9 Newcomers Among 27 Foreigners Playing in Japan

Japan’s 1988 pro baseball season opened Friday with 27 foreigners, nine of them American newcomers playing for 12 teams in the nation’s biggest spectator sport.

Still unresolved is the question of who will fill the vacuum caused by the departure of ex-Atlanta Braves slugger Bob Horner, whose appearances made a sensation last season and gave a considerable boost to the popularity of the sport in Japan.

Horner’s appearances increased the Yakult Swallows’s attendance by about 25%, and the club was reported to have made $800,000 in profits on each of the games played at the Swallows’ home ground.

Two names have been mentioned as possible choices to fill the gap. They are former New York Yankees pitcher Bill Gullickson, and four-time National League batting champion Bill Madlock.

Gullickson, 29, was signed by the Yomiuri Giants. Yomiuri, based in Tokyo, is Japan’s oldest and most popular club. It is defending the Central League’s pennant this season.

Gullickson was signed by the Giants this season for an estimated $1.1 million plus a $400,000 bonus.

“I came here to make the Giants Japan’s No. 1, and I will work for it,” Gullickson said.

Gullickson pitched 22 innings with a 2.05 earned-run average in his appearances in four pre-season games.

He will join Warren Cromartie, 34, a former Montreal Expos player, who has been playing for the Giants since 1984. He batted .300 with 28 homers and 92 runs batted in last season.

Madlock, 37, signed a one-year contract with the Lotte Orions of the Pacific League after Detroit declined to offer him another year.

He had a .192 average in the pre-season series but said he will help his team win the pennant. The Orions finished fifth in the six-team league last season.

The Swallows hired Doug DeCinces, the former Baltimore Oriole and California Angel, and Terry Harper, a one-time Pittsburgh Pirates player, as replacements for Horner and another retired American, Leon Lee, who used to play for the Cardinals.

Interest also will be focused on Randy Bass, 34, who is entering his sixth year with the Hanshin Tigers, Yomiuri’s arch rival.

Bass won the triple batting crown for two straight years in 1985 and 1986. He had a disappointing record of .320 with 37 homers and 79 RBIs last season.

Also among the foreign players are three Chinese pitchers from Taiwan; Kuo Yuan-tzu of the Central League’s Chunichi Dragons who had a 4-3 with 26 saves and a 1.56 earned run average last season; Kuo Tai-yuan of the Pacific League’s Seibu Lions who won the Japan title over the Giants last year, and Chuang Sheng-hsiung of the Lotte Orions.

Kuo, former ace hurler of Taiwan’s national amateur national team, had a 13-4 record last year with a 3.02 ERA while Chuang was 13-11 with a 3.32 ERA.