In the final days of March 2003, the Seattle Mariners were scheduled to leave spring training and fly their players, front office executives, families and equipment from Phoenix to Tokyo to open the season.
The planning had taken months, the early season for both Seattle and Oakland had been rearranged, and the excitement in Japan was huge. It meant the return of Ichiro Suzuki, in his prime, to the country he’d left for Major League Baseball.
Twelve hours before they were to board their flight, the trip was canceled by commissioner Bud Selig because that March 20 was the day the United States and its allies invaded Iraq, and there were security concerns.
It was Selig who announced Monday that the Mariners and Athletics would finally get that season-opening series in Japan when the teams meet in the Tokyo Dome on March 28, 2012.
Only one player with Seattle in 2003 remains with the Mariners, but he’s the one Japanese baseball fans still follow with a passion – Ichiro.
Just how the nine-day trip will affect the teams involved is uncertain, but this will be the fourth season-opening series to be played between two big-league teams in Japan.
Mariners manager Eric Wedge, asked how the team would prepare for the trip, threw up his hands.
“I don’t know. I’ve never done it before. We’ll try to educate ourselves as best we can in regard to sleeping and handling the time change,” Wedge said. “We want this to be a great experience, a fun experience and go over there and win a few ballgames.”
As they were in 2003, the Mariners are a team whose fan base in Japan is far broader than their American success might suggest.
Ichiro was a superstar in Japan before jumping to the majors with Seattle in 2001, and then, as now, the majority owner of the Mariners is Hiroshi Yamauchi, chairman of Nintendo Worldwide.
Other than Ichiro, few Mariners have been to Japan. Part of the appeal most spoke of was baseball’s intent to have Seattle and Oakland play several exhibition games there – with an undetermined percentage of the gate to go to Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims.
“There is some concern with the radiation and stuff,” first baseman Mike Carp said, “but we’re doing a good thing going over there. Ichiro is (going) back home, and it’s going to be big to help raise some money for them.”
Pitcher Shawn Kelley talked to players who’d made the trip to Japan before – the last time baseball opened in Japan was 2008, when the Boston Red Sox played the Athletics – and heard nothing but rave reviews.
“One of our big concerns was the whole schedule process, the time change and the jet lag,” Kelley said. “It’s going to be a few days before guys feel 100 percent after coming back from that trip.
“That said, everybody I’ve talked to said it’s a blast. It’s one thing to be a Major League Baseball player, but that’s another experience in itself that not many major league players get.”
General manager Jack Zduriencik said the scheduling quirks required for the trip are minor compared with the benefits the opportunity affords to the team and its fans.
“It’s a great opportunity for our Japanese fans to watch this club in Japan, and it’s for a great cause,” Zduriencik said. “It’s something that will be special.”
The Mariners and Athletics will open spring training camps earlier than usual to ensure the chance to get their players enough work before the opener. While in Japan, they’ll play at least two exhibition games and the two Oakland home games that count. Then they’ll return to Arizona to play an undetermined number of exhibition games.
The trip will not affect the Mariners’ 81-game home schedule, which begins April 13 against Oakland.
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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