Tsunami Forming Across the Pacific?

With indications that more Japanese baseball players may be on their way to the USA--published reports have Kazuo Matsui considering the jump after 2002--Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News wonders if Japan may go the way of the Dominican Republic.

“When I’m king of the World--the trans-Pacific exodus of Japanese talent to the U.S. will begin in earnest when major league scouts begin signing amateur Japanese players out of high school and college,” Conlin wrote.

“This will undercut free agency rules that bind a player for seven years. While Japanese fans are thrilled by Ichiro Suzuki’s fabulous rookie season in Seattle, attendance at Orix Blue Wave home games is down nearly 50%.

“The league would not have to lose many elite players to put it in deep sushi. Look for tough new laws that will keep major league baseball from doing in Japan what it has done in the Dominican Republic.”

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Trivia time: Who is baseball’s career doubles leader?

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In case you wondered: That Alcatel ad featuring Lou Gehrig addressing an empty Yankee Stadium indirectly fights the disease that killed Gehrig in 1941, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Reportedly, Alcatel paid a six-figure sum to Gehrig’s estate, managed by CMG Worldwide, according to SportsBusiness Journal. The funds were then directed to a group funding research to fight the disease.

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Cruise control: The Miami Herald’s Dan LeBatard wonders how important winning is to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ Fred McGriff, who rejected a trade to the Cubs to stay in Tampa, Fla., where his family lives.

“If McGriff decides to exercise his no-trade clause and stay in Tampa Bay rather than accept a trade to the Chicago Cubs, you have every right to wonder if winning is at all important to him,” LeBatard wrote.

“McGriff has always been the consummate professional but vetoing a trade that would take him from last place to first place because he prefers to play near home would make him look extraordinarily selfish--and not terribly motivated, either.

“ ‘Family’ seems to be a euphemistic crutch in this particular case for ‘Look, I’m perfectly comfortable hitting .330 for the most god-awful team in baseball. No pressure. I’ll just keep collecting paychecks. Winning? Who cares?’ ”

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A gentle nudge: New York Met General Manager Steve Phillips may gently suggest to Mike Piazza in the off-season that he consider a switch to first base, the New York Post’s Jay Greenberg writes.

“Phillips will apply no pressure through the media about Piazza moving to first, even after the slugger recently cracked the door by saying he would consider it if approached in a ‘proper way in the off-season.’ ”

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Trivia answer: Tris Speaker, 793, from 1907-28.

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And finally: Wallace Matthews in the New York Post, writing about baseball’s umpires under pressure to shorten games:

“Like movies, the best baseball games are fast-paced, tidy and relatively brief. ‘Citizen Kane,’ the greatest film ever made, was an hour and 40 minutes long.”

Actually, “Citizen Kane” is 119 minutes long, but we get the point.