There are 66 foreign players currently registered in Japanese pro baseball, along with two foreign managers, a farm team manager and three coaches. But, 25 years ago this month, the commissioner of Japanese baseball wanted to ban non-Japanese from playing in the Central and Pacific Leagues.
Trouble began just three days into the 1984 season, when American outfielder Jim Tracy, then of the Yokohama Taiyo Whales, suddenly quit his team after going through spring training and preparing for his second season in Japan.
Yes, he's the same Jim Tracy who served major league tenures as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. The country-style Tracy had enjoyed a better-than-halfway-decent first year in Japan in 1983, hitting .303 with 19 home runs and 66 RBIs, good enough to earn him a second season in Yokohama.
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