TOKYO -- Toru Shoriki, owner of the Yomiuri Giants, the best drawing professional baseball club in Japan, is hoping a U.S.-Japan 'showdown battle' will be held in the autumn of 1984.
In celebration of the Yomiuri Giants' 50th anniversary, the Yomiuri Shimbun -- the newsapaper that owns the Giants -- has been given authorization from the U.S. major leagues to invite the winner of the 1983 World Series to a fall tour of Japan. In the proposed tour, the U.S. team will play 15 games in 22 days and Shoriki hopes the trip will include a best-of-seven series against the Giants.
Unlike the Japanese, Major League Baseball Commisioner Bowie Kuhn's office does not view the impending tour as a 'world championship.'
'There's no guarantee that the club (1983 World Series champions) will go,' said Chuck Adams, spokesman for the Commissioner's office. 'It's completely up to the individual club. The Giants are of course very happy about their circumstances (50th anniversary), but it's basically the traditional tour. The 1983 world (Series) champions might be a fifth-place team by 1984.'
The concept of a U.S. team touring Japan is not new. Shoriki's father, Matsutaro, first invited a major league all-star team, which included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, to Japan in 1934. The U.S. team won all 16 teams against Japanese teams.
After the tour, which drew immense crowds, Shoriki listened to the advice of American player Frank 'Lefty' O'Doul and decided to organize a professional baseball team.
Undoubtedly, the present Giants' owner had hoped that the 1984 World Series winner would play the Japan champions, hopefully the Yomiuri Giants. But Kuhn suggested that the previous year's world series be brought over and Shoriki agreed.
No reigning World Series champions have ever visited Japan for post-season games, but four visits have been made by previous year World Series winners. The Dodgers went in 1956 and 1966, the St. Louis Cardinals in 1968 and the Baltimore Orioles in 1971.
Overall, U.S. teams have toured Japan practically every other year. The only time the Yomiuri Giants won a majority of the games against the visitors was in 1968, when they won four of seven games against the Dodgers.
The Yomiuri Giants, who failed to repeat as Central League champions this season when they finished a half game behind the Chunichi Dragons of Nagoya, are making an all-out effort to gain the 1983 Central League pennant and a berth in the Japan Series against the Pacific League champions. They have signed veteran Reggie Smith of the San Francisco Giants at $700,000 a year.
The Giants have also signed up Hector Cruz of the Chicago Cubs for an estimated $200,000. Smith and Cruz will replace Roy White, formerly of the New York Yankees, and Gary Thomassen, Los Angeles Dodgers. White was in Giants uniform for three seasons and Thomassen for two.
