I Will Pay $50 Million For This Guy

Stolen Goods: Why Haven’t We Had More Japanese Players In The Majors?

Jim Albright of BaseballGuru.com posits a great question: why haven’t we had more Japanese players in the Majors? The article breaks down the historical reasons into six parts:

1. 1935 and earlier-No professional Japanese baseball league
2. 1936-1950-Wartime and occupation
3. 1951-1963-Korean War to the Murakami Affair
4. 1964-1994-Murakami Affair and the De Facto Ban
5. 1995-2000-Pitchers Break the De Facto Ban
6. 2001-present-Position players arrive

The most interesting bit, in my opinion is the Murakami Affair. It sheds a lot of light into why the breadth of foreign players in basebal is more or less a "recent" phenomenon. Definitely worth the read.

Murton Goes To Japan

Today the Rockies sold former Cub Matt Murton to a Japanese club. Murton came to the Cubs in the Nomar Garciaparra trade. He made his debut with the Cubs in 2005 and was always a good contanct hitter, especially against left handed hitting. I thought Murton proved he is a valuable bat off the bench or starting vs. left handed hitting, but he always had trouble staying on the 25 man roster. He was with the Rockies last season, but only saw action in 29 games and had 52 at-bats in the Majors. He did hit .324 at Triple-A Colorado Springs and set a Colorado Springs record with a 29-game hitting streak. The Rockies have their 3 outfield spots set, and Ryan Spilborghs looks to be the 4th outfield now that Murton is out of the mix. Good luck to Murton in Japan! He may just stick out a bit with that red hair!