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03/21/2003 Archived Entry: "Japanese Baseball News: Theile Libels Japan as Hotbed of Anti-American Feeling"
Seattle P-I Writer Makes Colossal Fool Out of Self on Mariners-A'S Series Cancellation
Before I post the link to said irresponsible nonsense, here is the text of an email I sent to the author:
I just read your piece on the Mariners not going to Japan. The thrust it seems to be that Japan is a hotbed of anti-American sympathy and thus it's good that a bunch of "rich Americans [not to mention Latin-Americans and Japanese]" didn't go over there during wartime. What are you smoking?
It is true that the Japanese public isn't particularly enthusiastic about the idea of war against Iraq (in fact, my Japanese fiance is rather upset about it), but the idea that there would be some kind of incident against a bunch of ballplayers there is 100% patently ridiculous. After all, there are a lot of U.S. military bases on the Japanese mainland (Sasebo, Yokosuka, Misawa, Camp Fuji, etc) and you know how many protests there have been at those installations? ZERO. Even in Okinawa, where the military base issue is much more prominent, protests revolving specifically around the war have been almost non-existent. The Japanese government is firmly behind the U.S. in this conflict and most Japanese, while they will perhaps moan about it, will just say, "shikata ga nai (nothing can be done)" and leave it at that. Now given that, where do you get the idea that the Japanese would lash out at MLB players? What evidence do you have?
I know people who work in the Japanese sports media and none of them have ever mentioned the possibility of some kind of incident that might mar the Mariners-A's series.
If you can give me evidence of such a threat, I'm listening.
End of email.
Now some of you may point out that 50,000 strong protest in Tokyo a few days ago. But using that as a reason to cancel the MLB Japan opener means that you also cancel the MLB season itself since we have had protests against the Iraq war all over the U.S. We also have a far bigger foreign-born population than Japan does and thus the possible danger of some nutty Muslim pulling a terrorist stunt is much more pronounced in America than in Japan.
Okay, that having been stated, see story at: Seattle P-I Article
Seattle's Future Revolves Around Ichiro
See story at: Mariners.org Article
Mariners' Pineiro Laments Japan Trip Cancellation
See story at: San Francisco Chronicle Article
Mariners Fans Question Selig Decision to Cancel Japan Tour
See story at: Seattle Times Article
Georgetown Paper Says Cancellation Reason Baseball No Longer National Pastime
See story at: The Hoya Article
Keith Comstock's Japanese Adventure
See story at: Associated Press Article
Asians Set Sites on MLB
See story at: ABS-CBN.com Article
Nomo to Start Opening Day
See story at: Orange County Register Article
Nakamura Making Impression With Twins
See story at: MLB.com Article
Off Topic: The A-Z of the 2003 MLB Season
See story at: Associated Press Article
Replies: 1 Comment
For goodness sakes, let's play baseball and stay out of politics. If half of this stuff wasn't printed I wonder what we would do
with our time. We have become a world of whiners! Let's get some guts like our grandparents and live life day to day and accept that like is not fair and it is also hard! And it has been from the beginning of time. Japan loves baseball, America loves baseball, let's play it and shut up!
Posted by Jodie Beirne @ 03/22/2003 04:08 PM EST
