I learned late Friday night that Marty Kuehnert had died at the age of 78.
Robert Whiting, in his obituary, Saturday, wrote, “At the time of his death, the Sendai-based Marty was serving as an adviser to the pro baseball Rakuten Golden Eagles of the NPB’s Pacific League as well as Senior Adviser to General Manager of the pro basketball Sendai 89ers of Japan’s B League. Many people remember him from his days as affable owner/operator of The Attic sports bar and Attic Jr. in Kobe, as well as Legends sports bar in Roppongi in Tokyo.”
Marty, a catcher at Stanford University, came to Japan on an exchange program, and immersed himself in not only the language but the culture of Japanese baseball. He earned laurels as the manager of the independent Lodi Orions in the Single-A California League and went to work for the cash-strapped Lions, then Fukuoka.
In the 1980s, his bar in Kobe, the Attic Jr., became a hub for import players at a time when English language was seldom spoken in Japan, and companionship in English was at a premium. Marty was a columnist who knew and understood so much that one could not ignore his incite even while often disagreeing with his conclusions.
For one year in 2005, Marty was the first general manager of the Rakuten Eagles, the expansion franchise born out of 2004’s labor strife. That was also the year, several NPB owners stepped down after their teams were caught giving cash stipends to college pitcher Yasuhiro Ichiba.
As a new team unencumbered by the past, the Eagles drafted Ichiba when no other team would touch him, and owner Hiroshi Mikitani chose Marty, an outsider without baggage, to run the front office. Marty picked Yasushi Tao to be the first manager. Both were gone after a historically bad season, Marty reassigned to the job he was born to do, community relations.
Marty then taught in Sendai, operated Legends sports bar in Tokyo. Like his contemporary, the late Wayne Graczyk, Marty brought people together. When he hosted Bobby Valentine in his return to Japan in November 2005 after Valentine was fired, Marty served champagne to a handful of select guests and offered the rest of around the table a glass of house red. Still, Marty was a raconteur, a witty engaging and sensitive man, who frequently reached out with an email or call just to catch up, and I miss him so much.
