Seamheads: Touring the Bases With…George Culver

George Culver travels into several remote nations of the world, in one part.

Culver: I went to Japan in ’75. I was pretty well done by then. I was supposed to stay there for two years and they didn’t honor the second year of my contract, which is very unusual for the Japanese. They are usually very honorable.

In this case, I was lied to and cheated out of money. The Nippon Ham Fighters, they told me I was going to have a two-year contract. I only pitched 20-some innings the first year I was there. I didn’t do very well in a lot of the games. I did OK in two or three of the games, but it was a tough adjustment for me because of the high strike zone – and I was a low-ball pitcher – and I couldn’t get any low strikes. I had to pitch higher and I couldn’t do it.

...So I have a feeling the team knew this. If they had just come to me and said we don’t want you back, you’re not any good, I would have understood that. But still they’re the ones who signed me to a contract. If they said, look, we’ll pay you half or do a severance thing, I probably would have done that. The way they did it, I lost all confidence in Japanese baseball.

It (the social adjustment) was not that hard. I thought it was going to be a lot like Latin America.

Latin America is tough on American guys who go down there for the first time. The language is a problem, people drive cars fast, they don’t obey the laws, it’s a little different adjustment. It’s like Helter Skelter.