The Diplomat Who Touches All the Bases

In '49, when Kato was 8, the San Francisco Seals toured his country. "The Seals swept all 10 games from our best players. And they were minor leaguers!" Kato said. "My older brothers told me, 'In America, there are godlike superstars.' I wondered what these demigods might look like. But we had no photographs in our magazines of Joe DiMaggio's 'wide stance' or Stan Musial coiled 'like a cobra.'

"I had to exercise the power of imagination to imitate them. I collected acorns to hit with a stick. I would make up games for hours, pretending to be DiMaggio. I would think: 'I am Stan Musial. But the way I am hitting today, he would be very disappointed in me.' Yet I had never even seen their pictures."

Now, Musial is just one of Kato's old friends.

Finally, Kato saw his first major leaguer -- in the flesh. After losing the 1955 World Series, the Yankees came to Tokyo. "My father took me to see Mickey Mantle, who had just won his first home run title," he said. "Tommy Byrne and Bullet Bob Turley threw very hard."

But, his dad insisted, neither was as fast as Lefty Grove. "My father saw Grove in Japan in '31 -- before lights for night play," Kato said. "Grove pitched the eighth and ninth at dusk and struck out all six Japanese hitters on 21 pitches. The next day the papers called it 'the smoke ball' -- the pitch you cannot see, only the smoke it leaves behind."

Somebody tell Bud to work on his anecdotes. He's got competition.

"My father liked 'macho,' not diplomats and bankers. He thought they were wimpy," Kato said. "When I became a diplomat against his wishes, he became a fan of diplomats."

Now the diplomat has become baseball's boss. Don't say time lacks a sense of humor.

Since getting a law degree from Tokyo University in 1965, Kato has spent a lifetime representing Japan on difficult issues -- treaties, security, foreign policy, trade and economics. But beside his bed he keeps collections of baseball writings, which he rereads for their common sense, soothing specificity or just "to calm me after my day."

Now, Kato is acutely aware that baseball will change from joy to job. "I am told it is a hard and messy job," he said, especially the relationship between owners and players.

At least Kato knows he has chips to trade. The players' union in Japan may resist drug testing, but wants to shorten the years before free agency -- now nine seasons compared with only six in Major League Baseball. "Nine is way too much," Kato said. "That's longer than I was ambassador."

Under the current "posting system," Japanese stars must also wait nine years before coming to the United States, where salaries are three times as high. Kato may push to shorten that, too. Last year, Matsuzaka and his old team in Japan each received about $50 million when he signed with the Boston Red Sox. For a league with 12 teams that average crowds of 25,000 in a 140-game season, such windfall cash is welcome. But losing stars such as Dice-K is touchy.

"We have mixed feelings. We are very proud to see our heroes do well in America because, in baseball, the U.S. is number one," said Kato, not mentioning that Japan -- rather than the U.S. team of MLB stars -- won the first World Baseball Classic in 2006. "But we also have a kind of sadness at seeing our stars go -- like a 'brain drain.' "

What Kato may miss most as he leaves the United States are trips to Camden Yards and now Nationals Park, the symbols of what Japan does not have and is unlikely to get soon -- modern parks where, as he said, the public's shortened attention span is placated with "a picnic atmosphere for everyone."

"Even America's old parks like Fenway and Wrigley have their own exquisite taste," Kato said. "Our infrastructure is old. We have four indoor stadiums. There's nothing like America's Opening Day -- the blue sky, the national anthem, a president's first pitch and the jets fly over. All of a sudden we feel the weight of history."

Now, he feels the weight of leaving. "I do not regret a minute," he said. "I had 6 1/2 wonderful years." Kato paused to think of the proper analogy, some player who had a prime of comparable length. "Just like Sandy Koufax," he said.

Mercifully, such baseball trivia has never been required of Kato's wife, Hanayo, or their three children. "When I am asked if I love baseball more than my wife, I say, 'I met baseball first,' " Kato said. "But now she is catching up with the game. When the Nationals played the Braves, I heard someone yell, 'Mr. Jones.' I looked at the box seat railing and saw this Oriental woman asking for an autograph on her Nats program.

"It was my wife," said the beaming commissioner. "She recognized Chipper before I did."