Hideki Matsui recently moved his team from NY Yankees to Anaheim Angels.  The same first name player, Hideki Irabu was also a member of NY Yankees from Japan.

Hideki Irabu is not remembered well because he often commented badly about others and his attitude in the baseball field was not always good as an honorable major league player.  Actually he resulted 11 wins and 13 wins in his second and third season respectively as a pitcher of NY Yankees.

After he quit Yankees, he went back to Japan as a member of Osaka Hansin Tigers, and he contributed the annual victory of the team with great fast ball he still had.

All through the years, he retired the professional baseball. But he tried to come back to a pitcher in some regional leagues of the USA and Japan.

This time, Hideki Irabu seems to have decided to retire the baseball for good. He tried to come back with only 1500 dollar  monthly salary at a team in Shikoku area of Japan although he earned more than 3 million dollars a year at Yankees.

His character maybe prevented us to remember him as the great player, but his baseball talent was far greater than others.  His fast ball was really fast. If he could control his mind on the pitcher mound, he would have made much greater results both in Japan and in the USA.

I don’t know his next job, but actually he is still young.  I hope he will become a great person with the glorious baseball career.