PACIFIC SWELL

He played shortstop on a field surrounded by barbed-wire fencing and slid into hand-sewn bases filled with rice. Sometimes, he’d hit the ball so hard it would sail past the fence line fashioned from castor beans and get swallowed up by the desert sky.

Masao Iriyama, 79, clearly remembers the 10,000 or so “fans” surrounding the desolate, patchy field, and the cheers still echo in his mind. Baseball was the only escape, a way for him and other Japanese Americans to maintain their sanity while imprisoned in internment camps during World War II.

Almost 60 years later, a record number of Japanese-born players have taken up positions in major league baseball.

Thousands will crowd into Dodger Stadium today to watch the Dodgers play an interleague game with the high-riding Seattle Mariners on “Japanese American Community Day.” And then there is the Mariner player known simply as Ichiro, who leads the majors in hits and was the top All-Star vote getter--far ahead of fan favorites Cal Ripken Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Mike Piazza.

To generations of American citizens such as Iriyama and the more than 120,000 others who were once viewed as enemies within their own country, such milestones hold great significance.

“Times have changed,” Iriyama said softly. “. . . It’s a different time and I’m very proud.”

Jackie Robinson’s debut in the major leagues in 1947 ended baseball’s racial segregation, but San Francisco Giant pitcher Masanori Murakami made a breakthrough of another sort in 1964, becoming the first Japanese player. He was also the last, until Hideo Nomo signed with the Dodgers in 1995 and, amid much fanfare, won rookie-of-the-year honors.

But the adulation Nomo received has been dwarfed by the kind of attention being showered on Ichiro Suzuki, the 5-foot-9, 160-pound Mariner right fielder who has become one of the sport’s biggest success stories.

He made the jump from Japan’s Pacific League, where he won seven consecutive batting titles. Entering Friday’s play, he was second in the American League in batting with a .348 average, first in stolen bases with 28 and second in runs with 73.

Suzuki’s emergence has highlighted a series of good showings by Japanese players this season:

* Mariner closer Kazuhiro Sasaki, last season’s American League rookie of the year, leads the majors in saves with 29 and was also selected to the All-Star team.

* Although Nomo is no longer as dominating as he was in his rookie year, he’s still effective, having thrown a no-hitter in his Red Sox debut April 4 and sporting a 7-4 record.

* Rookie Met outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, whose hip style and eccentric personality--he dyed his hair red--made him a hit with New York fans, was hitting .281 before he was put on the disabled list.

With their success, Japanese American interest in baseball has been unleashed.

In downtown’s Little Tokyo, what Suzuki, Shinjo and the Japanese pitchers did the night before provides a regular topic of conversation, said Minako Nakasone, 22, proudly sporting a Mariner T-shirt in a city whose favorite team has long been the Dodgers.

“I heard [Suzuki] was good in Japan. . . . We were very interested in how he did [here],” she said.

Interested enough, in fact, to buy tickets to today’s game--her first major league outing.

Gail Hirata, who hasn’t been to a game since Nomo played with the Dodgers, will also be at Chavez Ravine today. She’ll be taking her two children, and her parents.

“It’s important that my children have a connection to Japanese role models,” said Hirata, whose children are of mixed heritage. “And we’re coming back because this year, the players have sparked my father’s interest. He’s been telling my son all about them and we want to watch them play.”

So do fans in Japan.

Travel agents, for example, package tours for Japanese eager to see ballgames in the U.S. Seattle caps and jerseys routinely sell out at baseball souvenir shops. Fans cannot seem to get enough news about their favorite players so there are 20 credentialed Japanese journalists following the Mariners. There were 40 following Shinjo during spring training. And for this weekend’s Mariner-Dodger series, at least 100 Japanese media representatives are credentialed.

Major league highlights of Japanese players routinely make the nightly news in Japan and legions of Japanese fans faithfully watch live telecasts of Seattle home games. When Suzuki faced Nomo in a highly anticipated showdown May 3, most Japanese stations cut into regular programming with live updates. Nomo’s no-hitter was front-page news in all the major papers and prompted special editions of one popular sports newspaper.

Major league baseball has become so huge in Japan that some Japanese newspapers are reporting a backlash from those who fear fading interest in home-grown teams. Television ratings for Japanese baseball have sunk and attendance for Ichiro’s former team, the Orix Blue Wave, is down 47%.

Japan’s obsession with its major league players fueled a national newspaper’s “get the vote out” campaign for the All-Star game.

This year, for the first time, Japanese fans were able to vote for their favorites. Suzuki received almost 800,000 more votes than any other player in either league, his support boosted by Internet balloting.

Seattle and other teams are doing all they can to take advantage of the added exposure that international players provide.

The Mariners, for example, now boast a Japanese-language hot line, Web page and e-mail link. The sushi stand at Safeco Field offers “Ichirolls” and “Daimajin Rolls.” Daimajin is Sasaki’s Japanese nickname. It means “Big god with a lot of power.”

In New York, the Mets have rolled out a commercial, introducing Shinjo to fans.

The Japanese-language segment with English subtitles features Shinjo and Hawaiian outfielder Benny Agbayani at a Japanese restaurant. The owner, mistakenly thinking Agbayani speaks Japanese, begins hounding him not to jump on the first pitch. Agbayani turns to Shinjo--who speaks minimal English--for help with a translation.

“He’s a big fan,” Shinjo says.

“They’ve got good personality, so the ad works well and people like it,” said Tina Bucciarelli, Met marketing director.

But such marketing to specific groups could also have its drawbacks, cautioned Rick Burton, director of the Warsaw School of sports marketing at the University of Oregon’s College of Business.

The wrong marketing pitch could run the risk of playing into a stereotype, or backfire when touted players get traded and the team doesn’t continue supporting that fan base.

“Marketing should strive for inclusiveness and identify differences, but as the teams celebrate the uniqueness, they have to be careful not to overmarket to a point where there’s too much emphasis on those differences,” Burton said.

More so than many other teams, the Dodgers have had extensive experience with the global promotion and value of foreign ballplayers. Former owner Peter O’Malley is credited with being the first sports businessman to see such international marketing possibilities.

In the 1980s, he signed Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela and drew millions of Mexican American followers. O’Malley added Nomo and later South Korean pitcher Chan Ho Park to the Dodger rotation.

With the economics of pro sports today practically demanding corporate ownership, global markets provide the fastest-growing sources of new revenue.

And a global marketing strategy can have far more lasting benefits.

“Not only for the economic bottom line, but for the cultural betterment of the game.” Burton said.

Suzuki’s breakthrough rookie season and the success of his countrymen have led many to reconsider Japan and other Asian countries as fertile scouting grounds for position players.

“I’ve seen a lot of Japanese players who could play in the majors but they underestimate their own skill,” said Dodger pitching coach Jim Colborn, formerly the Mariners’ Pacific Rim scouting director, who played a part in the signing of Suzuki. “They think [major leaguers] are too big and strong [to compete against].”

However, some Japanese players are more willing than ever to prove they can play in the majors. When the Mets offered a two-year deal worth $400,000, Shinjo turned down $12 million over five years from the Hanshin Tigers in Japan.

Kazuhisa Ishii’s club, the Yakult Swallows, is leaning toward allowing the talented left-hander to play in the major leagues next season. Yomiuri Giant slugger Hideki Matsui has also expressed interest.

“The scouts are looking everywhere to find that next great player,” Burton said. “And if that player happens to bring with him that entire country’s interest, then the business side takes notice.”

The Mariners’ Japanese principal owner, Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi, outbid four teams, among them the Dodgers and Angels, for the right to negotiate with Suzuki, offering Orix $13.1 million, then later signing the outfielder to a three-year deal worth $14 million. The investment is already paying dividends.

It might not be enough to immediately surpass the marketing power of former Mariner stars Ken Griffey Jr. or A-Rod, but Burton estimates that the tandem impact of Suzuki and Sasaki on ticket sales, souvenirs and advertising will pump “more than $100 million” over five years into Seattle’s economy.

It’s been a difficult year for U.S.-Japan relations.

In February, the accidental sinking of a Japanese fishing vessel off Hawaii by a U.S. submarine, the Greeneville, killed nine Japanese. The U.S. issued an apology but the damage had been done. Then, this summer, Japanese Americans braced themselves for the release of the movie “Pearl Harbor,” which threatened to reopen old wounds.

But once again, the community has found relief in baseball.

“This is an exciting time for all of us,” said Japanese baseball historian Kerry Nakagawa, director of the Nisei Baseball Research Project formed to ensure the preservation of Japanese American baseball history. “We’re reaching a new level of understanding through a diamond.”

Though many years have passed since Iriyama played baseball in the detention camp, his love for the sport remains undiminished.

He bought tickets to see the Mariners play the Angels last weekend, and will be there to see them play the Dodgers this weekend. He also has tickets to see the Mets--and Shinjo--play the Dodgers in August.

“See this,” he said proudly showing the hand-carved trophy he received as batting champion of the internment camp located near Tule Lake. “. . . Playing baseball was the happiest time of my life.”

Although he was “a pretty good ballplayer,” he never dreamed of seeing his name in a major league box score.

“No one thought about that in those days,” he said.

Instead, he was torn by patriotism to two countries.

His younger brother was killed in action fighting for Japan.

And he was an American citizen in a country that didn’t trust him.

“I was angry,” he said. “They thought we would sabotage the war. . . . But I feel this is my country now. Now I feel welcomed.”

This year, as fans of all races and ages cheer Suzuki, many are unaware of what his success means to Iriyama and others.

“They just know he’s good, they don’t care if he’s Japanese,” Iriyama said.

Which was what he wanted all along.

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Making an Impact

In 1964, San Francisco Giant pitcher Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese player in the majors, and was the last until Hideo Nomo’s 1995 debut with the Dodgers. This year, a record eight Japanese-born players were on Opening Day rosters:

*--*

Player Team Shigetoshi Hasegawa Angels Hideki Irabu Montreal Hideo Nomo Boston Tomo Ohka Boston Kazuhiro Sasaki Seattle Tsuyoshi Shinjo New York (NL) Ichiro Suzuki Seattle Mac Suzuki* Kansas City

*--*

Source: Major League Baseball

*Now with Colorado