Warren Cromartie - Slugging It Out in Japan: An American Major Leaguer in the Tokyo Outfield

To my father
who taught me the game of baseball
Thanks, Pop

Acknowledgements

Id like to acknowledge the people and institutions that have had something to do with my successes. They are all part of a part of my life: Chris, Candice, Cody, and Carole Cromartie; Marjorie Welbon, Gladys Walker, LeRoy Cromartie, Mary Keaton, Lulabell and Charles Brown, Wendell Welbon, Lenny Booth, Miami Parks and Recreation Dept., North West Boys Club of Miami, Gordon Whitehurst, Buster Zeigler, Doug Cooper, Ray Granda, Joe Miranda, Miami Jackson Senior High School, Miami Dade North Junior College, Anchorage Glacier Pilots, Ora Bendross, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Tony Perez, Mickey Rivers, Dick Williams, Lance Nichols, Sadaharu Oh, Hiroaki Hirano, Ichi Tanuma, Toshio Shinozuka, Kiyoshi Nakahata, Larry Sazant, Hank Blieir, Nick Buonaconti, Barry Garber, Jason Berkman, Geddy Lee, Jim Mansilla, Bruce Davison, Joe Gardner.W.C.

Also, the authors wish to thank Elmer Luke for his support, encouragement, and astute editingwhich helped make this a better book.

1984

The Messiah

Tokyo was a long way from Montreal. Fourteen hours, ten thousand miles, half the world away. My Japan Air Lines flight had just landed, and I was waiting, as ordered, to be the last one off. I was exhausted from the long haul.

A stewardess finally approached me in the first-class section. You can deplane now, Mr. Cromartie, she chirped, beaming down at me. She looked happy enough for both of us.

I picked up my flight bag, straightened my tie, and stepped out of the plane and into the terminal at Narita Airport. Although it was a freezing cold February night, a huge crowd had shown up. There was an instant of quiet, and then the flashes started going off like crazy.

I stood there blinking, disoriented, feeling slightly embarrassed. Then a man stepped forward and introduced himself as the general manager of the Tokyo Giants, the team I had recently signed to play for. He shook my hand vigorously, at the same time bowing from the waist.

Welcome to Japan, Mr. Cromartie, he said, You are our messiah.

In a daze, I mumbled, Helloand bowed back.

Then it dawned on me what he had just said.

The flashes kept going off every second. I forced a smile, bowed some more, and followed my new GM through immigration and customs, to a hastily assembled press conference. There, in front of more reporters than Id ever seen in any one place in my lifemore even than at a White House press conference, it seemedI fielded questions through an interpreter.

How did I like Japan? How many home runs would I smack? Could I eat Japanese food? Could I guarantee the Giants a pennant?

I was beginning to feel a little silly.

Id been called a lot of things in my lifesome good, some not, some downright nasty. But the last time I was called a messiah was never. Then again, Id never played for a Japanese baseball team before. For eight years, Id been a Montreal Expo, and Id had a pretty decent career. Id been a .300 hitter on a team of superstars that included Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Steve Rogers, and Tim Raines. When I became eligible for free agency in the winter of 1983, I put myself out for the highest bidderlike everyone else. Little did I expect the Tokyo Giants to outbid the San Francisco Giants and make me an offer I couldnt refuse. It was a three-year contract to the tune of $600,000 per. I would be the first starting-level major leaguer to play in Japan while still in his prime.

Japan wasnt the States. But as a 29-year-old black dude from Miami whod been playing in a white city like Montreal while married to a French-Canadian woman, I was used to doing things differently. I talked it over with my wife Carole, the mother of my two children, and when she said oui , I signed.

The Tokyo Giants were a Japanese institution. Owned by the Yomiuri Shimbun the largest newspaper in the world with a circulation several times that of USA Today or the New York Times . They were Japans premier team, with thirty-three league pennants and a stack of Japan Series championships to their credit. They were like the Yankees, and the Dodgers, and the Metsall put together. And then some.

Nineteen eighty-four was the fiftieth anniversary of the Giants and big things were expected. Sadaharu Oh, the teams former great batting starthe man who had hit a record 868 home runs in a long, spectacular careerwas the new manager. The Yomiuri Shimbun , on a gamble, had invited the Baltimore Orioles, winner of the 1983 World Series, to play the Japan Series champion at the end of the season, fully expecting, of course, that the Tokyo Giants would be doing the honors.

I, Warren Cromartie, had been hired to make certain that would happen, which explained the reception accorded me that chilly evening at Narita.

Will you win the triple crown? a reporter was now asking me.

I was careful how I phrased my answers. I hadnt walked on water lately. Besides, Id been warned about the Japanese press: Another American, upon his arrival in Japan, said in answer to a similar question that he would hit anywhere between five and fifty home runs. Safe enough, one would think. The next morning, many of Japans sports dailies, which have huge readerships, headlined the new Americans vow to hit fifty out of the park.

With that kind of reporting, I wondered, why have a press conference?

So I just kept repeating that I would do my best to help the team win until the thing was finally over and I was ushered into a limousine for the long ride into town.

The apartment that was to be my new home was an ordinary three-bedroom unit on the twelfth floor of a fifteen-floor apartment building in the center of Tokyo. It wasnt bad.

There was a balcony, sliding glass doors, a washer and dryer, a toilet I could sit down on. But it was nothing that would appear in House Beautiful , which should have been the case given the five-thousand-dollar rent per month the Giants were paying for it. You could walk across the living room in four steps. I later discovered, though, it was a palace compared to what the average Japanese lives in.

I walked out on the balcony and looked out at the winking lights of the city, then stared down at the street below. A detachment of press cars had camped there after following me in from the airport. Now, to be perfectly honest, I didnt mind a little bit of attention. In fact, I didnt even mind a lot of attention. The more the better, Id always thought. But already I was beginning to have my doubts about the Japanese media. With a security guard downstairs, I felt as if I had some privacy. But how much, I asked myself, as a photographer below pointed his zoom lens camera up at me.

***

I awoke at 5:00 a.m. Jet lag. I was dying for a cup of coffee. I padded to the kitchen and flicked on the light. No such luck. The cupboards were bare. The refrigerator was empty. I had to settle for a glass of water. Then I took a long hot bath and stepped out onto the balcony to watch the winter sun come up. The morning was cold, and I shivered as I took in my new surroundings.

A couple of press cars were still there, parked next to a row of spindly trees, propped up by sticks. Beyond them lay a vast ocean of gray concrete buildings and telephone lines. It extended into the distance as far as I could see. Haze hung over the city.

It was grim. Soulless. Possibly the most depressing sight I had ever seen in my life. I groaned. What had I gotten myself into? What had I left behind?

***

Two days laterlonely, depressed, in a Japanese dazeI received a phone call from my wife in Miami. The news was not good: My grandmother, whom I loved a lot, had just died at age 66. Id seen her the day before I came to Japan, and she looked well enough even though her health was failing. She suffered from bad blood circulation and had had a leg amputated, but I never thought shed die.