The Big Buffalo in the Sky?

A few months before the 2001 Japanese baseball season started, the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes approached Yukiatsu Akizawa, president of the am/pm Japan convenience store chain, and asked him if he would sponsor the team.

Akizawa saw at least two problems. First of all, he had always been a huge Yomiuri Giants fan. More to the point, the Buffaloes were big-time losers and had ended the last two seasons in last place.

“If [tickets for] royal box seats were dropped on the street, I wouldn’t pick them up,” Akizawa recalled thinking. “I told them I appreciate your coming to me, but using our brand could really hurt the winning image we’d worked so hard to build.” Am/pm Japan’s other tie-ins include major league baseball, motor racing and singers Whitney Houston, Elton John and Mariah Carey.

Rather than reject the Buffaloes outright, however, Akizawa offered a counter-proposal. If the Buffaloes got some professional help, specifically from former Dodger and Olympic gold medal baseball manager Tom Lasorda, they’d consider it.

The Buffaloes agreed, and nine months later the results are far better than anyone expected. The team not only had a winning season, it grabbed the pennant for the first time in 12 years and has a decent shot at winning Japan’s version of the World Series, which starts Saturday.

“No one in the entire country would ever dream they’d do so well,” Akizawa said. “All the right people pressed the right buttons to generate this miracle.”

Akizawa wasn’t the only reluctant actor. Lasorda’s family reportedly hesitated, fearful his image as an Olympic gold medal winner might be tarnished if things didn’t work out. And Lasorda was wary of how much time it would take. Ultimately he signed on, however, helped by a reported $800,000 advisory fee.

“We convinced Lasorda he was the only one who could do it,” said Jack Sakazaki, president of JSM, a sports marketing company that helped shape the deal.

Some Buffalo players weren’t overjoyed upon hearing about the deal either. A rumor had circulated a few months earlier that the Dodgers or their owner, News Corp., might take over the Buffaloes, so some thought Lasorda was the first step in a foreign buyout. Others feared wrenching change.

Lasorda took his first weeklong trip to Osaka during spring training to see what he’d gotten himself into. One of the first tasks he faced, he soon realized, was making the Osaka players believe in themselves after so many years of losing.

“Starting in spring training, I told them they were going to win,” he said. “Eventually they started to believe it.”

Lasorda, who turned 74 in September, also discovered there was a decent amount of talent to work with--along with some big holes. Several players had been with the Buffaloes awhile and were starting to reach their stride. But the team was far better at hitting than fielding. And even the hitting was inconsistent.

He designated third baseman Norihiro Nakamura as team leader, started working on fundamentals and suggesting ways to improve the Buffaloes’ farm team. Other general managers might have been threatened by all the far-reaching suggestions, but Masataka Nashida of the Buffaloes got on well with Lasorda.

The former Dodger manager also found a big ally in the front office. Mitsuru Nagai, who had first approached am/pm Japan and subsequently agreed to bring in Lasorda, was named president of the team in June. Nagai in many ways was the real catalyst for change. “We had to take a risk and go in a new direction,” he said. “Otherwise we were going to be in big trouble.”

While most of Lasorda’s career had been spent managing Americans, he had worked for five years in the Dominican Republic. He also had visited Japan over the years and was friends with several Japanese baseball legends, including Daiei Hawk coach and former Yomiuri Giant slugger Sadaharu Oh, and Giant manager and former slugger Shigeo Nagashima.

Lasorda also had brought Buffalo pitcher Hideo Nomo to the Dodgers and taken a strong personal interest in his well-being. “I tried to make sure I was his father away from home,” he said.

Lasorda was heartened that the Buffaloes seemed willing to listen and try new things. The players also had strong team spirit in a nation where group identity is extremely important. Working through an interpreter, he tried to build on this base.

“I told them you’re playing for the name on the front of your uniform, not the one on the back,” he said. “Of course, you have to believe you’re the best player in the world as well, just don’t tell anyone about it.”

In other areas, he encouraged the Buffalo pitchers to take more of a major league approach. Japanese pitchers often are told not to directly challenge strong hitters, arguably part of a culture that places great emphasis on playing it safe. He helped develop pitcher Katsuhiko Maekawa in particular, urging him to imagine himself back in high school when he could routinely blow strikes past batters.

“When Maekawa would lose, Lasorda would come over and say ‘You’re the best, forget about what happened today,”’ Nagai said.

Lasorda also helped engineer some midseason acquisitions to address weaknesses, using Dodger scouting reports to which the Buffaloes had access.

Former Montreal Expo pitcher Jeremy Powell and former Minnesota Twin pitcher Sean Bergman were brought in, and they combined to win 14 games. And former Dodger Shawn Gilbert arrived to play second base. Many in Japan thought Gilbert, 33, was too old. But Lasorda pushed hard for him, and Gilbert’s skill at turning double plays ultimately made a big difference.

On other fronts, outfielder and slugger Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes--a former major leaguer in his sixth year with the Buffaloes--had an excellent year, tying Japan’s all-time home run record at 55. Nakamura won the league runs batted in title with 132, one more than Rhodes.

Lasorda also helped on the marketing and promotion side. The Buffaloes, an arm of the conservative Kintetsu railroad group, and many other teams have come under pressure to stand on their own financially as the Japanese economy worsens, parent company subsidies decline and fans defect to auto racing and soccer. The Buffaloes’ poor record left the team struggling to fill the giant Osaka Dome.

Lasorda introduced several ideas from the Dodgers. He disliked the taste of the Buffalo hot dogs and brought over the recipe for Dodger Dogs, which became Tommy Dogs in Japan. These were sold whenever Lasorda was in town and became a big hit.

He suggested that the team give away Nakamura figurines to children during the school holidays and helped find an inexpensive factory in China where they could be manufactured. He held baseball clinics for young fans and had picture and autograph sessions. And he and the team mapped out free events for children, young sweethearts, office workers and registered Osaka residents, to bring in the fans and help create some buzz.

These efforts and the team’s winning record helped boost attendance by 39%.

Lasorda’s Nomo connection, his Olympic record and his long-standing major league record also proved a huge hit with fans. “I think Lasorda is the most popular American in Osaka now,” Nagai said. “People mobbed him wherever he went.”

Not all the ideas worked. But at least the team, known previously for its stodgy image and inward-looking attitude, was credited with trying new ideas and reaching out to supporters.

The team tried during a three-game series in July to dispense with Japan’s usual drumrolls, high-pitched female announcers and rhythmic chanting in favor of U.S.-style male announcers, freestyle cheering and Lasorda singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” The fans were underwhelmed, and remained quiet much of the time.

“Unfortunately the team lost all three games in a row,” Nagai said. “The usually vigorous Buffalo bats were apparently chilled by all the silence.”

But that was the exception, and by early August everything was starting to hum. The growing crowds nudged the team to do better. Forty times during the season, the Buffaloes came from behind in late innings to win. And in a crowning moment Sept. 26, the team overcame a three-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Kobe Orix Blue Wave to win, 6-5, and secure the pennant.

Am/pm Japan’s Akizawa said his gamble paid off handsomely. The money he put up produced sizable dividends. A rule change at the beginning of the season allowed sponsors to put their names on player helmets for the first time, giving am/pm Japan great exposure as the team surged to victory. And Buffalo T-shirts and a special line of tai victory lunch boxes-- tai is both the name of a fish and a word for celebration in Japanese--started flying off the shelves as the pennant race heated up.

And a funny thing happened as the season wore on. Akizawa, the lifetime Giant fan who wouldn’t stoop to pick up Osaka tickets if they were free, became an avid Buffalo fan. “One day I realized I was checking the results of the Kintetsu game each day and wasn’t even looking at the Giants,” he said.

Lasorda, meanwhile, said he’s delighted with the outcome and the strong support fans gave the once-sagging Buffaloes.

“I love to help people win,” he said. “I’m thrilled with the results, thrilled for the people of Osaka, I’m just thrilled.”

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Hisako Ueno in The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.