Kikuchi to Visit the States
When we last left our heroes,Yusei Kikuchi had strongly suggested that he was going to start his professional baseball career in Japan, saying, “It’ll be after I consult with my parents and manager, but I’m thinking domestic. In the future I think I’ll go to the Majors if I can, but after building my strength domestically.â€
Note, however, that he stops short of saying he’s filed for draft eligibility, which he still has yet to do.
Now, news has emerged that Kikuchi is planning on visiting the States in October, and wants to see the Majors once before he decides to proceed. The best quote I’ve seen so far was in Sponichi: “I like to do things that people say are impossible. To be showered in criticism makes me want to do it. I don’t have any unease with life in America. I want to speak English, and there is leading-edge training which is different from Japan, so that’s exciting.” Mainichi News puts his decision between NPB and MLB at 50/50.
We’re seemingly a month away from really knowing that Kikuchi wants to do, so we’ll see how things play out until then.
08/09/2009 at 9:00 am Permalink
Interesting, I like to see how NPB reacts to such a high draft pick defecting to MLB. Anyone like to take a guess how NPB react if Yuki Saitoh defect to MLB? Just wondering about the opinion out there, I have an opinion already just like to hear some others.
08/09/2009 at 10:34 am Permalink
News clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUmIxn6KGCU
Via TBS radio:
http://www.tbs.co.jp/radio/dc/pod/index-j.htm
– His mother never talked to him about the MLB.
– He doesn’t have a passport.
08/09/2009 at 10:58 am Permalink
Interesting. I’ll watch the clips after work today.
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I thought staying in Japan was the right choice for him, based mostly on an interview with him in Shukan Baseball. I was waiting until he committed to a direction to write more, but I might do it sooner.
08/09/2009 at 11:23 am Permalink
Patrick,
I don’t think the TBS radio site has the whole show. It was from a sports writer close to Kikuchi.
08/09/2009 at 11:36 am Permalink
I’ll still check it out though, thanks for sharing.
08/09/2009 at 12:44 pm Permalink
If indeed he does come to the states, it would show that:
a) he’s fairly serious about the idea, and
b) he’s doing his homework.
I don’t really have an opinion on where he should go, mostly because I know that if he goes and has success it would definitely influence those after him. But if he doesn’t decide to go, will people be left to think, “It not him, and not now, then when?” Or is the more prudent thing to get only the university/industrial/established NPB player instead of HS? There’s already the debate about getting HS players here and how they pan out. Now it would just be expanded to Japan as well.
08/09/2009 at 3:21 pm Permalink
Better question (sorry, no time to read the article to see if this is answered): exactly how is he going to the US? Who or what or which team is paying for it? 😛
(There aren’t a lot of random kids in podunk Tohoku who can just randomly afford to go to the US for a visit for the heck of it…)
08/09/2009 at 9:44 pm Permalink
I didn’t come across that information when I posted this this morning, but then again I kinda banged this one out in limited time before work. I doubt a team would pay for this; I suppose an agent could though. And who knows maybe he can afford it.
09/09/2009 at 12:39 am Permalink
Deanna’s “podunk” comment is not only insulting but also kind of ridiculous. Most people in Iwate can afford a trip to the US. As for Kikuchi, whether he goes pro in Japan or in the US, he is about to make a lot of money, so his parents can probably find a way to purchase plane tickets for their son, even if they are hicks as Deanna seems to imagine all Tohoku people to be. Maybe they can sell an ox or something.
09/09/2009 at 1:21 am Permalink
Since he’s guaranteed to get big money by either being drafted in NPB or signed in MLB, I’m sure a short visit to the States would be affordable future investment.
09/09/2009 at 12:37 pm Permalink
I love your site. Any idea what cities Kikuchi will visit. Does he plan going to a playoff game or the WS? I would think he’ll come through LAX.
Phil
09/09/2009 at 10:36 pm Permalink
EJH: Why you are so sure of that? I teach at a public junior high school in Tokyo, and almost none of my students would be able to afford to go on a trip to the US on a whim (half of them seem to have parents who are in mounds of debt just to afford to send their kids to juku). One of my coworkers sends her daughter to a private school which took a school trip to Arizona, and she said she’d been making payments for the trip over the last year or so to pay for it… and that’s with the travel discounts that these school trip groups get.
And before this job, I was working at an eikaiwa and teaching adults, who also pretty much would have to really save up for quite a while to take a trip abroad, or blow their entire yearly bonus on it. (We were generally pushed to try to get people to sign up for those “study abroad homestay” trips to English-speaking countries where my company had schools, and most of the students would explain to me numerically exactly why there was no way they could afford it.)
Yes, I realize that perhaps I might have direly insulted your sensitive eyes by implying that Iwate is a bit out of the way, but then again, people in Japan regularly tell me that Sendai, a city with a population of over 1 million, is apparently the “countryside”, so perhaps my perspective has been skewed.
Either way, yes, Kikuchi is going to become very rich, and yes it’s certainly a reasonable future investment for him and his parents to make happen one way or the other, but you can’t blame me for wondering where the money for such a trip is going to come from — OR for suspecting that there might be some money coming from “other” sources to fund it, depending on the purpose and itinerary of the trip. (Assuming such a trip is even happening and isn’t just some more rumors in the press anyway.)
09/09/2009 at 10:52 pm Permalink
Oh god, here we go again.
Let’s agree that a) Iwate can reasonably be considered a rural community and b) none of us know enough about Kikuchi’s family’s finances to speculate as to whether he can afford a trip abroad (which isn’t really THAT expensive), and as such we can give him the benefit of the doubt.
Also, Deanna has a point about “rumors in the press”. I happened to pick up on the article that said “Kikuchi is planning a trip to America”, but since this broke I’ve seen a couple others that said “Kikuchi wants to go to America”. I said plenty of things when I was 18 that I didn’t actually do.
09/09/2009 at 11:40 pm Permalink
We will see what Kikuchi will say after he meets with his high school coach on 9/14…