I Really Wanted to Finish What I Started

I received some e-mail from Valentine-zenkantoku (previous manager) last month. He was thanking me for the updates concerning his welfare while he was managing here in Japan. When I started this home page, I never imagined that anyone who is actually involved with Pro Baseball here in Japan would even hear of my home page, let alone write to me. But after thinking about it, I started "The Bobby Valentine Show" on requests from friends of Bobby for information on how he was doing over here. So it should not be so surprising to me that he has heard about this page.

To the friends of Bobby Valentine, thank you for getting me to pay more attention to the Pacific League to keep up with Bobby. And Bobby, thank you for making the Pacific League so exciting this season to keep track of. (I am a Giants' (SF) fan from when I knew what baseball was, and after coming to Japan, I continued to root for the Giants (Tokyo). I never really paid attention to the American League in the U.S., and because the Giants are in the Central League, it wasn't until this year that I paid much attention to the Pacific League.)

Bobby said that he will take a job with the New York Mets next, but that he does "really want to finnish what (he) started in Japan."

---

On Monday, November 6, Bobby Valentine talked to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, a group of approximately 200 people. Valentine-zenkantoku said that he believed in Hirooka GM when he said that he wanted to start a "revolution" with Lotte and bring them up to Class A ball. The revolution turned out to be Hirooka revolting against him.

Perhaps the reason for the difference in opinion was that there was a lack of communication between Valentine-kantoku and Hirooka GM. The two only had talked about seven times over the course of the season, which is regrettable.

Hirooka, when asked about the press conference, said that he saw the talk, but he "had no intention of meeting with him." Furthermore, regarding Valentine's firing, Hirooka said, "His settlement with the owner is the ball club's problem. He should meet with a representative."

Hirooka then tried to pass the buck onto his assistant, Takagi. The story now seems to be that Takagi-Assistant GM told Hirooka that Valentine's ability was not good enough. Takagi has no experience with Pro Baseball, and has never even so much as set foot in the dug out. But somehow has enough power to influence the firing of a popular manager who brings the team to a second place finish for the first time in 10 years.

I find this very hard to swallow! This was the first mention of Takagi that I had seen. I think that Hirooka is trying to get himself out of the hole that he dug for himself. I've tried to get Hirooka's side of the firing, but all he seems to do is come up with another story or tries to get everyone to forget about it. <fj.rec.sports.baseball> has several people looking forward to Hirooka's downfall next year should Lotte not finish first.

---

From fj.rec.sports.baseball

tsukahara@NJK wrote:

The other day, there were some people on the train talking about Valentine-kantoku's firing.

In their talk, someone somehow connected with Pro Baseball said that within Lotte, from when Valentine-kantoku joined, the whole team (from front to the ladies who work in the stadium) became very cheerful, and there was a feeling like "We're winning!"

---

In reply to Kita@Fukuyama University's question,

Couldn't Lotte have won the pennant with Valentine-kantoku?

Kita@Fukuyama University wrote:

If he was to continue to be in charge again season like the second half of this season, the probability of being a better team than this year is high. With the change in leadership, there will be quite a few unknowns, right?

---

Some of the people at work hope that Valentine will bring some of his better players to play in the U.S. Players like Irabu and Hatsushiba. They say that taking these top level players with him would be the ultimate compliment to Japan baseball, and revenge to Lotte. I don't think that Bobby is the type of guy to seek revenge, but such a compliment would be nice to see.

---

And Valentine-zenkantoku did compliment Japan Pro Baseball the whole time he was here. I read in the newspaper and heard on the radio many times that Valentine had said that there was no difference between MLB and Japan Pro ball. No body really believes that, but they do take the compliment to heart. In fact, during the Japan Series, the radio announcers commented that Valentine called Ichiro the best outfielder in Japan. His players had commented many times that when Valentine said that they were playing like Big Leaguers, that they really felt like Big Leaguers. Whether true or not, what Valentine said to and about players definitely had a big impact on everyone involved with Pro Baseball this past season.

---

Source: Nikkan Sports and <fj.rec.sports.baseball>

[Updated layout format on Feb 14, 2005 10:04 PM JST]