Hideki Matsui's historic performance in World Series leaves Yankees with a real dilemma

This story originally appeared in the Japanese newspaper Yukan Fuji in 2009.

TOKYO — Now Japanese baseball has completed the loop vis a vis the American game. First there was Masanori Murakami, who introduced Americans to the fact that Japanese played baseball, but whose experience in MLB prevented his fellow countrymen from playing in MLB for 30 years.

Then there was Hideo Nomo, who truly opened the door and showed how good Japanese pitchers could be.

Then there were the position players led by Ichiro, who were essentially singles hitter.