Redemption: The 1992 MLB vs Japan All-Star Baseball Series

1992 All-Star Baseball Series program (Robert Fitts Collection)

 

For the MLB All-Star team, the 1992 series was all about redemption.1 Nothing less.

Two years earlier, an American team boasting stars like Randy Johnson, Roberto Alomar, Barry Bonds, Lenny Dykstra, and Ken Griffey Jr. had won just three of eight games to become the first major-league all-star team to lose an exhibition series against their Japanese hosts.2 Along the way, the team “played and behaved like ugly Americans … with nonchalance and arrogance.” In short, it was not pretty. It was memorable mostly for the bad taste it left, and Cecil Fielder was determined that there would be no repeat performance in 1992.3

As a member of the 1990 team, Fielder had witnessed the disappointment firsthand. It had come a year after his single season with the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League, in which he hit 38 home runs, drove in 81 runs, and posted a 1.031 OPS in only 106 games.4 Though he’d left after that season and made a triumphant return to the US majors in 1990 with 51 homers and 132 RBIs for the Detroit Tigers, he had remained a hero – almost a god – to the Hanshin fans. One article about the 1992 series described people in a train station seeing him sitting in one of the cars. They rushed over and, reverentially, covered his window with their palms. “I think they view me as a son they sent off to America who has done extremely well,” Fielder was quoted as saying. “They feel responsible for me doing well, like maybe Japanese baseball helped me to do some things. If that’s what they want to think, hey, beautiful.”5

Since he’d learned to respect the culture and the style of play in Japan, the 1990 experience was even more galling. “I think we came over here [in 1990] with an attitude that, because of our names and who we were, we just had to lower our gloves out there and we’d win,” Fielder said before the 1992 series began. “We got beat up, and it was not a good feeling.”6 “I don’t think everybody who came here really believed that the Japanese players could play baseball.”7 “I hope this team understands that they’re going to beat you if you just go through the motions.”8

It did, according to Mark Langston, then a California Angels pitcher. “There’s no doubt that the loss in 1990 made us more focused when we went over there,” said Langston, who pitched well in two starts against the all-Japan club in 1992. “The series came a month or so after our season had ended, so we all had to get back into the competitive mode, but there was a sense of urgency. Cecil talked a lot about it. He said we should enjoy Japan but be prepared to play well and get the job done on the field.”9 Fielder, who was said to have been embarrassed by his teammates’ attitudes in 1990, added, “I didn’t want this time [1992] to be like last time.”10

It wasn’t.

In his welcome statement in the official series program, Ichiro Yoshikuni, commissioner of Nippon Professional Baseball, said, “I hope that these top major league players … are ready to avenge their defeat since the MLB team lost two years ago.”11

They were.

The series opened with a game against the Yomiuri Giants that was followed by seven games against a Japanese all-star team. Beforehand, an American columnist for the English-language Japan Times newspaper predicted “the Giants to beat the jet-lagged MLB stars, then a 3-3 split with one tie between MLB and the All-Japan team.”12

He was right about the tie.

Otherwise, the Americans showed little evidence of letdown. They opened with an 11-0 thrashing of the Yomiuri Giants, with Fielder hitting a homer, and followed that by going 5-1-1 against the All-Japan team. Their only loss came in the fourth game after a day off taken up by shopping with their wives. “Man, playing a doubleheader was easier than that,” infielder Dave Hollins of the Philadelphia Phillies cracked.13

And the Americans were playing a very talented Japanese team, one that included seven players who would eventually earn induction into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame: catcher Atsuya Furuta, outfielder Koji Akiyama, infielders Hiromitsu Ochiai and Kazuyoshi Tatsunami, and pitchers Masaki Saito, Kazuhiro Sasaki, and Hideo Nomo.

Sasaki later pitched four seasons for the Seattle Mariners, winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2000 and twice making the American League All-Star team. At the time of the 1992 series, he was 24 and had just completed a season in which he had been voted Fireman of the Year in the Central League thanks to his 12-6 record, 21 saves, and 135 strikeouts in 87⅔ innings.

Nomo, of course, was later a trailblazer when, in 1995, he leveraged a loophole in the rules to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers and become the first Japanese to play in the major leagues since Masanori Murakami pitched for the San Francisco Giants in 1964-1965. At the time of this series, though, he was just 24 years old and coming off his third season with the Kintetsu (now Orix) Buffaloes. He had gone 53-27 in those first three campaigns, leading the league in victories and strikeouts each time, and taken Rookie of the Year and MVP honors.

The others were just as transcendent. One of the finest hitters in Japanese baseball history, Ochiai played with four teams over 20 seasons, batting .311 with 510 homers, 1,564 RBIs, and a .987 OPS. He was three times a Triple Crown winner and 15 times an all-star. Furuta played 18 seasons with the Yakult Swallows, batting .294 for his career, winning two Central League MVP Awards, and becoming the first catcher to win a batting title in the Central League. Tatsunami was a .285 hitter over 22 seasons with the Chunichi Dragons. He had 2,480 hits, the eighth-best total in NPB history.

Akiyama played 20 seasons. He was a 12-time Gold Glover and an eight-time selection to the Best Nine, while hitting 437 home runs. Saito pitched 18 seasons for the Yomiuri Giants, posting a 180-96 record with a 2.77 earned-run average and 1.105 WHIP. He led the Central League in victories five times and in ERA three times. He was an all-star and a Best Nine selection five times each and won four Gold Glove Awards.

Before the series began, Griffey Jr. had said he thought the Japanese players were as good as major leaguers. “My dad (Ken Griffey Sr.) warned me about them,” said Griffey Jr. “[So] I took them seriously.”14 Langston added, “We knew the Japanese were very good. They had a few power hitters and a good running game. They were extremely sound fundamentally, were good at putting the ball in play, and wouldn’t beat themselves.”15

Manager Tom Kelly’s squad was more than simply a group of players with big names and flashy statistics. His two brightest stars – Fielder and Griffey Jr. – had been on the 1990 team. Fielder had finished second in the American League MVP Award voting in 1990 and 1991. From 1990 to 1992, he had hit 130 home runs and driven in 389 runs, becoming the first player in 71 years to lead the majors in RBIs three consecutive seasons. Griffey Jr. was coming off his fourth major-league season, in which he batted .308 with 27 home runs, 103 RBIs, and an .896 OPS.

The roster also included Hollins and Darren Daulton of the Philadelphia Phillies, Travis Fryman and Mickey Tettleton of the Tigers, the Minnesota Twins’ Shane Mack, Bob Tewksbury of the St. Louis Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bob Patterson, and Eric Karros of the Los Angeles Dodgers (winner of the 1992 National League Rookie of the Year Award). They were all very good players who complemented bigger names: Fielder; Griffey Jr.; Langston; Mark Grace of the Chicago Cubs; Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros; Larry Walker of the Montreal Expos; Roger Clemens and Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox; Ozzie Smith of the Cardinals; Jack McDowell of the Chicago White Sox; and Dennis Martinez of the Montreal Expos. “Our roster was stacked,” Langston said. “The team we went over there was going to be very hard to beat. We had too many weapons for them all to be held in check.”16

And that proved to be the case.

The series got underway on October 30, 1992, when the Americans played the Yomiuri Giants in the Tokyo Dome. The Giants occupy a position in Japanese baseball much like the one the New York Yankees do in the major leagues. It is the oldest of the current Japanese teams and the most successful, having won 17 Japan Series (Japan’s equivalent of the World Series), 26 Central League championships prior to 1992, and nine titles in the Japanese Baseball League, the forerunner of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). Also on that night, Shigeo Nagashima – considered by some to be the greatest player in Japanese history – was returning as the Giants manager after having managed the club from 1975 to 1980.

Before the game, Kevin Costner, who has starred in several baseball-themed movies, took batting practice with the American team, and he and Langston had a reunion of sorts. “A couple of years before, I’d played in a celebrity softball game in which he’d played third base,” Langston said. “I’d just signed with the Angels, and he’d tell me after every inning that he thought I was going to have a great season. Instead, I had the worst year of my career. So when I saw him in Tokyo, I reminded him of that, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, I lived and sweated every game you pitched that year.’ It was funny that he remembered that.”17 Costner, in Tokyo to promote his new film The Bodyguard, hit some good line drives off Martinez in batting practice before missing terribly at a curveball.18

Once the game began, though, the US team didn’t miss many. The Americans rolled to an 11-0 victory behind a three-run homer by Grace, solo shots by Fielder and Griffey Jr., and a combined one-hitter by Clemens and Greg Swindell of the Cincinnati Reds. Langston recalled Clemens setting the tone early on. “There was some sort of a screen behind home plate – not like the netting we had back home – and he deliberately threw his last warm-up pitch hard and high over the catcher’s head. The ball stuck in the screen, and the crowd went nuts,” Langston said with a laugh.19

The US team led just 2-0 after five innings, but a five-run sixth highlighted by Grace’s home run put the game out of reach. Clemens and Swindell allowed just three baserunners – a walk to catcher Shinichi Murata, an error by Smith that let third baseman Kaoru Okazaki reach base, and a third-inning single by Kazunori Shinozuka on a hard shot just past Clemens. “I would really have liked to have been alert and picked up that ball that went up the middle,” Clemens said afterward. “[W]ith what Swindell did, we would have had a no-hitter.”20

As the Japan Times reported, “The Major League baseball all-stars showed the Japanese fans and players they mean business this time around after losing the 1990 series … [and] … the Giants completely avoided living up to their nickname in front of 43,000 noisy fans.”21 Kelly remarked with vast understatement, “I think [the US team is] a little bit better prepared than they were two years ago.”22

Clemens, in particular, had taken the series seriously. Known as “Rocket-san” to the Japanese fans, he had worked hard get used to the generally smaller Japanese strike zone by throwing back home to his 5-foot-5 wife, Debbie. “But I only threw 70 or 75 miles an hour to her,” he said.23

The Americans were back in the Tokyo Dome the next night to face the All-Japan team, and they rode another three-homer game – a three-run shot by Fielder, a two-run blast by Fryman, and a solo home run by Walker – to a 9-4 win. Fielder’s 400-foot homer came in the first inning off a 3-and-2 fastball from Nomo and gave MLB a 3-0 lead. “I was looking for … a fastball – a good pitch to hit,” Fielder said. “I got it and hit it hard.”24

Japan also scored in the first inning when Akiyama singled and later came home on a groundout by Hiroo Ishii of Kintetsu. The Americans made it 5-1 in the fifth on Fryman’s home run and added another on an RBI double by Griffey. The Japanese closed to within 6-3 in their half of the fifth inning, as Makoto Sasaki of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks hit a two-run pinch-hit double off Toronto Blue Jays reliever Duane Ward. However, the Americans rebounded in the sixth with back-to-back RBI doubles by Grace and Ruben Sierra of the Oakland A’s to lead 8-3.

Langston started for the major leaguers and went four innings. Norm Charlton of the Reds pitched 2⅓ innings of hitless relief to get the victory. Nomo, the winningest pitcher in the Japanese Pacific League from 1990 to 1992, took the loss, allowing six runs.

“The major league all-stars are a very different team from the team of 1990, and they’re working very hard,” said Japan manager Masaaki Mori, who had just finished leading the Seibu Lions to their third consecutive Japan Series championship. “On the other hand, a lot of our players are out of practice, especially Nomo and [pitcher] Yasuyuki Kawamoto, so it’s natural that their hitters beat us.”25 Kelly, the MLB manager, said, “[O]ur pitchers struggled a little, but we pitched well enough to get the job done, and our hitters came through in a big way.”26

The series moved to Seibu Stadium the next day for Game 3, which was unlike the first two in that it was a close, low-scoring affair. The end result was the same, though – an MLB victory by a 3-1 score in an amazingly fast game by major-league standards – just 2 hours 3 minutes.

Japan led for the first time in the series when it got a run-scoring triple from Kenjiro Nomura of the Hiroshima Carp in the third inning. However, though the Americans managed just six hits off three Japanese pitchers, those hits included a two-run home run by Hollins in the fifth inning and a bases-empty shot by Mack in the sixth that accounted for the difference in the score. McDowell started on the mound and pitched six innings of one-hit ball before giving way to Patterson and Gregg Olson of the Baltimore Orioles, who allowed just one more hit between them.27

Two days later came Game 4 and Japan’s only victory in the series, a 10-3 rout in the Tokyo Dome before a huge crowd of 54,000. The Americans actually held a 3-2 lead after seven innings after overcoming a pair of second-inning Japan runs – Ochiai’s two-run homer – with two of their own in the fifth on a bases-loaded single by Griffey, and another in the sixth on a home run by Sierra. However, the Japanese broke the game open with six runs in the eighth inning and two more in the ninth.

In the eighth, Charlton relieved for the Americans and failed to get any outs. He gave up two runs on an RBI single by Fujio Tamura and a bases-loaded walk to Tsutomu Kameyama. Patterson then relieved and allowed four more runs on a bases-loaded walk, a sacrifice fly, and a couple of singles. That gave the hosts an 8-3 advantage, and they added two more runs in the ninth on a double by the Orix Blue Wave’s Satoshi Takahashi and a walk to Koji Akiyama.28

Charlton, who walked three of the five batters he faced, refused to blame his performance on the Japanese game’s smaller strike zone. “I just didn’t throw many balls in it,” he said wryly.29

A day later, 31,500 fans at Koshien Stadium, home of the Hanshin Tigers and the famed Japanese High School Baseball Championship tournament, witnessed a pitchers’ duel as the teams battled to a 0-0 tie (all the games were mandated to end after nine innings). Clemens went seven innings for the Americans, giving up just three hits, striking out 10 batters, and not allowing a runner to advance past second base.

The Japanese had an opportunity in the last of the ninth, but were thwarted. They loaded the bases against Olson, and Tatsunori Hara of the Giants sent a pop fly to left field. Yakult Swallows star Takahiro Ikeyama tried to score what would have been the winning run but was cut down at the plate by a throw from Biggio that completed a game-ending double play. This was well before the time in his career that Biggio was moved to the outfield, but he was needed in left field on an emergency basis in this game and stepped up to the challenge.

The major leaguers rapped seven hits, but their only real threat came in the fourth inning when Fielder and Sierra hit back-to-back singles. Nomo then relieved starter Koji Nakada and got future Dodgers teammate Karros to fly out to right for the third out.30

An interesting sidelight to the game was that Japan starter Nakada, then of the Hanshin Tigers, had been born in the United States as “Michael Peterson.” When he was 3 years old, following his parents’ divorce, he moved to Japan with his mother and grew up there under his Japanese name.31

A day later, the teams met again before 20,000 fans at Heiwadai Stadium, then the home of the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks (now known as the Softbank Hawks, who play in the Fukuoka Dome), and the Americans resumed their winning ways with a 10-2 victory. Grace took center stage by hitting two-run homers on consecutive at-bats in the fourth and fifth innings. Tettleton also hit a two-run shot, while RBI doubles by Griffey Jr. and Walker and a two-run single by Fielder accounted for the other runs. For Japan, Ikeyama hit a solo home run in the third inning, and Hiroo Ishii of the Kintetsu Buffaloes singled in a run in the sixth.32

At this point, the Japan Times’ baseball columnist, who had earlier predicted that the jet-lagged major-league team would lose the series, wrote, “[M]y prediction … quickly went out the door. … The only sign of jet lag was when [Nippon Television Network’s] cameras zoomed in on the visitors’ bench … and caught Cecil Fielder in mid-yawn.”33

The series moved back to the Tokyo Dome for the final two games November 7 and 8, and the major leaguers won by scores of 9-5 and 4-3 respectively.

Before 40,000 fans, the major leaguers opened the scoring in Game 7 with five runs in the third inning and added four more in the sixth. Sierra, who averaged .280 in seven games, highlighted the five-run outburst with a three-run homer off Hiromi Makihara of the Yomiuri Giants, while a wild pitch scored another run and a solo shot by Walker made it 5-0. Sierra also made a fine defensive play in the fifth inning when his throw from the outfield was in time to catch the Giants’ Hara trying to score from second base on a single.

Fielder highlighted the Americans’ four-run sixth inning with a two-run single off the Hiroshima Carp’s Kazuhisa Kawaguchi. Takahashi hit a three-run home run off Patterson in the seventh inning, but that only served to make the final score a bit closer.

Langston started and limited the Japanese to one run and four hits over six innings to gain the victory. “Today was like any other ballgame,” manager Kelly said. “The Japanese pitchers made a couple of mistakes – a couple of hanging breaking balls right up there. Any pitcher that makes these kinds of mistakes, these big-league hitters are going to hit the ball. We made a mistake when Patterson left a ball up to Takahashi.”34

The next night, with an even larger crowd of 47,000, the Americans scored twice in the first inning and twice in the eighth to take a 4-1 lead, but the Japanese rallied in their half of the ninth to almost catch up. McDowell, who had a 20-10 record for the White Sox that season and finished second in voting for the American League Cy Young Award, went 7⅔ innings and gave up just six hits and one run, which came when Ishii got a hanging breaking ball and hit it over the right-center-field wall in the fourth inning. The major leaguers then scored twice off Kaz Sasaki in their half of the eighth inning when Biggio singled, Griffey hit an RBI double, and Fielder hit an RBI single, his third hit of the game. However, Ward, who had entered the game in the eighth inning to relieve McDowell, ran into trouble in the ninth. Ishii led off with a double, and Ikeyama walked. Ishii moved to third base on an infield groundout and then scored on an ensuing groundout by Ochiai. With two out, Nomura singled to score Ikeyama. However, Ward then caught Furuta looking at strike three to end the game and the series.35

Fielder batted .440 with two home runs and eight RBIs in the set. Grace was voted the American team’s most valuable player after batting .385 with three homers and eight RBIs, while Karros batted .357 and Griffey Jr. hit .353 with a pair of homers and nine RBIs. The major leaguers hit 15 home runs in the eight games and outscored their opponents by 49-25, even including their 10-3 fourth-game loss.

Wade Boggs struggled until late in the series and finished with just a .200 batting average while giving the Japanese pitchers much credit. “They don’t give in,” Boggs said. “They use all of the plate, and they throw very few pitches down the middle. Once they get ahead in the count, they mix [their pitches] up a lot more.”36

The Americans batted .258 as a team and hung a 5.87 earned-run average on Japanese pitching. On the other hand, the MLB pitchers allowed just 52 hits in 72 innings and held the Japanese to a .203 team batting average. Clemens allowed just four hits and no runs over 12 innings in his two outings, while Langston posted a 1.80 ERA over 10 innings. McDowell was 2-0 in the series with a 1.32 ERA, while Swindell allowed just one in nine innings and reliever Olson pitched five scoreless innings.

Nomura batted .348 in the series and was voted the Japan team’s most valuable player, while Ishii averaged .316 and Okazaki .300. Nomo was 0-1 in the series with a 6.75 earned-run mark, and Sasaki had a 3.00 ERA in two outings.

All in all, it was a very successful trip for the Americans, who returned home feeling much better than they had two years before.

“First of all, we won,” Langston said. “It was tremendously satisfying to perform like we knew were capable of performing. Also, my dad went with me, and to experience Japan with him was amazing,” Langston said. “It was a fantastic trip all the way around.”37

(Click images to enlarge)

 

Notes

1 The official name of the visiting major-league squad in 1992 was the MLB All-Stars.

2 The 1970 San Francisco Giants toured Japan and won just three of nine games. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/japan_series/history.jsp?content=history_teams.

3 Sean Horgan, “A Polite Bashing,” Sports Illustrated, November 16, 1992: 38-39.

4 https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=fielde001cec.

5 Horgan, 39.

6 Horgan, 38.

7 Associated Press, “Major League All-Star Team Aims to Avenge Loss to Japanese in 1990,” Japan Times, October 30, 1992: 22.

8 Associated Press, “Major League All-Star Team Aims to Avenge Loss to Japanese in 1990.”

9 Mark Langston, telephone interview, September 22, 2021. All quotations attributed to Langston come from this interview.

10 Horgan, 38.

11 MLB vs Japan 1992 Official Program, (Tokyo: publisher unknown, 1992), 9.

12 Wayne Graczyk, “Taka, Rie Knock Super Series off Front Page,” Japan Times, October. 30, 1992: 20.

13 Horgan, 39.

14 Associated Press, “Major League All-Star Team Aims to Avenge Loss to Japanese in 1990.”

15 Langston interview.

16 Langston interview.

17 Langston interview.

18 Horgan, 39.

19 Langston interview.

20 Dave Duncan, “MLB All-Stars Crush Yomiuri Giants 11-0,” Japan Times, October 31, 1992: 22.

21 Duncan, “MLB All-Stars Crush Yomiuri Giants 11-0.”

22 Fujiyoshi Tamura, “Fielder Leads Major Leaguers to 9-4 Victory,” Japan Times, November 1, 1992: 20.

23 Horgan, 39.

24 Tamura.

25 Tamura.

26 Tamura.

27 “Americans Are 3 for 3 on Japanese Tour,” New York Times, November 2, 1992: C10.

28 Fred Varcoe, “Japan All-Stars Bash Major Leaguers 10-3,” Japan Times, November 4, 1992: 20.

29 Varcoe.

30 Kyodo News, “Major Leaguers, All-Japan Team Battle to a Draw,” Japan Times, November 5, 1992: 22.

31 https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Koji_Nakata.

32 Kyodo News, “Grace’s Pair of Homers Leads MLB to 10-2 Rout,” Japan Times, November 6, 1992: 23.

33 Graczyk, “A Bad Prediction – Yes, But …,” Japan Times, November 6, 1992: 22.

34 Dave Duncan, “Sierra Keys 9-5 MLB Victory with 3-Run Blast off Makihara,” Japan Times, November 8, 1992: 24.

35 Dave Duncan, “MLB Stars Snuff Rally in 9th to Edge Japanese in Finale, 4-3,” Japan Times, November 9, 1992: 20.

36 Duncan, “MLB Stars Snuff Rally in 9th to Edge Japanese in Finale, 4-3.”

37 Langston interview.

38 These tables include all participants in the series. Yoshikazu Matsubayashi, Baseball Game History: Japan vs, U.S.A. (Tokyo: Baseball Magazine, 2004), 108; Nippon Professional Baseball Records, https://www.2689web.com/nb.html.