PLENTY MORE AFTER NOMO

By Steve Wulf

Almost as wondrous as the windup of Hideo Nomo has been his follow-through. Major league teams, eager for their own version of the Los Angeles Dodgers' "Tornado," are importing Japanese pitchers as never before imagined, and they are lighting up radar guns, enlivening batting-cage conversations and making names for themselves this spring. Shigetoshi Hasegawa, nicknamed "Shaggy" by his Anaheim Angel teammates, keeps 75 members of the Japanese media busy while charming American reporters with the revelation that he learned English by watching Field of Dreams--12 times. New York Yankee Katsuhiro Maeda has amused observers with both his sense of tradition--he bowed deeply before pitching batting practice to teammate and former Hanshin Tiger Cecil Fielder--and his sense of the absurd. Maeda, whose hair is bleached white, is known as "Rodman."

But the biggest impression made by a Japanese pitcher this spring has been by "the Jellyfish." That is what Hideki Irabu is known as back home, where, as the ace of the Chiba Lotte Marines, he caused batters' arms to go numb with the sting of his 95-m.p.h. fastball. (The Marines used to sell stuffed Irabu Jellyfish dolls.) Though he has yet to throw a pitch in a U.S. major league uniform, he has become Topic A in both the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues.

The Marines are willing to grant Irabu his freedom, but only to the San Diego Padres, with which the team has a working agreement. But Irabu's hardball-playing agent, Don Nomura, has maintained all along that his client wants to pitch only for the Yankees. In a fax sent to all 30 major league teams last week, Nomura threatened to let Irabu sit out the year if the Yankees and Padres did not work out a deal, and soon. Nomura, who has become equally unpopular on both sides of the Pacific, recently incensed people by comparing Irabu's plight to that of Japanese Americans put into internment camps during World War II. Still, the agent, who also represents Nomo and Maeda, refuses to back off. "Mr. Irabu is being kept against his will, as if he were a prisoner," Nomura says. "He is being held hostage to the special interests of baseball."

The fight over Irabu, 28, the Pacific League's ERA leader for the past two years, has involved not only the Padres and Yankees, which tried to sign him unilaterally earlier this year, but also Major League Baseball and the Players Association. Is he worth it? Is he worth the players (a prospect, a pitcher and a starter) and cash ($3 million to $4 million) that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is supposedly dangling before the Padres? Absolutely, says New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine, who managed the Marines and Irabu in 1995. "He throws the ball as well as anyone in the world," says Valentine. "On some days, he's even a good pitcher. Once he gets acclimated and learns hitters, he'll remove the fallacy that American baseball is better than Japanese baseball." And Tetsuo Ikeda, editor of the magazine Shukan Baseball, says, "Irabu has a much higher potential than Nomo." That is lofty praise, considering Nomo is 29-17 with a 2.95 ERA in two years in the majors. But there are just as many doubters about Irabu as believers. "Maybe this guy is like Sydd Finch, the guy SPORTS ILLUSTRATED made up," Yankee pitcher Brian Boehringer said last week.

Nomo's success is the dominant reason major league teams covet Japanese pitchers. There are two in the Mets camp, and one of them, left-handed reliever Takashi Kashiwada, has a chance of making the team. The Boston Red Sox are saving a spot in the bullpen for Robinson Checo, a Dominican who pitched last year for the Hiroshima Carp.

But another reason for the Japanization of American baseball is, simply, the Americanization of Japanese baseball. Players in Japan are watching more major league baseball and realizing there's not that much difference. Young players there are also aware of the greater independence, and rewards, enjoyed by their counterparts in the U.S. Irabu wanted to leave the Marines in part because the freedom he had enjoyed under Valentine had been taken away by authoritarian former general manager Tatsuro Hirooka, who fired Valentine despite the team's best finish in 10 years.

Having watched some of their top pitchers go West, Japanese fans are fearful that Kazuhiro Sasaki of the Yokohama Bay Stars, or Masumi Kuwata of the Yomiuri Giants, or maybe even a non-pitcher like Hideki Matsui, power hitter from the Tokyo Giants, will be next. Who else will follow Nomo? "To play in the major leagues is still the stuff dreams are made on," says Ikeda, paraphrasing The Tempest. If he and Valentine are right, then Irabu has the stuff championships are made on. And the tempest started by the Tornado could help turn the World Series into a true world series.

--With reporting by Satsuki Oba/Tokyo

With reporting by Satsuki Oba/Tokyo