The Oakland A’s can’t seem to catch a break when they play in Japan.
Twice they have crossed the Pacific to open their season here, and each time the opposing team is the toast of the town.
In 2008, the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox had star Japanese right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka on the mound and a packed Tokyo Dome crowd cheering them on in their two-game series against the A’s.
This time, Seattle Mariners right fielder Ichiro Suzuki is enjoying a much ballyhooed homecoming.
When the A’s and the Mariners open the season Wednesday at the Tokyo Dome, it will mark the first time in his 11-year major league career that Ichiro, a native of Kasugai, Japan, has played in his home country in a Seattle uniform.
He did play in Japan for the national team during the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics. But many fans identify with him most as a Mariner, according to Masa Niwa, a reporter for the Tokyo-based Sankei Sports newspaper.
“Some people have just been waiting and waiting for this moment,” Niwa said. “He’s the biggest sports idol in Japan.”
What portion of the crowd does Niwa expect to be rooting for the A’s?
“Not much,” he said. “These people are pretty much (all about) Ichiro.”
The situation doesn’t foster jealousy in the A’s clubhouse. Aside from catcher Kurt Suzuki, no Oakland player on this trip was with the team for that 2008 series against the Red Sox, in which the A’s split two games.
Suzuki remembers the scene, as cameras flashed everywhere once Matsuzaka took the mound. Perhaps it got to the right-hander, who walked five and didn’t get a decision in Boston’s 6-5 victory in the opener.
“They were home games for us, but it was more like they were the home team,” Suzuki said.
The A’s are the home team for these games too, but Suzuki isn’t too worried about playing in front of a stadium full of Mariners fans.
“A crowd’s going to be a crowd,” he said. “You can’t really control that.”
It isn’t as if the A’s are walking around completely anonymous. Many of them get stopped for autographs as they go sightseeing.
The A’s figure who by far draws the most attention around Tokyo is general manager Billy Beane.
A story in Sunday’s Daily Yomiuri newspaper contained a story about Beane with the headline, “The Man Behind ‘Moneyball,’” describing how Beane “outmaneuvered” the Florida Marlins to sign Cuban free-agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.
Niwa said Kurt Suzuki – who is of Japanese descent but is a Hawaii native – and Jemile Weeks are the A’s players that register the most excitement among Japanese fans but that Beane is the true star.
Beane appreciates the attention but said he doesn’t think the Mariners are hogging all of the player spotlight.
“We’ve been treated so well,” he said. “I would expect with a guy like Ichiro that there would be more focus on that individual. But it doesn’t seem to be that dramatic to me.”
The Mariners feature two other Japanese players – pitchers Hisashi Iwakuma and infielder Munenori Kawasaki. But Ichiro will be the marquee attraction Wednesday and Thursday.
The A’s and the Mariners had a 2003 series in Tokyo canceled at the last minute because of the war in Iraq, otherwise this series might not carry so much anticipation.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I want to treat it specially,” Ichiro told the Daily Yomiuri.
The Mariners, as a team, don’t carry the same publicity punch as the Red Sox did in 2008, which added to the pro-Boston environment. A’s left fielder Coco Crisp played for Boston in that series and remembers the crowd’s overwhelming support for the Red Sox.
Now Crisp is on the opposite side of the situation, playing for an A’s team that won’t be feeling nearly as much love as its opponent.
“I don’t think anybody in here is worried that (the Mariners) are getting more media than us,” Crisp said. “We’re just excited to be out here. That’s enough excitement for me.”
