Zombie Cigarettes

Hell in Hiroshima as the Carp's drug scandal won't end.

The first half of the season was all wrapped up. The All-Star break was over, and the second half of the season was ready to begin. Seita Maekawa, a 23-year-old infielder, walked into the Hiroshima practice facility a little past noon. He was there to rejoin the farm team. Reporters were waiting, as he surely knew they would be. All he could muster was, “I can’t respond to your questions. I’m sorry.” Then he went to hit baseballs with players who, just a day earlier, had been his teammates in a much bigger sense than they suddenly were now.

I don’t know what Maekawa did or didn’t do. Nobody outside a very small circle of Hiroshima police officers knows that yet, and depending on how you read the reporting, maybe not even they know for certain.

Let’s go back six months, because that’s where this story starts. On January 27th (hey, that’s the day before my birthday), Hiroshima police arrested a 26-year-old infielder named Ryutaro Hatsuki for using etomidate — a fast-acting anesthetic that picked up the on-the-nose nickname of “zombie cigarettes.” The team suspended him the next day. Three days later, police searched Mazda Stadium itself, and the practice facility too—it was never just about Hatsuki. By February 24th, his contract was terminated.

If the story had ended there, we’d have filed it the way we file most of these: a promising career undone by a bad decision. But at his trial in mid-May, Hatsuki pleaded guilty and added something else: there were other Carp players around him who were smoking it, too. The court gave him a one year sentence, suspended for three, that same day.

It turns out that he wasn’t finished. In a livestream a few weeks later, Hatsuki said six Carp players, including himself, had all bought the drug from the same person, since identified as a 38-year-old company executive, who was arrested June 1st on suspicion of supplying it.

Our story keeps going.

On July 13th, a tabloid, as it is wont to do, ran photographs of said supplier with Hiroshima players. One showed him with infielder Masaya Yano in a hotel room on a road trip, with others reportedly placing infielder Kaito Kozono, last year’s batting champion, and outfielder Shunsuke Tamura in his company as well. Four days later, Hiroshima’s GM pulled Yano off the active roster, explaining it carefully: “Being in a private room with someone described as a dealer is itself a situation that raises strong suspicion. I’m personally reluctant to have a player like that on the field with the top team.” In the same breath, he made sure to say Yano’s actual drug use “has not been confirmed.” It was not a punishment for a crime but rather a benching for a photograph.

That leaves the obvious question that went unanswered that day: what about the other two guys in the pictures? Tamura, it turns out, had been reassigned to the farm system by late July, with no explanation in the reporting I’ve read. Kozono, who was a member of Samurai Japan earlier this year, on a team currently sinking toward the cellar, kept his roster spot and kept playing. One Hiroshima beat reporter, quoted anonymously, put it bluntly: three players, in the same photograph, with wildly different outcomes. Somebody should hold a press conference with all three of them and let the fans draw their own conclusions.

Which brings us to July 30th, the day before the second half opened against the Chunichi Dragons, the day the Carp announced police had searched not one but two players’ homes— Yano’s and Maekawa’s—along with the team dormitory. Maekawa’s named landed like a lead balloon. Nothing in six months of coverage had connected him to any of it before that morning. He’d taken full team practice the day before, same as always. Then he was simply gone from the roster, and the club’s stated reason was that they were taking seriously the fact that a search had occurred.

Team owner Hajime Matsuda addressed it at the stadium, and by multiple accounts, he cried while he did it. He was shocked, apologetic, and used the phrase “an unexpected player” that’s since been picked apart by everyone because nobody’s sure if he meant “even I didn’t see this coming” or something closer to “there may be others I did.” Manager Takahiro Arai apologized too, noting the timing as if the calendar had it in for them.

NPB released attendance standings for the first half. Hiroshima finished averaging 26,809 fans a game, down about 4% from the year before, the steepest drop in NPB, before any of the July news broke. The second-half opener on July 31st, a day after the searches and Maekawa’s tearful non-answer to reporters, drew 28,727 anyway. It wasn’t a sellout, but still more than they’d been averaging. Even with all the news, the fans are still showing up to support their team.

As of now, nothing further has happened to Yano or Maekawa. They are still employed as ballplayers. As for the Carp overall, they took two of three from the Dragons, avoiding falling into the basement, and are only two games back of the BayStars for 4th place. Admirable for a team with this many distractions.

The funny thing is, I doubt this would even be that noteworthy if it happened in the States. MLB has drug tests and suspensions, but the players usually get another chance. What Japan doesn't have, culturally, is the shrug.

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Around the League

Sorry I wasn’t able to include anything from around the league in last week’s recap. I don’t have anything for this week either—I’ve been busy, and sick, and had a six-day workweek last week. And next week, there probably won’t be a weekly recap at all as I will be in Aomori visiting Kana’s family.

I will say that NPB has officially announced the adoption of pitch clock, though they haven’t confirmed when it will start or any of the details. The players were pushing for it, especially after this year’s WBC, and the reaction online seems to be largely positive. Most people are in favor because it means Samurai Japan will no longer be at a disadvantage in international competition.

I’ve never really thought NPB has a pace-of-game problem. I enjoy the chanting and the singing and the clapping, and I worry some of that culture that makes Japanese baseball so special will disappear. Games average just a bit over three hours anyway, which seems like the perfect amount of time for a game. But I guess I’ll have to get used it.

Standings (through 8/3)

Central League:

1. Hanshin Tigers (53-40-1)

2. Yomiuri Giants (51-42-2, 2.0 GB)

3. Yakult Swallows (44-50-1, 9.5 GB)

4. Yokohama DeNA BayStars (41-51-3, 11.5 GB)

5. Hiroshima Carp (37-51-4, 13.5 GB)

6. Chunichi Dragons (39-57-1, 15.5 GB)

Pacific League:

1. SoftBank Hawks (60-34-1)

2. Seibu Lions (55-41-3, 6.0 GB)

3. Nippon-Ham Fighters (56-43, 6.5 GB)

4. Orix Buffaloes (48-48-2, 13.0 GB)

5. Chiba Lotte Marines (42-48-3, 16.0 GB)

6. Rakuten Golden Eagles (36-57-1, 23.5 GB)