Asian Baseball’s Most Racist? Moves Raise Questions About Arsenal Team Policy
Sunday, May 1, 2011
While most LRS teams spent the final hours before their May 2nd openers struggling to follow the new four foreign player limit, the Kure Arsenal spent the afternoon answering probing questions as to why the team was set to begin the year without enough foreign players.
In sending Australian-born Chinese 2B Bai-luo Xiang to AAA, the Arsenal were officially left with one foreign position player on their Opening Day roster in CF Xavier Salinas. Later in the afternoon the team made their final roster move by sending newly-acquired Bartolo Colón to the minors as he continues his comeback from Tommy John surgery. That left closer-turned-#1 starter Juan Torres as the lone foreign pitcher on the team.
“I assure you this was not intentional,” said bench coach Izo Fukimoto. “We had players competing for roster spots. The players that made the roster deserved to be on the roster, and the players that didn’t did not.”
When told that a New South Wales (Xiang’s hometown) sports talk show host labeled the Arsenal “Asian baseball’s most racist team”, Fukimoto quickly dismissed the comment out of hand.
“That’s ridiculous. We’re here to win baseball games, not design our roster in a certain way that pleases everybody around the world. We like foreign players, but more than that we like good players. Tomorrow, when the team takes the field against the Evas, we feel like we’ll be fielding the best team we possibly can.”
Reliever Dan Carroll was one of a few cuts the week prior. Shortly after hearing of his demotion, he was seen by members of the press taking a bat to a water cooler.
“Racist? I don’t know about that,” said the American, who hails from Lemont, Illinois. “Am I happy I was demoted? No. Do I think I ought to have been demoted? Well… I guess I’d better stop talking.”