It may be difficult to believe, but arguably the two worst franchises in Japanese pro baseball, in terms of both player talent and attractiveness to their respective fan bases, are the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and the Yokohama BayStars.

Twenty years ago, a Central League team in the Kanto area — even if it was not the Yomiuri Giants — was a hot ticket. The Swallows, playing at Jingu Stadium smack dab in the center of the capital, could always expect a crowd in excess of 45,000 against the crosstown-rival Giants, regardless of their standing in the league or when during the season each game was played.

The same could be said for the BayStars club and its predecessor, the Taiyo Whales, going back to the days when the Whales were based in bandbox Kawasaki Stadium between Tokyo and Yokohama. The only difference is a capacity crowd at either place would be 30,000.

If you check the current CL standings, you will see Yokohama dead last, a whopping 36 games behind the front-running Hanshin Tigers and Giants and 19 games in back of the fifth-place Swallows.

Yakult is 18 games behind the leaders.

Attendance figures this season have reflected the poor on-field performances of both clubs, and they can't even draw well when Yomiuri is the visiting team.

You would think at least the Kyojin fans would take the Metro across town to Jingu or the 40-minute train ride from Tokyo to Yokohama and cheer for their hard-charging club, but, no.

When the BayStars hosted the hot-as-a-pistol Giants on Sept. 30, only 8,923 fans paid to get in. Empty seats were aplenty as well when Yomiuri last visited Yakult for a three-game weekend series Sept. 5-7, with the "crowds" averaging less than 15,000, a far cry from those golden days two decades ago.

What happened?

The BayStars have some great players to attract fans. First baseman Seiichi Uchikawa, batting .372 through games of Thursday, is probably going to win this year's Central League batting title. He has a 13-percentage point lead over Yakult's Norichika Aoki.

Third baseman Shuichi Murata with 42 home runs and right-fielder Yuuki Yoshimura with 32 make up about as good a long ball-hitting duo as Alex Ramirez and Michihiro Ogasawara of the Giants or Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera of the Pacific League Climax Series-bound Orix Buffaloes.

Yakult has one of the world's best players in center fielder Aoki, and second baseman Hiroyasu Tanaka is exciting, but there is not much else for which to show.

The Swallows' cleanup man, infielder Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, has only nine homers and, when your No. 4 hitter cannot reach double figures in that category, you have a problem.

The BayStars and Swallows also had a disastrous year with their foreign players. Yokohama signed six Americans — four pitchers and two position players — but went most of the season with a lineup void of katakana, the Japanese syllabary used for writing foreign names.

Three of the moundsmen, Matt White, Travis Hughes and Dave Williams, were released during the season, leaving only Mike Wood, who has a 3-12 record with a 4.69 ERA.

Infielder J.J. Furmaniak and outfielder Larry Bigbie, both of whom showed great promise during spring training, wound up spending most of their time in Yokosuka on the Shonan Searex farm team or the disabled list.

Yakult also went a good part of the season with an all-Japanese lineup and, if you wonder where the power went, the Swallows released slugger Adam Riggs, who belted 39 home runs in 2006 and was supposed to be that cleanup man this time.

Manager Shigeru Takada also benched Canadian right fielder Aaron Guiel, who slammed 35 homers in 2007.

"We just had bad luck with our gaikokujin this season," said Takada.

There may be some truth to that, but it appears more as if the non-Japanese guys were not given the chance to play up to potential.

The Swallows were stung by the loss of pitcher Danny Rios, suspended and subsequently fired after failing a doping test.

Another right-handed hurler, Dicky Gonzalez, returned to action after missing a season and a half following arm surgery and never got to full strength.

Yakult brought in utility infielder Wilson Valdez to cover for shortstop-third baseman Shinya Miyamoto while he went to play in the Beijing Olympics but, when Miyamoto returned from China, Takada demoted Valdez to the Swallows Eastern League farm team.

Another midseason acquisition was starting pitcher Sean Douglass, who has thrown some good games but, like Gonzalez, is still trying to make a comeback following arm surgery.

It must also be pointed out both teams lost valuable foreigners because they didn't want to pay the hefty — but well-deserved — salaries for three league leaders.

Yakult lost the present CL top home run and RBI man, Alex Ramirez, and the league's best in the current hurler derby, Seth Greisinger, to the Giants.

Yokohama saw relief ace Marc Kroon also skip out to Yomiuri where he has 38 saves, highest among closers in either league.

Perhaps if the Swallows and BayStars paid for talented players, they would win again, and the fans would return and spend more for tickets, souvenirs, food and drink at the ballparks. Then the clubs could get more revenue, hire even better players and win some more, so attendance will increase and . . . around and around we go.

Right now, though, neither of these teams is going anywhere, and I don't see any effort on the part of management to promote them. They are not making the best use of the non-Japanese players they do have, and there is a feeling of loneliness at BayStars and Swallows home games.

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Contact Wayne Graczyk at: [email protected]