Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s only natural to assume and hope that after a decisive victory such as that achieved by the reformers in Japanese baseball last summer and fall, the forward progression will continue indefinitely. Unfortunately, however, events usually progress as Emerson suggest. Japanese baseball took two giant steps forward last year, but already one month into the season has given up part of the impressive gains made. It might be especially instructive that the setback came with the team that symbolizes the progress—the Rakuten Golden Eagles.

Eagles owner Hiroshi Mikitani asserted, “If we have new blood with innovative ideas, we will be able to turn around the Japanese baseball industry.” Inspiring words, but when the first hint of adversity struck, Rakuten reverted to the old way of doing business (or perhaps Mikitani revealed himself to be a Japanese version of George Steinbrenner).

Mikitani seemed anxious to bring some fresh air into Japanese baseball. He hired as his general manager the first American to hold that position in Japan, Marty Kuehnert. The new GM had held several positions in the sports world—he was briefly the general manager of a Japanese-owned Class A minor league team in the U.S., as well as president and minority owner of a AA minor league team. He was the director of sales and promotions for a Japanese league team, served as a representative for some U.S. players in Japan, ran a sports management company, worked as a TV commentator, and wrote a column for an English-language paper.

The work involved in starting a team from scratch must have been Herculean. Rakuten was awarded the new franchise in November 2004, and a new team had to be put on the field just five months later. The hours he and his staff put in were likely brutal, but their efforts paid off as the team was ready for action on the field in a renovated stadium.

Other than signing some Western free agents and picking up players from the amateur draft, the Golden Eagles were stuck with players divided between themselves and the merged Kintetsu-Orix franchise, teams which weren’t very successful. That meant success on the field was not to be expected for the first few years. In fact, Kuehnert told fans up front that they could well lose 100 games out of the 136 to be played. The fans in Sendai seemed to accept this proposition. They were excited at having their own team and were prepared to be patient as the team developed.

It was obvious right away that a 100-loss season was likely. Though their season got off on the right foot with a win, the Eagles dropped the second game 26-0 to the Chiba Lotte Marines. In addition to letting the other team score at will, the Eagles could manage only one hit themselves. After the first week of play, Rakuten sent out an SOS to the league asking for permission to add other players.

Mikitani didn’t wait to take drastic moves. At the end of April, the Eagles’ record stood at 6-22 and they were working on an 11-game losing streak. The owner had seen enough, and removed Kuehnert from his GM position just a month into the season. He was to be given a special position as advisor to the owner.

Making matters worse was the comment by Rakuten manager Yasushi Tao, who told the media that Kuehnert didn’t have the connections “inside and outside Japanese baseball” to perform his job. One of the major complaints was the poor quality of the overseas players Kuehnert signed to play for the team.

This unfortunately smacks of one of the oldest excuses in Japanese baseball—it’s the foreigners’ fault we aren’t playing better. And with a foreign GM, Rakuten got to play the card twice. To be fair, several Japanese coaches also were reassigned at same time, so it may not have been solely a “blame the gaijin” exercise. Here’s what Japan Times’ columnist Wayne Graczyk thought about the firing.

Marty has been living and working in Japan for more than 30 years. He knows all the key personnel on all the Japanese teams through his extensive experience as a businessman, broadcaster and former sales manager of the Taiheiyo Club Lions team.

The contacts he has here were evident on the guest list of those who attended Marty’s sendoff party at a Tokyo hotel on Jan. 21, some 10 days before the beginning of spring training.

As pointed out in this column shortly afterward, the party attendees made up a virtual who’s who of top people in Japanese baseball. Marty knows them all and knows them well.

As for contacts in North America, Kuehnert is acquainted with every major league team president and general manager, as well as most scouts, player agents and anyone else who has any interaction with Japanese baseball.

There’s another side to Kuehnert that should be pointed out, however, and that is his constant Japan-bashing in his columns in the Japan Times. It was next to impossible for Marty to write a column about sports in Japan without finding fault–any fault–with the Japanese and showing how their approach couldn’t compare to that of the good ol’ USA. Indeed, he sounded like a typical whingeing gaijin who comes to Japan and discovers to his shock that the Japanese don’t know how to do anything right at all. It’s a common phenomenon, but these people either leave quickly or grow up after about a year or two.

Kuehnert, despite being in Japan more than 35 years, is still whingeing as if he just stepped off the plane last month. Take a look at this column where he questions the masculinity of Japanese baseball players. Did the chronic complainer complain about the Japanese one too many times in front of his staff?

And while Kuehnert has plenty of experience in several different lines of work, that in itself makes one wonder why he couldn’t find one or two jobs and stick with them. From his resume, it seems he didn’t stay with the same employer for a very long time. Whose choice was that?

One last comment: An acquaintance of mine once met Kuehnert at the latter’s sports bar in Tokyo (that later went out of business) some years ago and reported that he—to be diplomatic—was an aggressive user of men’s cologne. That’s enough to turn many people off in the West, but even more likely to cause others to give the fragrant one a wide berth in Japan. For example, for years deodorant was sold only in the ladies’ cosmetics department here, and after shave didn’t exist at all.

Perhaps Mikitani and the rest of the Eagles’ management just wanted some fresh air in the front office.