In a move without precedent in Japan’s long baseball history, players from Oklahoma and Venezuela were inducted into the country’s Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. For the inductees, Randy Bass and Alex Ramirez, the event was another in a long line of opportunities to exceed all expectations for players from the Americas in Nippon Professional Baseball.
Bass, famous in Japan for his blondish beard and back-to-back triple crowns, led the Hanshin Tigers to the franchise’s only championship in 1985. Ramirez, who struggled to get playing time in Major League Baseball, is the only foreigner to get 2,000 hits in an NPB career, reaching the coveted milestone at DeNA Bay.
“The Japanese Hall of Fame was never on my radar growing up in that small town of Lawton, Oklahoma,” said Bass, who played just six seasons at NPB but made an indelible mark on the game there. “I’m just thankful to the Hanshin organization that despite the way it ended, years later, they still treat me like family and I’m sure this honor wouldn’t be possible without their support.”
The road to election for Bass and Ramirez was complicated by a baseball system in Japan that has sometimes been hostile to foreign-born players, particularly those without Japanese heritage.
The sport was brought to Japan in the late 1800s, flourishing at the amateur level until a pro league was formed in 1936. And the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1959. Since then, more than 200 people have been elected to the Hall, including the people most responsible for the development of the sport there and those who excelled here in the NPB.
But until now, the only player inducted without Japanese heritage was Victor Starffin, who became the first pitcher to win 300 games in Japan. Starffin’s family fled the Russian Revolution through Siberia, finding refuge in the countryside of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Matsutaro Shoriki signed him as a teenager to build as an original member of his team, now known as the Yomiuri Giants, when a pro league was formed in 1936.
Starffin was Japan’s first inductee in the player category, in 1960.
Lefty O’Doul, a California native, was enshrined in 2002 for his help in Japan’s early development of the pro game and a year later, Maner Horace Wilson entered as Japan’s “father of baseball,” credited with first teaching the game in 1872.
O’Doul and Wilson, however, were elected as draftees, leaving Starffin as the only foreign player to gain induction without Japanese heritage. That was a major difference because early on most of the foreign players were second or third generation Japanese from Hawaii. Two such players, Tadashi Wakabayashi and Wally Yonamine, are Hall of Famers.
Over the years, more than 1,000 foreign players without Japanese heritage have played professionally in that country, but until this week Starffin was alone in the Hall of Fame.
“It’s nice to see that Japan is opening up and maybe they’re a little more fair now,” Marty Kuehnert, a longtime baseball and sports executive, said by phone from his home in Japan. “I think the way Ichiro was treated when he came to America in 2001 and built when the prestigious records were on the line – that had an influence on people here about fairness and how foreign men should be treated.”
Bass’s situation is mainly based on Kuehnert’s comment. Drafted by the Minnesota Twins, Bass, a journeyman first baseman, played for five MLB teams from 1977 to 1982, but he quickly emerged as a star after signing with Hanshin for the 1983 season. He led the Central League in 10 different offensive categories in his first four seasons, including the triple crown categories — batting average, home runs and RBI — in 1985 and 1986. He was named MVP of the regular season and the 1985 Japan Series.
For all his accomplishments, however, Bass is often remembered for one he never reached: Sadaharu Oh’s record of 55 home runs in a single season. Bass had 54 with two games left in 1985. But the Giants, managed by Oh, refused to challenge him, walking him six times in his final eight at-bats of the season.
The record was later broken by another foreigner, Wladimir Balentien of Curaçao, who did it for the Yakult Swallows in 2013. Balentien reached 55 with 22 games remaining in the regular season, leaving opposing pitchers with no choice but to challenge him. His total of 60 home runs stands as a record.
However, Bass’ career was cut short when she left Hanshin during the 1988 season to care for her 8-year-old son when a brain tumor was discovered (her son eventually survived the tumor and now has a family of her own). Attitudes in Japan at the time put work above all else and the Tigers eventually released Bass. He hit .321 during that time, but even so, no other team would deny Hanshin a sign and his career in Japan ended abruptly at the age of 34.
Despite such adversity from management and opponents, Bass won over fans with his persistence and lack of condescension. He remains highly respected and very popular 35 years later.
His reaction to the news of his induction, in which he shared credit with the team that cut him, showed humility. But Kuehnert was more than happy to make the case that Bass got all he got.
“Yeah, he only played six seasons in Japan,” Kuehnert said. “But his career was like Sandy Koufax’s – short but spectacular. He was the fastest to reach 200 home runs in Japanese history, he still holds the highest single-season average of .389 in 1986, and he is one of three players with back-to-back triple crowns and the other two are within reach.”
Alex Ramirez has a different story. Originally signed by Cleveland as a 16-year-old amateur free agent in 1991, he was considered a good hitter without a defensive position. He played parts of three MLB seasons before signing with Yakult for the 2001 season, beginning what would become a 13-year career in Japan.
Ramirez said he was very fortunate to have baseball lifer, Charlie Manuel, as his hitting coach and manager in the Cleveland organization. Manuel himself starred in Japan for six seasons, outscoring Oh from 1977 to 1980 — 166 to 152 — despite playing 53 fewer games.
“One day Charlie said to me, ‘Alex, you’re a million-dollar player,'” Ramirez recalled. “‘But not in the States. Go to Japan.’” I said, ‘Japan? I thought that was for players who were about to retire.’ He said, ‘No, no, with your hitting ability, you can play every day there and you’ll be there for a long time.’ He was right and I thank Charlie for encouraging me to go.”
“Rami chan,” as he is affectionately known in Japan, retired in 2013 with 2,017 hits. With about 20 fewer games a season than MLB, Japan accepts 2,000 hits with similar respect to America’s 3,000. As the only foreigner to reach the mark, Ramirez was voted in by the writers in his fourth year of eligibility; Bass’ eligibility among writers expired and a special committee was elected.
Both Bass and Ramirez hope their honor will open the door for other foreigners to enter Japan’s Hall of Fame. Among those they mentioned were Americans Karl Rhodes (known to many as Tuffy), whose 464 home runs over 13 seasons were the most by a foreigner, and Leron Lee, who was a prolific hitter during an 11-season career in Japan and whose .320 batting average remains the highest lifetime mark in NPB history.