04-09-2008, 05:22 AM
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Sun-Times: In Their Discomfort Zones
In their discomfort zones :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Cubs
Quote:
Of all the people impressed with Kosuke Fukudome's torrid start to his first season in the United States, nobody seems to appreciate it more than Cubs teammate Alfonso Soriano.
Soriano, off to a slow start for the second straight season, not only is fresh off his own adaptation to Chicago last year, but also remembers the travails of crossing cultures and hemispheres to play professionally in Japan early in his career.
''It's very, very tough,'' the Dominican native said. ''I didn't know the language. All the time I was thinking about home.''
Soriano, a six-time All-Star in the majors, played mostly in the minors for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp with middling results. He played only nine games in the Japanese major leagues, hitting .118 as a 21-year-old before signing with the New York Yankees in 1998.
Even last season, Soriano said he struggled with distractions after signing an eight-year, $136 million contract to change teams for the third time in three years and open the season at a third position -- center field -- in three years.
''Sometimes you're not 100 percent mentally [because of the off-field challenges],'' he said. ''The big problem that people don't understand is you have to make adjustments coming from Japan to the United States -- it's different. [Fukudome] doesn't have family, friends [here].
''At the same time, he needs to play and not be affected by that. I feel sorry for him because he has to go through the same thing I went through last year, and I have seven years in the United States.''
The sympathy, though, is waning with every day Fukudome draws another pair of walks or gets three more hits against major-league pitchers he never has faced.
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Sun-Times: In Their Discomfort Zones
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