MLB covers up mess with “Band-Aid”

On Tuesday, Nikkan Sports first reported that Major League Baseball, concerned about the appearance of impropriety, has told its teams to terminate all working agreements with the four foreign pro baseball organizations it recognizes.

The impropriety mentioned in the order, was that of MLB teams making contact with players under contract with or reserved by foreign clubs that violate the protocol agreements MLB has with Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, the CPBL, Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, and Liga Mexicana de Beisbol.

That’s the kind of thing that got the Los Angeles Dodgers fined when, according to Adrian Gonzalez, Andrew Friedman and the club’s brass asked him to bring Dodgers gifts to Shohei Ohtani in 2016.

Shohei Ohtani with Edgar and Adrian Gonzalez at Tokyo Dome in 2016.

“‘Hey, if we give you a care package for him, will you present it to him? Because we cannot pursue him, it’s against the rules, but you as a person can obviously take whatever you want to any player. Of course, the Dodgers got fined and in trouble for that. But they paid their fines. They knew there was a possibility and the team paid their fines.”

-Adrian Gonzalez to Dodger Blue in January, 2024

The March 4 order from the office of the commissioner forced teams to suspend all existing agreements and prohibited them from creating new ones. It also ended any exchange of coaches, something that has alerted both MLB organizations and Japanese coaches to different ways baseball can be taught and learned.

Such beneficial exchanges are now over, because the commissioner’s office says that they create a situation where tampering with players can occur.

The order reads in part as follows:

Continue reading MLB covers up mess with “Band-Aid”

Coach Keizo

Keizo Kawashima, a cheerful durable 171-centimeter infielder who played 886 career games over a 15-year career in which he played 100 in a season just three times, is now done with playing but not done with baseball.

His remarkable little career ended in 2022 with the Rakuten Eagles, whom he signed on to coach with in 2023.

After a year coaching in the minors, Kawashima is now one of the Eagles’ major league batting coaches under first-year skipper Toshiaki Imae, who started on the farm last season with Kawashima before a mid-season promotion sent him to Sendai.

Continue reading Coach Keizo

writing & research on Japanese baseball

css.php