to Japan, twirling his bat, appealing to the manager." Chiba noticed too and offered, "Let Yonamine try."

Mizuhara looked at Wally and said, "Hey Wally, can you bunt?"

"Okay, I'll try!" Wally declared as he bounded off the bench.

Yonamine walked toward the plate and calmly took a few practice swings. Matsumoto Shoriki, Shoji Yasuda, and Cappy Harada watched intently from the first row directly behind home plate. Wally stepped into the batter's box and heard the noise of forty thousand fans. "When I got into the batter's box, my knees started shaking! Shaking like a leaf! It was the first time that I ever played baseball in front of 40,000 people. In football, I played at Yankee Stadium with 40,000 and at the Los Angeles Coliseum with 54,000, but in baseball the most I had played in front of was about 6,000. The first pitch, I bunted down the first base line. When I started to run, I was shaking so much that I fell down." Luckily, the ball rolled foul.

Before Yonamine got back in the box, Mizuhara walked over and told him, through his interpreter, to bunt down the third base line. Wally nodded and headed back to the plate.

In Japan, both in 1951 and today, batters ordered to sacrifice hold the bat in the bunting position as soon as they enter the batter's box. Bunting is difficult, they reason, so they assume the proper bunting position before the pitch is made to increase the odds of a successful sacrifice. Of course, by doing this, the bunter loses the element of surprise. Yonamine readied himself for the second pitch. His feet were shoulder width apart with his front foot about two inches closer to the first base foul line than the back foot. The lefty stood almost erect with his weight placed slightly on his back leg and his knees relaxed. He held his hands at shoulder height with the bat angled back over his left shoulder. It looked like he would swing away on the second pitch.

On the mound, Sugishita assessed the situation. He remembered Yonamine from Hawaii. "I had a pretty good idea that Yonamine was going to bunt toward third base," he later recalled. "Tsuguhiro Hattori was playing third base and I told him, 'Move up a little bit because he's going to bunt!' But he wouldn't listen to me!" As Sugishita went into his delivery, Yonamine stayed in his batting stance.

The ball hurtled toward the plate. At the last possible moment, Yonamine squared, bent his knees, pushed the ball down the third base line, and streaked toward first base. The ball rolled slowly up the line. Hattori charged in, but instantly gave up. He had no chance. Instead of loitering near the plate, Yonamine was already near first base. The Japanese had never seen a batter get up the line that quickly. The crowd roared with delight as the bases were now loaded with no outs. Turning to Yasuda and Harada, Shoriki proclaimed, "I think we got the right guy!"

In the Giants' dugout, the players stared with surprise and admiration. They had rarely seen a bunt so deftly executed or such quick running. Kawakami later said that his eyes were glued to Yonamine's footwork as he laid down the bunt and ran to first. The Giants ended up losing the game, but it was overshadowed by Wally's at bat. Mizuhara smiled to himself, realizing that he could take the Giants to an entirely new level. With that first plate appearance, Wally Yonamine had begun to change Japanese baseball.