For Soriano, It's About Home Base

"He's the same," says manager Frank Robinson said. "That's one of the refreshing things about having him here. He goes 0 for 4 or has the game-winning hit, whatever, he's in here smiling the next day: 'Hey, let's go. Let's go get 'em.'" (Joel Richardson - The Post)

Andrea Soriano wanted the youngest of her four children to go to school, so Alfonso followed orders. But it presented a problem. Other kids would eschew classes to play baseball in the morning, working out at the academies sponsored by major league teams, the places where American clubs developed talent and hid it away so they could pounce, signing prospects as soon as they turned 16.

"I was in school," Soriano said. "The American scouts, they never see me."

Instead, playing in the afternoons in a community program, his teams would face those from Japanese academies. He drew the attention of their scouts. It was his intention to earn money playing baseball somewhere, sometime. Japan? The United States? To a teenager in Ingenio Quisqueya, the difference seemed negligible.

"Dominican players, they're not always educated on how to make it," said former major league pitcher Jose Rijo, a special assistant to Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden who is a Dominican himself. "They just think about getting off of the island to play baseball. They're hungry, and they'll go anywhere to feed the hunger."

So in 1994, Soriano signed with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of the Japanese League. He was assigned to their minor league affiliate. He reported for instructional league in 1995, two months away from home for the first time ever. He arrived in Hiroshima and somehow found the bus to take him to the players' quarters. He still remembers how the steering wheel was on the right side, how the driver followed the left side of the road.

"I was getting confused," Soriano said. "And when I get to the place that everybody stays, I see the food."

Much of it was raw. "There was no sauce," he said. A week in, he wanted to come home. Some veteran players from the Dominican persuaded him to stay. He hit .214 in the minors in 1996, .252 the following year and then was called up. In nine games in Japan's Central League, he managed two hits in 17 at-bats. Yet he learned Japanese and found someone who could reasonably replicate Dominican food.

"I thought that's where my future is," he said. "I'm not even thinking about coming to the majors, to America. When I go to Japan, I think about playing in Japan for all my career."

He had grown comfortable. Stability, for all of a few seconds.

Japanese Departure

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Last week, Soriano strode into the home clubhouse at RFK Stadium, designer shades over his eyes, designer bag over his shoulder, designer loafers on his feet. His smile was broad, as usual, and he bumped fists with a clubhouse attendant. He called out to Nick Johnson, his friend from his minor league days with the Yankees. "Hey, Papi!"

"What's up, Papi?" Johnson said back, lowly. Their lockers are next to each other along the right wall in the clubhouse, and Johnson was the one player who knew what to expect when Soriano came to the Nationals.

"He's always been the same," Johnson said. "Always smiling, always laughing."