One-fourth of the 12 Japanese pro baseball teams in 2006 will be led by American managers. Their performances this season may dictate whether the recent trend for the Central and Pacific Leagues to hire foreign kantoku will continue or if the clubs will return to putting native Japanese in charge.
The Hiroshima Carp's Marty Brown joins Bobby Valentine of the Chiba Lotte Marines and Trey Hillman of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters as the three skippers this year.
Brown will be the seventh in a line of non-Japanese field bosses since Wally Yonamine took over the Chunichi Dragons in 1972, and Marty will add his name to the list after Wally, Joe Lutz, Don Blasingame, Valentine, Hillman and Leon Lee.