NY Times: Hoping to Become the Next Hot Baseball Export From Japan (RR)

Masato Yoshii, hired to be the new pitching coach for the Nippon Ham Fighters, has the Bobby Valentine seal of approval.

[Yoshii] is the first of the 31 Japanese players who have played in the major leagues since Hideo Nomo made his debut in 1995 with the Los Angeles Dodgers to return to Japan and become a coach.

Now that Japanese players have appeared at every position in Major League Baseball, the intrigue over whether Japanese players can make the transition is over. The six Japanese players in their first major league training camps this season represent the new status quo.

But Yoshii, 42, would not mind beginning a new trend.

“I’d like to think coaching in Japan is an important learning experience that could lead to a coaching opportunity in M.L.B.,” he said recently in an interview that was conducted in Japanese and took place after a coaches’ meeting at the Fighters’ Okinawa camp. “My English still stinks, so that’s something I need to work on, but as I improve that, it would be great to take my experiences as a coach here and apply it to coaching in America. That’s my plan.”