Japan gets U.S. version of baseball brouhaha

TOKYO - It's probably best that the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets are headed home now. One more day in Japan, and managers Don Baylor and Bobby Valentine might have donned loincloths, set their hair in top knots and had at each other in a sumo ring.

Wouldn't you know it? Baseball stages a goodwill tour to Japan, and an old-fashioned feud breaks out.

Still steaming over Valentine's protest of Wednesday's game with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning, Baylor refused to shake the Met manager's hand, or even look at him, during pregame introductions yesterday after blasting him in the daily media briefing.

You can bet that sort of breach of decorum won't happen tonight, when the Tokyo Dome - the major-league logo in front of home plate having been painstakingly scraped off by a small group of workers using wire brushes into the wee hours of the morning - returns to normalcy for the Central League opener between the Yomiuri Giants and the Hiroshima Carp.

Speaking of carp, here's what Baylor had to say about Valentine's ploy, which the Cubs (and most Mets, in private) believed was Valentine's attempt to "ice" Chicago reliever Rick Aguilera:

"You try to forget about nonsense, things other people try to do. Out of respect for the guy on the mound who has 280-something saves, to keep him standing out there, trying to distract him - to me, that's pretty much nonsense."

Valentine, in turn, jabbed Baylor for not acknowledging that his mistake - failing to list shortstop Jeff Huson on the lineup card while listing catcher Jeff Reed twice - is what started this international incident.

"The easiest thing for Don Baylor to do, and the correct thing to say, would be, `I won the game and I messed up the lineup card. It's over.' That's what I would have been expected to do in the same situation," Valentine said.

Of course, it was amazing Baylor still was standing, what with the emergency trip to the hospital and all.

A Japanese newspaper had a big story yesterday detailing Baylor's hospitalization for high blood pressure, which came as a huge surprise to the Cub manager. It seems that Baylor's flip postgame comment that playing the Mets "gives me high blood pressure" had lost something in the translation.

"Although the way we kept leaving runners on base in the second, third and fourth innings almost sent me to the hospital," Baylor quipped.

If the Baylor-Valentine histrionics gave the Japanese a taste of old-fashioned American controversy, the Game 2 script must have been co-authored by Bud Selig and James Clavell.

Check this out: Benny Agbayani has his ticket to Tidewater already written, the Mets having made it known that when fifth starter Glendon Rusch is activated April 9, Agbayani goes to the minors

Agbayani mopes, asks for a trade. But he soaks up the culture in Japan, feeling a kinship because of his Hawaiian, Samoan and Filipino heritage. After riding the bench on Wednesday, Agbayani has a late dinner with Hawaiian sumo legends Musashimaru, Akibono and Konishiki, the latter telling him, "Keep working hard and keep the faith, and let everything fall into place."

Agbayani buys a special Japanese fortune that talks of a propitious incident on his immediate horizon.

Cut to the top of the 11th inning, the Cubs and Mets locked in a 1-1 tie:

Agbayani pinch-hits with the bases loaded. He takes his trademark swing, the one with the leg kick reminiscent of Japanese icon Sadaharu Oh. He lines a grand-slam home run to center field off Cub rookie Danny Young.

Watch Agbayani dance around the bases with fists pumping. Watch him, three quick outs later, receiving his MVP award at home plate, an ornate headdress that apparently is of the style worn by ancient shoguns.

Listen to Valentine say that all this probably won't change the Mets' plans. Party pooper.

"Benny's a big boy," Valentine said. "Baseball's one of those games that's not always fair. Even if it's not always accepted, it's understood."

As they packed for the long trip home - the Cubs to Chicago, the Mets to New York, and poor Young probably to Des Moines - the two sides mulled over whether it was worth it, this mother of all road trips.

Commissioner Bud Selig certainly thinks so, as he listens to his inner cash register ka-chinging in two languages. And, virtually to a man, so did the players, who had the most reason to gripe.

Despite the inconveniences, they were won over by the Japanese hospitality, and the diversity of their experience. They visited the imperial palace, shopped for electronic gadgets, ate sushi and Kobe beef, and were generally greeted everywhere they went as visiting royalty.

"The class of the Japanese people, the way we were received, is something we'll never forget," Met catcher Mike Piazza said.

"Win, lose or draw, I think it was something that baseball needed," said Todd Zeile, Met first baseman.

Piazza and Sammy Sosa were the unquestioned stars of the show to the Japanese. The subdued ballpark atmosphere was broken each time one of the two came to the plate.

The second-loudest crowd reaction of the series came yesterday when Sosa strolled to the plate in the 10th inning, the winning run on second base.

The loudest crowd reaction? Moments later, when Valentine had Sosa walked intentionally.

"I thought it would take longer than four days back in Japan to have the fans boo me," said Valentine, who once managed the Chiba Lotte Marines.

The Cubs blew that chance and many others, going 0 for 17 with men on base. Then again, they've never been able to hit on this continent.

You knew it was going to be a strange night when Rey Ordenez made an error, breaking his major-league-record streak of 101 games (representing 418 chances) without a boot.

The best shortstop on the field in this game, in fact, was none other than Huson, or as he's now known in Japan, "The Lineup Card Bandit."

In the end, Baylor pronounced the trip a success, although the way he was going through pitchers yesterday, the Cubs might have been thinking about flying in Kevin Tapani, who stayed back home to prepare for their mainland opener Monday in St. Louis.

"Except for the ninth inning with one out to go, it's been a tremendous experience," Baylor said.