With the site outage I never got to share my thoughts on the Asia Series tournament I went to over the weekend. This is going to be part travelogue and part baseball — in two parts.

I’m more free to write about this because I don’t scout Japan and I wasn’t going for any specific purpose other than to be where my boss was. To get some training. I’ve been to Japan five or six times since moving to Korea, but never to Tokyo proper.

I arrived during the SK/Seibu game, which as Jackson reported, SK won. Actually, the Wyvrens were lucky to get the game because Kim Kwang-hyun didn’t pitch well. I always enjoy watching Kim. This was the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen him live this season, including this game from the first East Windup Meetup way back in hot and sweaty June. During that game we sat on the stone centerfield bleachers partially behind the scoreboard, so I can’t say that qualifies as a good look.

But as I get better as a scout it’s easier for me to explain why he’s probably the best lefthanded pitcher in Asia — even when he’s not at the top of his game. He’s got a few gifts that other pitchers spend careers looking for. At 20 he’s not fully mature, but his feel for breaking pitches, and just his overall balance — to put it a little clumsily — is, like I said…a gift.

HIs performance last Thursday night reminded me of Game 1 of the Korean Series. Up in the zone, trouble throwing his fastball for strikes, walked a few, gave up a number of hits. The fact that the competition was Japanese is irrelevant, because Kim dominated the Japanese team twice in the Olympics. I think after winning the gold medal, plus winning the KBO championship for the second straight time, that “getting up” for a hit-and-miss exhibition like the Asia Series might be hard for guys like Kim, closer Chong Dae-hyun (who would really bomb later in the weekend), and mainstays Jeong Keun-Woo and Lee Jin-yeong. Sure, it’s still Korea vs. Japan, but the fact of the matter is, the Asia Series despite being the best option available is still a long way from being a premiere baseball competition.

If there was a major sidestory to the weekend it was Junichi Tazawa, who was due to start in an Industrial League tournament game the following Monday (he threw a five-hit shutout). A number of scouts and higher checkwriting brass were in town for the Asia Series en route to Osaka.

I’ve talked a little tough about Tazawa, but the fact of the matter is I’ve only seen a YouTube clip, so I shouldn’t be talking too much. But I will say, as an observer more-or-less on the sidelines, this is going to be a fun situation to monitor over the next week or two. The opinions on Tazawa vary greatly. I’ve seen and heard teams talking about five million dollar offers and I’ve heard people say they’d pay him 1/50th of that. I’ve never been around a bidding war in Korea. Just a little back and forth. It happens all the time in Latin America, but there aren’t enough MLB teams in Korea to create much of a war.

However, anytime you have wide ranging opinions on a player like Tazawa it makes the drama all the more fun and the fact that he’s in Asia, where very few scouts live and work (thereby seeing him more than a few times), increases the uncertainty. It seems a signing like Tazawa could make or break a career. Or something like that. Like I stress, I’m new at this, but I think most scouts thrive on that pressure. That’s part of what makes it fun. 

We stayed at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, which as the name implies is close to the Tokyo Dome. In fact, they are basically connected. Plenty of restaurants in the area, but I have to say, with apologies to all my Japanese and Japan-based friends, while I always get excited to eat Japanese food in Japan, it’s not long after I start eating that I’m missing Korean food. The spectrum of flavors and the variety is just so much greater here. I’ll give you your basic sake, Japanese beer, and Japanese style ramen, all of which are better than their Korean counterparts, but that’s about it — no boiling spicy stews, no garlic or strong herbs, and raw fish that’s usually 10-times the price it ought to be. Steve and I, along with one of the Cubs part time guys in Japan, ate at little bar a few sidestreets from the stadium. I’m guessing the place was Izayaka or close to it. We had some nicely cooked salmon, some sashimi and a battred flat fish that was ok. 

The place was teaming with college age kids that were absolutely plastered, guys standing on tables singing, girls in short skirts falling all over the floors and even into the sunken areas you’re supposed to put your feet. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a gaggle of falling-down drunk people tyring to find and put their shoes on amongst 50 other pairs. I guess I shouldn’t talk. I’ve been one of those people.

The next morning I ran into one of the SK players at the elevators. I said hi in Korean and asked him if he played for SK. He looked shocked and only said “you speak Korean well” to which I said “not very well yet,” which is what I always say. There’s a line out of a book, which I’ve referenced on this site before, written by a Brit who lived in North Korea that goes something like: “when a non-Korean speaks Korean to a North Korean, it’s kind of akin to a person walking in a forest, taking out a cigarette and having a 100-year-old tree bend over to offer a light.” The look on the SK player’s face was something like that. I congratulated him on the team’s recent championship and went on my way.

That afternoon SK played the Chinese team. There weren’t many fans, and of those that were there the Koreans outnumbered the Chinese fans at least 20-1. At one point China brought in a 19-year-old pitcher who could throw strikes, but without any movement or speed. As he warmed up the heart of SK’s order looked on in silence from the on-deck circle. Once the warmups were over they all looked at each other and grinned like kids getting ready to go up against a pitching machine that the coach just turned down from 70 to 50. SK was already ahead 11-0 and headed for a mercy 10-run-lead-after-seven-innings victory. Right as rain they pounded the kid for four runs in 2/3 an inning to push the total to 15-0. I have to admit, I’d don’t really tire of seeing China get their lunch handed to them. 

I’m going to be up front here and admit I’d never been to a domed stadium prior to this trip. I’ve been to Safeco, but the roof was open. I’ve never been to Texas let alone Houston, and I’ve never had the pleasure of going to Jackson’s hometown of Twinsville. There are no domes in Korea, which is why the season runs from March to November. 

It sometimes amuses me how, as an American living in Korea married to a Korean, I sometimes find myself feeling a kind of Korean national pride — particularly when I leave the country. The only time I got chills all weekend was when the SK cheerleaders came out and preformed to Nobody by The Wonder Girls. I still want to slap myself for that one.

I think my boss Steve feels this a little too when it comes to the Taiwanese teams.  He doesn’t say this outright, just as I’ve never admited I wanted SK to win, but I think if you looked at a script of our conversations during the game you’d probably get just that impression. If anything, I think the love for our adopted homelands, which is probably mostly an expression of love for our wives (and in his case, kids) is expressed here in the nagging and criticizing of baseball teams from Korea and Taiwan…excessive reactions to sudden pitching changes, groans at bats that get slow through the zone.

Prior to the Taiwan/Japan game that night Steve told me to focus on a few players, including the starting pitcher from Taiwan, Pan Wei-Lun. Pan is a  solid CPBL pitcher who’s made the national team a few times, but is probably not a threat to be signed by a major league team.

Japan won a close game 2-1, but Pan pitched effectively despite having a flat slider and little velocity. I won’t go into Pan as a pitcher, but when we talked about the game later that night, I really got the sense that I’m getting better in evaluating pitchers. For whatever reason I’ve concentrated on pitching more in my own study time, and there are things I’m now able to see that I couldn’t have seen nine months ago. In particular, Pan gets a nice, long extension on his follow-through. He’s not tall or long-bodied, but he ends up closer to the plate, making his fastball appear to be faster than it actually is. This is something David Price does very very well. In Price’s case it’s one of the several reasons he’ll likely be one of the best pitchers in baseball within the next few years. In Pan’s case, well, it helps him get on the national team, and if there’s a CPBL league next season, I suppose it’ll continue to help him then.

I was able to talk about Pan’s extention the following morning with the Taiwanese/Uni Lions pitching coach, Frank Reberger, who Steve used to play for in the Dominican League during the 80s. Frank himself had an MLB career with the Cubs, Padres and as part of a San Francisco Giants rotation that included Juan Marichal in the early 70s. Steve and Frank hadn’t seen one another in person since that Dominican winter league, a time span that includes Steve’s entire MLB career.

I’ll say here Frank is one of the cooler people I’ve met since taking this job. I don’t think too many guys (and their wife) would be all that excited to take a pitching job in Taiwan, but to talk Frank and his wife, there was nowhere else in the world they’d rather be. And they meant it. Prior to Taiwan he’d managed a team in Edmonton, and if the league collapses or the Uni Lions don’t ask him back, they’re (that’s the way they put it) considering coaching in Italy, which was where they were headed prior to the Taiwanese job. We should all be so lucky to have such attitudes about life as we approach our mid 60s.

Part 2 tomorrow.