White Sox might bring in popular Japanese mascot to pinch hit — Chicago Sun-Times

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

Readers make suggestions. Some are anatomically impossible and best ignored. Some are for stories that deserve consideration. This idea immediately caught my attention, even though it is not only about sports — never my strong suit — but about the White Sox, specifically, their rookie first baseman.

"I noticed that Munetaka Murakami was born and raised in — Kumamoto! Home of your favorite mascot," Peter Erdelyi wrote in mid-July. "Kumamon is almost all black — a Sox logo would look great on him. Kumamon Night with free little Kumamons to the first 20,000 attendees, along with a mascot race with Kumamon, with the person behind it all with his brilliant suggestion to the Sox, Neil Steinberg, throwing out the first pitch."

Never heard of Kumamon? He is, to quote Tom Waits, "Big in Japan." Kumamon is what the Japanese call a yuru-kyara — or "loose character." That traditionally gets translated as "mascot," though it doesn't do the reality justice. They're far more complicated. Kumamon is to Southpaw, the White Sox mascot, as Anna Karenina is to Raggedy Ann.

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Ten years ago, I traveled to Kumamoto, in southwestern Japan, to attended Kumamon's birthday party, along with 50,000 other guests. It was nuts .

As if reading my mind, the team held a bobblehead night for the slugger, bringing his parents over to throw out the first pitch. I thought that might moot my reader's idea. But there's always next year. I reached out to Brooks Boyer, in charge of marketing for the Sox, who I found in a good mood. The team is doing great this year, particularly compared to the three previous, especially-awful, 100-plus losing-game seasons.

"I can expect us to be fighting for a division in late October," Boyer said, "These guys are super likable and competing their butts off. So it's been a lot of fun."

Fun is the operative word in baseball lately. As illustrated by the recent Banana Ball phenomenon, fun is very big at the old ballpark. As are Japanese players. In case you're paying even less attention to sports than I am, the biggest star in baseball is the insanely skilled Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I told Boyer that keeping far-from-home Japanese players happy seems a challenge for teams.

"You try to keep all of your players happy," replied Boyer. "When we signed Murakami, we asked him if there are things from Japan that maybe we don't have here that would create a more comfortable experience. We were thinking about rice cookers. But the very first thing he said was, 'Could we get a washlet — a bidet — in the clubhouse?'"

So bidets were installed.

I began to explain the idea about bringing in Murakami's hometown hero. But I'd been beaten to the punch.

"I have a proposal from a group called Yoshimoto Sports," Boyer said — Yoshimoto is a Japanese sports marketing agency. "They've already pitched this concept. I am looking at this right now. The bear with the red cheeks."

I don't know who was more surprised by this, Boyer or me.

"Typically, in sports, you'd be breaking news to me," he said. "But the people in Japan felt so strongly about this, they wanted to bring it to me."

I can vouch for that. Kumamon's handlers practically begged me to spread the word.

Murakami knows about the possibility.

"This is a very big deal," Boyer said. "Both Mune and his interpreter are very aware of what it is."

So it might happen?

"We'd want to do anything we could, for any of our players, if they could have something of a friendly reminder of home and create some comfort," Boyer said. "We're absolutely going to look into it for 2027."

I'm optimistic. The Cubs are having their Hello Kitty night Sept. 3. (Everyone knows the mouthless cat, right? She pulls in more cash than Mickey Mouse.)

And since I know some readers are... shall we say?... provincial, and might grumble at unfamiliar iconography showing up at Chicago ballparks, remember that globalism is a fine old American baseball tradition. The White Sox played their first game in Tokyo in 1913, part of an around-the-world tour that also saw them playing a game before the pyramids in Egypt.

Bottom line: I might find myself at a Sox game in 2027. Which is fitting — I have a little grandson who's a South Sider. I always assumed his first baseball game would be at Wrigley Field, like his father's. But times change, and we change with them.

As for throwing out the first pitch, let me nix that. The way this rotator cuff is healing, I'll be lucky to be able to shell a peanut next year, never mind throw anything anywhere. But I'll certainly go.

White Sox might bring in popular Japanese mascot to pinch hit — Chicago Sun-Times | AIPROPX