Balentien shatters record and barriers
Curacao native is Japan's new home run king after passing the 49-year-old mark set by Oh
In the traditional world of Japanese baseball, breaking with the past is not easy but a beefy Caribbean slugger has shattered one of its most historic records in a season marked by controversy over a bouncy new ball.
When Wladimir Balentien, a 29-year-old former major leaguer from Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, smacked his 56th and 57th home runs of the season last Sunday against the Hanshin Tigers, it ended a stubbornly defended mark that had stood for nearly 50 years.
It came just a few months after Japanese baseball chiefs were forced to admit to secretly introducing a new ball designed to bounce further off the bat, a move that has been credited with a surge in home runs.
Records are there to be broken. There shouldn't be any silly games to stop that.
The Yakult Swallows outfielder's exploits finally toppled the Japanese record of 55 homers in a season set by Sadaharu Oh, a legend of domestic baseball whose mark set in 1964 had withstood earlier challenges by foreign players - and not always fairly.
In 1985, American Randy Bass reached 54 home runs with two games to play against the mighty Yomiuri Giants, Japan's fabled team then managed by Oh. But every time Bass, of the Hanshin Tigers, stepped up to the plate at Tokyo's Korakuen Stadium, the Giants pitchers intentionally walked him by throwing unhittable pitches, in an unsporting bid to preserve Oh's record.
"I was thinking I had two games left to break it. But we were playing the Giants and Sadaharu Oh was their manager," Bass said from his home in Oklahoma.
"I had no idea they were going to walk me. I thought that I would have an opportunity to break or tie the record. First time up, the catcher said gomennasai [sorry] and I walked four pitches in a row."