by Tom Plate
Los Angeles --- In the sports-happy, globe-oblivious country of United
States, probably more people know who Hideki Matsui is than who Junichiro
Koizumi is.
The former is the star left fielder of the New York Yankees baseball
team. The latter is only the prime minister of Japan. But for a shining
few minutes late last week in New York, you could very well make the case
that Matsui was the most important Japanese celebrity in the world.
The dramatic situation was this. It was early in a feral game against
the hated Boston Red Sox baseball club. A sharp line drive was slammed
into left field in the general direction of Matsui. An excellent fielder
as well as batter, a Yankee star and a baseball superstar in Japan,
Matsui charged the liner without fear, lunged for it, fell to the ground
and rolled over onto his left wrist and arm.
The capacity crowd at historic Yankee Stadium in the Bronx gasped at the
sight of the fallen warrior on the ground unable to move because the pain
was so great. The team doctor and teammates ran to his aid, but nothing
could be done. The arm was broken, the star had to leave the game, the
recovery period is said to require months.
But here is where Matsui exceeded his greatness as individual player with
great dignity as a human being and as a team player. In the age of the
coddled athlete, the widely overpaid athlete, the agent-protected
athlete, and the totally obnoxious superstar athlete, Matsui from Japan
did something that hardly anyone could remember another athlete doing in
a long time.
Matsui apologized.
He publicly apologized to his manager for the injury that would keep him
out of the team's lineup indefinitely, and he apologized to his fellow
players for having to withdraw from the front lines of the battle to
allow his broken left wrist to heal back together.
The apology was so unusual and unexpected and uncharacteristic, it became
a major news story in the American media. The New York Times devoted a
major feature to the Matsui apology. Countless news organizations picked
up the story for the astonishing if almost unprecedented development that
it represented: a superstar athlete and celebrity actually and sincerely
saying he was sorry.
Apologies are as rare in the United States as they may be unexceptional
in Japan. In this country even major newspapers fail to apologize to a
citizen who has clearly been wronged by a story. To date, nearly 2,500
Americans have died in the Iraq war (and who knows how many Iraqis) and
nothing remotely close to an apology has been issued by the perpetrators
of this unnecessary calamity. In Los Angeles a driver on a cell phone
will drift mentally off into Mars, make a serious life-endangering
driving error, cause a multi-car pileup, and will you hear an apology?
More likely you'll hear first from his lawyer or his insurance company.
It was against this stony-faced culture of arrogance that the Matsui "I'm
sorry' rang across America like the ringing of some new liberty bell,
freeing us from a culture of smugness. Unprompted by media advisors,
unforced by barristers, it offered the feeling of sincerity and of coming
deep from the heart.
In American baseball lore, few phrases or gestures are memorable enough
to last longer than the next newspaper edition. Perhaps the most famous
gesture of all time is Yankee slugger-of-history Babe Ruth's alleged
gesture to the bleachers right before hitting one more or less exactly
there. Another is Lou Gehrig's famous "I consider myself the luckiest man
on the face of the earth" phrase memorably delivered in Yankee Stadium
during a ceremony saluting the great player's struggle against a fatal disease.
Matsui's apology probably will not go down in history to quite that
degree of gravity. But to this ear it was memorable. Like Ruth or Gehrig
before him, Matsui, the happy but humble warrior from Japan, gave a
public and moving demonstration that reflected the pride of a Yankee.
UCLA Prof. Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International
Policy, is a veteran American journalist. © 2006, Tom Plate.
Distributed by the UCLA Media Center.
Reprinted and distributed with permission by Nagase Kenko Corporation.
About Nagase Kenko Corporation:
Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Nagase Kenko Corporation is a global, multi-line sporting goods company. In addition to its AirSafety and Universal Regulation baseballs, NKC markets a wide range of sporting good products and services through its Team Sports and Tennis, Sports Flooring and Gymnastics Equipment and International Sales and Marketing divisions.
Presently employing a staff of over 250 individuals, NKC maintains four Japanese manufacturing facilities and three regional sales offices in Osaka, Fukuoka and Hokkaido. It also maintains a growing network of agents, distributors and representatives who help to manage its international sales and marketing and promotional activities.
Website: http://www.kenkobaseball.com
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KWR International, Inc.
Tel. +1-212-532-3005
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