The War in Iraq and the Mariners in Japan

In the children’s book Dear Ichiro by Jean Davies Okimoto, 8-year-old Henry Lockwood gets into a fight with his friend, Oliver, and declares that Oliver is his enemy. Later, he attends a Mariners game with his Grandpa Charlie. At several points during the game, Grandpa Charlie mentions that Ichiro and Kazuhiro Sasaki are from Japan. Henry knows they’re from Japan and isn’t sure why this is remarkable to his grandfather, until he explains:

“I guess I’ve come a long way, Henry.” Grandpa Charlie put his hand on my shoulder. “Sixty years ago when I was in the army, if someone told me there’d come a day when I’d sit in a ballpark cheering for two fellas from Japan on my hometown baseball team, I would have said they were nuts.”

“Ichiro and Kaz aren’t army guys. They’re baseball players.”

Grandpa Charlie sighed. “I know that, Henry. They weren’t even born then, but sixty years ago I thought our countries would be enemies forever, that’s all.”

After the game, Henry asks his grandfather how the United States and Japan stopped being enemies, thinking about his fight with Oliver. Grandpa Charlie tells him that it was important to each country to move ahead, that with the passing of time they healed and approached each other with goodwill because, “all people want to live in peace.”

Henry reconciles with Oliver, and they play together, imitating Ichiro’s batting stance and mannerisms.

*****

Nintendo of America bought the Mariners in 1992, keeping the team in Seattle and establishing a relationship between the Mariners and Japan. Mac Suzuki debuted for the Mariners in 1996, becoming just the third Japanese player in major league history. A couple years later, the Mariners signed a working agreement with the Orix BlueWave of the Nippon Professional Baseball League and the BlueWave’s star player, Ichiro Suzuki, joined the Mariners for Spring Training. The Mariners signed closer Kazuhiro Sasaki out of Japan for the 2000 season and the next year Ichiro was signed. 

Sasaki’s presence on the team came with a Japanese media following and tourists who came to see him play in the United States. The media and fan following he inspired exploded when Ichiro arrived on the scene and the early 2000s Mariners became a big hit in Japan. Every game was reported and most of their home games were broadcast in Japan, making it easy for fans back home to follow Kaz and Ichiro’s careers, and grow attached to the Mariners.

Therefore, no one was surprised when Major League Baseball announced in November 2002 that the Mariners would open the 2003 season in Japan, playing two games against the Oakland Athletics on March 25th and 26th.

MLB was interested in marketing the game internationally and had sent teams out into the world to open the season in different places. In 1999 the Rockies and Padres opened in Mexico, in 2000 the Cubs and Met began in Tokyo, and in 2001 the Rangers and Blue Jays went to Puerto Rico. The Mariners have been asked to participate in the 2000 opening, but they begged out of it, wanting to open the first full season at Safeco Field at home and focus on preparing to host the 2001 All-Star Game.

MLB tried again to have the Mariners open the 2002 season in Japan, but the collective bargaining agreement expired at the end of the 2001 season and they worried about a potential work stoppage. Not to mention, there were a few other things going on in the world at the time, like September 11th (you might have heard of it) and the invasion of Afghanistan.

*****

Iraq was dragged into the War on Terror in January 2002. During his State of the Union address, President Bush asserted that Iraq and its allies ”constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”1 It was true that Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, had a history of using chemical weapons. However, his weapons program had largely been destroyed by the United Nationals after the Gulf War in 1991. Hussein closed the country to weapons inspectors a few years later, wanting to create the impression that he was developing nuclear weapons to deter Iran from attacking.2

A year after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Bush told the U.N. General Assembly that the United States demanded Iraq open the country to weapons inspectors. If they didn’t, the U.S. was ready to hold them to account. In October, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

As the Mariners and MLB exuberantly talked about going to Japan the next spring, the dogs of war were still leashed, but that leash stretched ever thinner as the trip approached.

*****

The Mariners reported to Spring Training in Peoria, AZ on February 10, 2003 with excitement in the air for the novel season opening series. Their last Cactus League game was scheduled for March 18 and on March 19, they’d leave for Tokyo.

Although the upcoming Japan trip was a point of excitement and discussion, the Mariners also had the rest of the season to prepare for.  Manager Bob Melvin was beginning his first season at the helm. The 2002 Mariners missed the playoffs a season after winning 116 regular season games and advancing to the ALCS. The 2003 team obviously wanted to get back to the postseason, but in the American League West they faced hurdles in the form of the defending World Series Champion Anaheim Angeles and the peak Moneyball Oakland Athletics.

In contrast to the youth of the Athletics, the Mariners were an aging team. Including 40-year-old Jamie Moyer, John Olerud, Dan Wilson, and Edgar Martinez formed a core that averaged age 37. There was some competition for the last two spots in the rotation and bullpen, but the team was mostly set heading into camp.

*****

If the seeds of war weren’t already planted, in early February, just before the Mariners reported, the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell picked up a dandelion full of them and irrevocably blew them into the world. In front of the U.N. Security Council on February 5, he made the case for invading Iraq, citing “evidence” that Saddam Hussein was hoarding “weapons of mass destruction”. 3

Great Britain was eager to support the US in its Iraq aspirations. France, on the other hand, was notably opposed to getting the old allied band back together. A cafe owner in North Carolina was so incensed that France would dare oppose the war, he renamed the fries he served Freedom Fries.4 Members of Congress caught wind of this, and the same change was soon made in the Capitol Hill cafeteria, as if disagreeing about a war that would kill hundreds of thousands of people and destabilize an entire region was on par with a playground argument.5

The pending war raised questions about the pending trip. “Obviously there are things going on in the world,” Lincoln told the Seattle P-I.6 The team contacted Major League Baseball about security procedures and contingency plans in case the trip was canceled. “A lot could happen between now and our leaving on March 19,” Lincoln said. But he wouldn’t say whether he’d prefer not to take the trip.

Indeed, there was anxiety in the late winter air. The same newspapers announcing players streaming into Spring Training also ran updates on the color-coded threat level. It was currently orange. The Department of Homeland Security suggested that people stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal their homes in the event of a chemical attack, then spent the next week telling people not to preemptively seal their homes.7 Mariners manager Bob Melvin casually mentioned that he planned to stock up on bottled water, per a suggestion on the CIA’s website.8

In mid February the Mariners and Athletics were instructed to keep moving ahead with plans for the trip, to assume it would still happen. MLB assured everyone they were monitoring the situation with Iraq. In addition, they were keeping an eye on North Korea, periodically launching missiles into the Sea of Japan. The feeling was that this situation posed a bigger threat to playing in Japan than a war in the Middle East.

Mariners players did their best to push worries about the world off the field out of their minds. “You try not to let it affect what you’re doing here,” reliever Norm Charlton said. “We really don’t have a whole lot of choice ultimately in what happens.” Fellow reliever Jeff Nelson said, “You don’t know what’s going to happen as far as terrorism over here…but you hope we can continue to play, just to provide a little, I guess, escape from reality. Still you can’t forget what’s happening, nor should you.”9

The threat of war permeated the rest of the sports world. Tiger Woods pulled out of the Dubai Desert Classic in the United Arab Emirates, less than 1,000 miles from Iraq. Japan’s soccer federation canceled games schedule to be played in the United States in March. A terrorist threat caused fear during the America’s Cup yacht races.

Baseball continued in Peoria. Workouts were canceled for rain. The team dealt with the typical spring training injuries. Fans and reporters worried about the team’s lackluster offense in the first weeks of games. Freddy Garcia was named the Opening Day starter.

In London on March 10, Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines told the crowd, in an offhand comment, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” By mid March, the Dixie Chicks, who sang the National Anthem at that year’s Super Bowl, went from being one of the most popular bands in the country to being almost totally absent from radio airwaves.

Talk of war in Iraq ramped up as the Mariners’ departure date neared. Tim Hudson of the Athletics was notably vocal about wanting MLB to reconsider the trip. “We may as well have big targets on our backs saying, ‘We’re Americans, come bomb us.’”10

Mariners players decided not to bring their families along. Edgar Martinez said, “I guess the timing is not the best to have this (trip) in this area. It’s not for me, or for us, to make that decision. What can you do? But there’s a concern. I’m sure most of the players are concerned about this trip.”11 Players Union chief Donald Fehr downplayed the concerns in an interview that ran in the papers on March 16 saying, “At the moment, we feel it will go fairly well. I’m sure it will be a great series.”12

On March 17, while addressing the nation, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein and his sons an ultimatum: surrender within 48 hours or face the United States Armed Forces. It looked likely that the trip would be canceled. Still, the newspapers ran stories about travel secretary Ron Spellecy’s work planning the trip and gushing about everything the Mariners would do in Japan.13

On March 18, one day into Bush’s 48-hour deadline for Hussein, the Mariners arrived at the ballpark in Peoria, ready to play their last exhibition game before hopping on a plane to Japan. They knew there was a chance they wouldn’t go anywhere. But they planned for the trip anyway. Reporter Shannon Drayer remembered years later that players had begun bringing luggage for the trip to the ballpark so it could be transported by the team.14

That morning Mike Cameron decided he didn’t want his wife or three sons to risk the trip.15 The plane would be halfway to Tokyo when the 48 hour deadline ran out. Mariners players as a whole were expressing reservations about going to Japan while the United States was on the verge of war. Commissioner Bud Selig agreed. In a statement later on March 18th he said

“Given the uncertainty that now exists throughout the world, we believe the safest course of action for the players involved…is to reschedule the opening series.”16

After their exhibition game that day, Mariners players went home, returning the next day to continue playing baseball in Arizona instead of Japan.

On March 19, the United States cried havoc and invaded Iraq.

*****

I discovered Dear Ichiro many years after it was written, when my kids were little and I searched for as many baseball books as possible to brainwash convince them to be baseball fans. It was published in 2002, and though it certainly could have been written in a pre-9/11 world, the message of forgiveness feels like a message of humanity we desperately needed when the world changed overnight. I thought about the book again when I started researching this. The strong connection the Mariners have had to Japan, the dark, dark history of the United States interning its own Japanese residents, then dropping nuclear bombs to end the war. The way the Japanese were built up as existential threats to the United States, as our enemies intent on evil.

Baseball’s connection with Japan existed long before WWII. There has always been a bond over baseball. For MLB to see the value of marketing its major league teams to Japanese audiences and to embrace internationalism in the regular season, it’s particularly upsetting to see that series canceled as the United States perpetuated the cycle of war and hate and lies in another country.

The Mariners finally opened the season in Japan in 2012. They returned in 2019, and Ichiro played his final major league game at home, where it all began.

*****

I was in college during the 9/11 era, so it was a coming of age for me. The attacks, the response, watching the grownups in the room turn into cartoon villains, bent on vengeance that did nothing to make us any safer. Over the last several years, I’ve dipped back into this era. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for here, or why I’m so determined to tie baseball to it. I’m probably still trying to understand everything I couldn’t figure out then. I don’t know if I’ll ever find it.

The numbers vary, but I’ve seen support for the war polling as high as 72% in the days of the initial invasion of Iraq. Being in college at the time, I was mostly surrounded by people my age who, like me, were angry that our government could promote this war and hatred and tell us that it was all in the name of freedom. We were told over and over again that we were just college kids; we couldn’t possibly understand the way the world really was.

Still we protested and we screamed and we tried to make ourselves heard. I hear the sentiment often from people my age, how disheartening it was to protest this war and have it happen anyway. To have it continue. Of course we were familiar with the Vietnam War protests, but we made ourselves believe that we would do what those protestors couldn’t. We would change the world. Instead, we ran into wall after wall, the war machine so much stronger than we were.

I coped by reading Molly Ivins columns and scream singing, “Don’t want to be an American idiot!.” I cycled through different political ideologies, trying to find something that would work. I voted and voted and voted. I no longer have any illusions that the adults in the room can be convinced to do the right thing.

Even though all of us who protested and shouted and were derided as dumb kids who didn’t understand the world, well, we are the adults now.

*****

“Wait. I’d add something else, too, Henry.” Grandpa Charlie called after me as he got out of the car.

“Okay.” I sighed, waiting for him to catch up to me.

“The hearts have to be in the right position, just like batters have to be in the right position when they get up to bat.”

“They do? What position?”

“The hearts have to be open.”