Baseball Bullet-In: Hillman's decision to leave Fighters comes as a shocker

Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007

BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Hillman's decision to leave Fighters comes as a shocker

By WAYNE GRACZYK

The announcement last week by Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters manager Trey Hillman that he would step down at the end of the season came as a shocker.

I never saw it coming and, while I'm sorry Hillman will be leaving, I understand his first obligation is to his family and wish him the best in the United States.

It was in the fall of 2002 when his name first surfaced here as the man likely to take over the manager's job in the Fighters dugout for 2003.

There were many confused looks on the faces of media members who were asking, "Trey Who?" Most of us had never heard of the guy.

But the Nippon Ham front office knew exactly what it was doing in hiring the gentlemanly Hillman to guide the club through its final season in Tokyo (2003) and first campaign in Sapporo the next year.

He patiently and methodically led the team for those years and three more and proved, along with Bobby Valentine, a foreigner can successfully manage a Japanese pro baseball team.

His presence and performance no doubt inspired other clubs to hire American managers too.

There was Leon Lee picked to lead the then-Orix BlueWave a month into that 2003 season, and Valentine was brought back to pilot the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2004.

They were followed by Marty Brown with the Hiroshima Carp in 2006 and Terry Collins of the Orix Buffaloes this year.

Hillman repeated Valentine's 2005 success by winning last year's Pacific League pennant, the Japan Series and Asia Series under the "Shinjirarenai!" ("Unbelievable!") theme, and he will go out with a winning record, as the Fighters have virtually secured a berth in the PL Climax Series along with Valentine's Marines and the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.

Trey's likely replacement as the F's manager for 2008 is head coach Kazuyuki Shirai, who had been expected to get the job in 2003 until the Nippon Ham decision makers tabbed Hillman.

Meanwhile, the latest rumor on the fate of Yakult Swallows manager Atsuya Furuta is that he will step down at the end of this season, and his successor, according to the Nikkan Sports paper, is now likely to be ex-Swallows outfielder Hideki Kuriyama, and not Seibu Lions pitching coach and former Yakult star hurler Daisuke Araki, as previously thought.

Kuriyama, 46, was a utility player with Yakult from 1983-90 who has served as a radio commentator in recent years.

He's a good guy with a smart baseball mind but, while he is somewhat popular with Swallows fans, he would not claim the name recognition and team identity of Furuta or even Araki.

The Yakult club needs something to rejuvenate the franchise, and fast.

Despite carrying the Central League's best starting pitcher in Seth Greisinger, the CL's top two hitters in Alex Ramirez and Norichika Aoki and the No. 1 RBI man (Ramirez), Furuta's flock is dead last in the six-team league, and attendance at home games is down because of the poor standing.

I was at the Sept. 12 Swallows-Giants game at Jingu Stadium, and the announced attendance there was only 16,701. I can recall when a game such as that, this late in the pennant race and with Yomiuri fighting for first place, would have drawn 48,000 Tokyo spectators, even on a weeknight in mid-September.

What Yakult needs is a return to the winning ways of the 1990s, and Furuta, in spite of his immense popularity and excellent leadership skills displayed during his term as head of the Japanese players union, has not been able to develop a playoff-caliber club.

There could also be a managerial change at the Seibu Lions, a club that will finish in the Pacific League's second division for the first time since 1981.

Tsutomu Ito might be out, and suggested candidates to take over the Leos would be Araki or former Lions pitcher Hisanobu Watanabe, currently the manager of Goodwill, Seibu's Eastern League farm club.

A wild card for any of the above managerial openings would also be former Yokohama BayStars field boss Kazuhiko Ushijima, who led that club to a third-place finish in 2005 but was let go after the team fell to the cellar in 2006.

* * * * *

Semi-finally this week, a tour group from the United States attended the Sept. 7 Giants-Tigers game at Tokyo Dome and, noting the Tigers were playing, one guy in the group decided to wear his Hanshin jersey purchased on an earlier trip to Japan.

However, when he got to the ballpark, he found out his seat was in the midst of the Yomiuri cheering section.

A staffer at the stadium suggested, in light of the seat location, the guy might want to take off the shirt, rather than risk being beaten to death with orange-and-black megaphones wielded by Kyojin fanatics.

The fan wisely complied and, fortunately, he was wearing a T-shirt under the jersey, one that had nothing to do with either the Tigers or the Giants.

That three-game set, by the way, swept by the visitors by scores of 9-8, 2-1 and 9-8 in 10 innings, had to be one of the most exciting series in the history of Japanese baseball.

The two archrivals and CL frontrunners will square off again for their final meetings of the 2007 regular season on Sept. 17, 18 and 19 at Koshien Stadium, and you can bet there will 48,000 there every night — even on weeknights — for three more barn burners.

Too bad our friend left for home and won't be there to wear his Tigers uniform top among the more friendly Hanshin rooters.

* * * * *

Finally this week, we would like to welcome a new sponsor and thank the nice folks at Solare Hotels for supporting the column. Arigato.

* * * * *

Contact Wayne Graczyk at: wayne@JapanBall.com


[Full Article: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20070916wg.html]