RIP Hideki Irabu
If you’re on this site, you’ve probably already seen the news elsewhere: today former NPB and MLB pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead in his home from an apparent suicide. He was 42. Obviously we are saddened by this news.
For me, Irabu’s legacy won’t be as the former owner of the record for the fastest pitch thrown by a Japanese pitcher, or the “Jellyfish of Makuhari”, or the guy who refused to play for the Padres, or the divisive Yankees under-performer. For me Irabu will be a key member of the 2003 Hanshin Tigers, who came within a game of winning the Japan Series in the most enjoyable year of baseball I’ve ever been around.
I wrote about that season for Baseball Digest a few years ago, when Irabu began his short-lived indy league comeback. Normally I don’t like to go back and read things I’ve written in the past, but this one is an exception.
30/07/2011 at 2:00 pm Permalink
He is a character. He lived through the Dark Ages of Lotte Marines (boy, they sucked in their bones) with its other great rightie, Kuroki.
Farewell, Irabu, now You won’t hear anyone call you “Fat Boy” no more.
30/07/2011 at 2:10 pm Permalink
By the way, Patrick, I was born a Cubs fan. As a native Chicagoan, I must remind you and all baseball fans that “the Cubs of Japan” is nowhere to be found, not even in Koshien.
The Hanshin won their last Japan Series in 1985. That’s merely 26 years ago. (Or 24 years ago, when you wrote that article.) The Chicago National Ball Club, a.k.a. Cubs, had not won anything since 1945 (last World Series appearance).
Into their SECOND FREAKING CENTURY OF ZERO championship (last World Series won in 1908), The Cubs is definitely the failure of sports franchises.